真腊风土记 [Revision and Annotation of The Land and Social Conditions of Chenla], by Xia Nai

by Zhou Daguan & Nai Xia

吴哥数据库的最新收录书籍,周达观于1296年所记录的吴哥见闻《真腊风土记》:1/原本的复印本 2/2016年新版的由中国考古学家夏鼐于1981年所著的真腊风土记校注

Zhou Daguan Ch 1

Type: hardback

Publisher: The Commercial Press, Beijing, China

Edition: Republication of the 1981 edition.

Published: 2016

Authors: Zhou Daguan & Nai Xia

Pages: 196

ISBN: 978-7-5032-5477-2

Language : Chinese

ADB Library Catalog ID: ZDAGNAI

Zhou Daguan’s famous description of Angkor from his 1296 visit: 2016 republication of the 1981 annotated edition by renowned Chinese archaeologist Xia Nai.

ការបន្ថែមចុងក្រោយបំផុតទៅក្នុងបណ្ណាល័យAngkor Database 
ពីការពិពណ៌នាពីអង្គរដ៏ល្បីល្បាញរបស់លោក Zhou Daguan ពីឆ្នាំ ១២៩៦: ២០១៦ នៃការបោះពុម្ពផ្សាយឆ្នាំ ១៩៨១ ដោយអ្នកនិពន្ធបុរាណវិទូជនជាតិចិនឈ្មោះ Xia Nai

吴哥数据库的最新收录书籍,周达观于1296年所记录的吴哥见闻《真腊风土记:2016年新版的由中国考古学家夏鼐于1981年所著的真腊风土记校注
 

This is the most complete work on Zhou Daguan’s testimony, as the author has identified and reviewed no less than eleven versions of the original texts, while Paul Pelliot in his time knew of only three. The text here annotated and commented contains 8,500 words in Chinese.

Among the many clarifications brought by this edition, these maps of the itinerary followed by Zhou Daguan:

Zhou Daguan’s itinerary: maps by Xia Nai (1,2), with 地名 [ancient place name] and (今地名) [current place name] | with location names translated into French by Pascal Medeville (3)

交 趾 洋, (波来古), 占, 新州 (归仁), 城 , (芽庄), (吳哥), (货暹粒), (上丁), 佛村 : Cochin Ocean, (Pleiku), Cham, Tanzhou (Quy Nhon), Tang, (Nha Trang), (Angkor), (Siem Reap), (Stung Treng), Buddha Village (Pursat), 

ADB Input: The Customs of Zhenla remains a reference for Chinese students, as in this 2017 test presentation for a college entrance examination in general knowledge:

高考历史-知识库-《真腊风土记》
2017-05-28 06:40
《真腊风土记》是一部介绍位于柬埔寨地区的古国真腊历史、文化的中国古籍。《真腊风土记》由元代人周达观所著。

它对当代及现代研究真腊及吴哥窟起了非常重要的作用。是现存与真腊同时代者对该国的唯一记录。清代的《四库全书总目提要》称此书“文义颇为赅赡,本末详具,可补元史佚阙。”
元成宗元贞元年(1295年),浙江温州人周达观奉命随使团前往真腊,使团取海路从温州开洋,经七洲洋,占城、真蒲、查南、半路村、佛村,横渡淡洋至吴哥国登岸。
周达观逗留约一年后于12967月回中国。回国后以游记形式创作了《真腊风土记》。
 

College Entrance Examination History-Knowledge Base- Zhenla Customs”

2017-05-28

Chenla Customs” is an ancient Chinese book that introduces the history and culture of Chenla, an ancient country located in Cambodia. Zhenla Fengtu Ji” was written by Zhou Daguan, a man from the Yuan Dynasty.

It plays a very important role in contemporary and modern research on Chenla and Angkor Wat. It is the only surviving record of the country by Chenla’s contemporaries. The Summary of the General Catalog of Sikuquanshu” of the Qing Dynasty said that this book is quite comprehensive in its meaning and detailed in its entirety, which can fill in the missing gaps in the history of the Yuan Dynasty.“
In the first year of Yuanzhen (1295) of Yuan Chengzong, Zhou Daguan, a native of Wenzhou, Zhejiang, was ordered to go to Chenla with the mission. The mission took the sea route from Wenzhou to Kaiyang, passed through Qizhouyang, and visited Champa, Zhenpu, Chanan, Banlu Village, Buddha Village [Pursat], crossing the ocean and landing at Angkor Kingdom. Zhou Daguan returned to China in July 1296 after staying for about a year. After returning to China, he wrote Zhenla Fengtu Ji” in the form of travel notes. [source: Zohu​.com]

This edition includes 西游录 (Journey Towards West) , written by 耶律楚材 (Yelu Chucai), a record of this important statesman and Confucian scholar’s journey when he accompanied Genghis Khan’s armies to the west for Persia between 1219 and 1224.

