Kota Cina is an excavated trading settlement in the mangrove behind the Deli mouth: Chinese stoneware, a wooden jetty, Tamil inscription fragments and Buddhist and Hindu statuary, in business from the eleventh or twelfth century to the fourteenth (McKinnon, from memory).
No text names it; the later name Haru is not attested before the Yuan record of 1282 and 1295. Its chief, and the Chinese and Tamil quarters in it, are not named.
Who he is
- Title
- Chief of Kota Cina
- Since
- not known
- Born
- not known
- Family
- not known
- Confidence
- low
No source names the holder for any date near 1 January 1200.
Overlord
None named.
What it holds
- The jetty and the tolls on the Deli river trade
- The camphor and gold that come down from the Batak and Karo country
How things stand that morning
Not recorded. The place works; who speaks for it is not known.
Places of note
- Kota Cina: The excavated settlement.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Fair archaeology; no text names a chief.
On the map: No drawn parts: the port's land is on its town record.
Primary sources for Malay ports
Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.
- The Leiden grants of Rajaraja I and Kulottunga I concerning the Srivijaya vihara at Nagapattinam, The Chola chancery (Rajaraja I, Rajendra I, Kulottunga I) (the Larger plates about 1005 to 1014 (completed under Rajendra I); the Smaller plates 1090). Background documents for the relations between the Cholas and the Malay world. Read online
- The Grahi (Chaiya) Buddha inscription and the Tambralinga records, Various (the officers of Grahi and the kings of Tambralinga), edited by George Coedes (the Chaiya bronze Buddha inscription 1183; the Nakhon Si Thammarat records 13th century; edited 1929, revised 1961). The peninsula in 1200 has one near-contemporary dated text: the Old Khmer inscription on the base of a bronze Buddha from Wat Hua Wiang at Chaiya, dated 1183, which records the image's casting by order of the mahasenapati Galanai, governor of Grahi, under the king Srimat Trailokyaraja Maulibhusanavarmadeva, a name that is argued to be either a Malayu (Srivijaya) overlord or a local king.
- A Description of the Foreign Peoples (Records of Foreign Nations), Zhao Rukuo (Zhao Rugua) (1225 at Quanzhou). The best single text for the island world around 1200, written by the superintendent of maritime trade at Quanzhou from merchants' reports a generation after the date. Read online
- The Description of the Country, called the Nagarakretagama, Mpu Prapanca (1365 at the Majapahit court). A Majapahit court poem of 1365 listed here only for its retrospect. Read online
Sources and studies
- E. E. McKinnon, Kota Cina: its context and meaning in the trade of Southeast Asia in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries (1984), read from memory, not rechecked
- Wikipedia (English): Aru Kingdom
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.