Wolters read the Chinese missions of the 1080s as showing that the paramountcy of San-fo-ch'i moved from Palembang to Jambi; others keep Palembang.
The Zhufan zhi (about 1225) lists Palembang among San-fo-ts'i's dependencies, and the English Wikipedia article on Melayu says Palembang weakened in the eleventh century. No source draws a frontier between the two river systems, and none says a king of Jambi governed Palembang or the reverse in 1200. Two parts mark where the two claims meet on the ground: the swampy coast between the two deltas, where each port's pilots reach, and the headwaters of the Rawas and Tembesi, where the upriver gold and iron roads of both rivers come together.
The shapes fill the gaps between the two realms' claimed polygons and are drawn to show the question, not an answer.
Who holds it
- Title
- No holder: the question is whether the Mauli court of Jambi or the port of Palembang is paramount
- Since
- not known
- Born
- not known
- Family
- not known
- Confidence
- low
No source names a holder for any date near 1 January 1200.
Overlord
Jambi or Palembang, not pinned.
What it holds
- Nothing is shown held by either court here
Allies and rivals
The Mauli court at Jambi and the ruler of Palembang; the Orang Laut and the river peoples between them.
How things stand that morning
Not recorded. No source gives either court the other's ground; the dispute is in modern scholarship.
Where the sources disagree
- The campaign board marks Palembang 'contested' and Jambi 'contested'; the dispute is Wolters's against older readings, and the brief says whether any court answered for Sanfoqi in 1200 is open.
Evidence: Thin: a scholarly dispute over the Chinese missions of the 1080s and the silence after 1178; nothing for 1200.
"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.
On the map: Rough shapes between the claimed polygons of Malayu and Palembang.
Sources and studies
- O. W. Wolters, The Fall of Srivijaya in Malay History (1970), read from memory, not rechecked
- Wikipedia (English): Melayu Kingdom
- Wikipedia (English): Srivijaya
- Chinese Wikipedia, San-fo-qi (paraphrase of the Zhufan zhi list of fifteen dependencies)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.