The first port a ship makes after crossing the Bay of Bengal, and one of the longest used landfalls in Asia: a shallow estuary under a mountain that can be seen from far out, with brick and stone shrines, iron smelting at Sungai Batu, a wharf site full of Chinese and West Asian sherds at Pengkalan Bujang, tin in the hills behind and the one broad rice plain on the Andaman side.
Rajendra Chola's fleet took and sacked Kadaram in the early eleventh century (the Tanjore inscription lists it among the places struck in 1025), and the English Wikipedia article on the history of Kedah adds a Sanskrit inscription of Kulottunga I dated 1086 as a sign of Chola trade with the Malay coast. Whose man the ruler was on 1 January 1200 is simply not known: the English article on Srivijaya has Kedah outside Sanfoqi's influence from the eleventh century, the article on the history of Kedah calls it a Srivijayan vassal that rivalled the Cholas from the ninth to the thirteenth century, and the Zhufan zhi list of fifteen dependencies (about 1225) does not name it. The Kedah Annals' date of 1136 for a conversion is eighteenth-century tradition and is rejected.
Who holds it
- Name
- The ruler of Kedah: not known (see Ruler of Kedah)
- Title
- Lord or headman of Kedah
- Since
- not known
- Born
- not known
- Family
- not known
- Confidence
- low
Lord in 1200
The ruler of Kedah: not known (see Ruler of Kedah)
How things stand that morning
Not recorded. A working port and rice plain with no ruler named.
Council
No headman, judge or council is named in any source.
Communities
Indian, West Asian and Chinese goods in the ground at the wharf show traders from all three; no quarter, guild or headman is named for 1200.
Fairs and markets
None known; trade follows the monsoon.
Militia
No source.
Walls and castle
Brick and stone shrines of the Bujang valley; no wall or citadel of the port is known.
Trade and crafts
Iron from Sungai Batu, tin from the hills (carried down the short rivers to the Bujang and Muda estuaries), rice of the coastal flat, and the transfer of Indian, Persian Gulf and Chinese goods at the wharf.
Places of note
- The tin of the Kedah hills: Tin gravels along the western foot of the main range, carried down the short rivers to the Bujang and Muda estuaries (board).
- The Kedah rice plain: Wet rice on a wide coastal flat, the one place on the Andaman side that grows more grain than it eats (board).
Where the sources disagree
- The English Wikipedia articles on Srivijaya and on the history of Kedah disagree about Kedah's tie to Srivijaya after the eleventh century; neither dates a ruler. The Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa and the Kedah Annals are late and partly legend, and are not used.
Evidence: Fair for the port's long life (excavation, Chola notices); nothing names a ruler, a king list or an overlord for 1200.
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
- Wikipedia (English): History of Kedah
- Wikipedia (English): Srivijaya
- Tanjore (Thanjavur) inscription of Rajendra Chola, 1030/31, as reported in the brief and the English Wikipedia article on the Chola invasion
- Wikipedia (English): Bujang Valley
- OMNIA board note (a lead only, checked against the sources above)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.