The port where seagoing ships transfer to river craft and where, on the best reading of the evidence, the court that the Chinese call San-fo-ch'i sits.
The Chinese record envoys from Jambi (Zhanbei, Chan-pi) in 1079, 1082 and 1088. Everything the island is famous for passes here: gold dust from the Minangkabau hills, forest resins, cloth and iron going back up the river. The delta above Muara Sabak is a maze of mangrove channels that only a pilot can read, which is the harbour's defence. Whether the king of 1183 lives, and whether the court is here or upriver at Dharmasraya, is not recorded.
Who holds it
- Name
- The Mauli king or his governor: not known
- Title
- Lord or headman of Jambi
- Since
- not known
- Born
- not known
- Family
- not known
- Confidence
- low
Lord in 1200
The Mauli king or his governor: not known
How things stand that morning
Not recorded. If the Mauli court is at Jambi, this is the capital of the river kingdom.
Wealth
Gold dust, resin, tolls on river and sea cargo, Chinese ceramics.
Council
No headman, judge or council is named in any source.
Communities
Chinese, Tamil and Muslim traders are not documented here for 1200; the finds at the delta include Chinese ceramics in quantity.
Fairs and markets
None known; trade follows the monsoon.
Militia
No source.
Walls and castle
No wall or citadel is known.
Trade and crafts
Gold, camphor and benzoin brought by river from the highlands and by sea from the north; cloth, salt, iron and ceramics in return.
Where the sources disagree
- The campaign board (jambi-malayu) is right that the seat is argued; Wolters's reading is the campaign board's and is an inference.
Evidence: Chinese mission dates (1079, 1082, 1088, per the English Wikipedia article on Melayu) and later lists; no source names the lord of 1200.
"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.
Primary sources for Malayu
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.
- History of Song, chapters 488 and 489: Jiaozhi, Dali, Champa, Zhenla, Pagan, Srivijaya, Java, Brunei, Chola and Tambralinga, Toqto'a (Tuotuo) and the Yuan history office, from the Song court records (1343 to 1345, from Song veritable records and court diaries). The Chinese court's record of its southern neighbours, compiled from Song archives. Read online
- 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
- Notes in Answer to Questions about the Lands beyond the Passes, Zhou Qufei (周去非) (1178, after service in Guangxi). A Guangxi official's notes, written twenty years before 1200, on the south-western frontier of the Song and the countries beyond. 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
- Wikipedia (English): Melayu Kingdom
- O. W. Wolters, The Fall of Srivijaya in Malay History (1970), read from memory, not rechecked
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.