Tags: Chinese chronicles, Chenla, Kampuchea, history, Zhou Daguan

About the Authors

周達觀

Zhou Daguan

Zhou Daguan (also Tcheou Ta-Kouan, Zhu Daguan) ch 周达观 , kh ជីវតាក្វាន់(chiv takvan), vn Chu Đạt Quan, th โจวต้ากวาน (cho wta kwan)(c. 1270, Yongjia (modern Wenzhou) – ?), a Chinese traveler under the Temür Khan, authored the sole written and direct account of the customs of Cambodia and the Angkorean power from the 13th century that has been preserved to our days.

Arrived at Angkor in August 1295, he remained at the court of King Indravarman III until July 1296. We know only a third of his account, The Customs of Cambodia (真臘風土記, Zhēnlà Fēngtǔ Jì, literally The Land and Social Conditions of Chenla)), first translated into French by the sinologist Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat in 1819 (Description du royaume de Cambodge par un voyageur chinois qui a visité cette contrée à la fin du XIII siècle, précédée d’une notice chronologique sur ce même pays, extraite des Annales de la Chine, Imprimerie J. Smith, 1819), and later on by Paul Pelliot in 1902 (1). In 2007, the linguist Peter Harris completed the first direct translation from Chinese to modern English.

Coincidentally, Zhou Daguan’s travel to Angkor occurred the same year than the trader and adventurer Marco Polo arrived back in Venice after twenty-five years’ absence. Legend has it that he was full of stories about his travels in China and other parts of Asia, and about the services he provided to the great khan Khubilai, the founding emperor of the Mongol dynasty then ruling China. That same year, 1295, a young man by the name of Zhou Daguan set sail from Mingzhou, a port on the southeast coast of China. Zhou was headed for Cambodia as part of a delegation sent there by Khubilai’s grandson Temür, who had come to the imperial throne on the death of his grandfather.” (cf. Peter Harris, A Record of Cambodia, p 6).

We still have to conjecture in which capacity Zhou Daguan joined the delegation, but we know he was not a diplomat acting for the Yuan dynasty, nor a trader. The Summary of the General Catalogue of the Complete Library of the Four Treasures” of the Qing Dynasty, praising the book as quite comprehensive and rich in meaning, with many details, which can make up for the missing parts of the Yuan History,” mentions its author as a lettered man.” Sinologist and Khmerologist Pascal Médeville is currently working on a novelized account of Zhou Daguan’s life and travels.

Angkor Database recommends the direct translation established from the ancient Chinese text into English by native Chinese Ms. Beling Uk and native Cambodian Solang Uk in 2010 and 2011.

Customs of Zhenla has been translated into:

zhu-daguan.jpg#asset:3500:squareMediumFit
The Customs of Cambodia, excerpt.

(1) In Antoine Brébion’s Dictionnaire Bibliographique, the entry Tcheou-Ta-Kouan states: Lettré chinois du XIIIe siècle de notre ère, qui avait pour appellation Ts’ao-T’ING; il était originaire de Yong-Kia au Tchô-Kiang, il suivit l’ambassade chinoise envoyée au Cambodge en 1295, il revint en Chine en 1297. Le très érudit sinologue qu’est M. P. PELLIOT, de l’Ecole française d’Extreme-Orient, lui a restitué la paternité d’une relation intitulée Description du Cambodge, qu’ABEL DE RÉMUSAT avait attribuée à MA-TOUAN-LIN.’ [Chinese erudite from the 13th century CE, who was named Tsao-Ting, hailing from Yong-Kia in Tcho-Kiang. He followed the Chinese embassy sent to Cambodia in 1295, traveling back to China in 1297. The most learned sinologist Mr P. PELLIOT, from EFEO, has given back to him the autorship of a text titled Description of Cambodia’, previously attributed to MA-TOUAN-LIN by ABEL DE RÉMUSAT.]

A wax statue of Zhou Daguan at Cambodian Cultural Village, Siem Reap (source: km​.wikipedia​.org)

Xia Nai Kaogu Review

Nai Xia

Xia Nai (夏鼐, 1910, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, China – 19 June 1985) was an eminent Chinese archaeologist, celebrated on the international academic scene as a member of the British Academy (1974), the Swedish Royal Academy of Letters, History, and Antiquities (1983), the U.S. Academy of Sciences (1984), the Italian Institute of Far Eastern Studies, the Third World Academy of Sciences and the German Institute of Archaelogy.

After majoring in economic history at Tsinghua University in Beijing (1934), he studied Egyptology at the University College of London and later joined the Beijing Central Museum. A professor at Zhejiang University, he worked on many excavation sites in China (including the discovery of the Yin ruins in Anyang, dating back to the Shang dynasty) and was appointed Director of the Institute of Archaeology within the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) (1962 – 1982). 

Persecuted and submitted to re-education’ during the Cultural Revolution, between 1966 and 1972, he resumed his academic and field work afterwards and published in 1981major, annotated edition of Zhou Daguan’s Customs of Cambodia. He also contributed to the development of the Wenzhou Museum, Wenzhou being his and the famous Chinese traveler Zhou Daguans hometown.

Xia_Nai_in_Anyang-1935.jpg#asset:3568

In Anyang,1935 (Source: School of Archaeology and Museology)

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Xia Nai (center) checking findings at the Ding Mausoleum (Ming Dynasty) near Beijing, 1958 (Source: China Daily)