Kalinga Ancient Trade Routes

Kedah to Tamralipti

Probable Scholars say

From Kedah, Yijing's ship sailed past the Nicobar Islands and on to Tamralipti, the great port at the top of the Bay of Bengal. He later sailed the same route home again.

Yijing's ship sailed past the Nicobar Islands on its way to the great port of Tamralipti.

From Kedah, a Chinese monk named Yijing sailed on. Old records say he “proceeded east and reached the Nicobar Islands,” then turned northwest and reached Tamralipti, the great port at the top of the Bay of Bengal. On his way home, he sailed the same route again. [Dayalan, 2019, offprint p. 27]

For scholars

Only one source was read here. So the tier stops at Probable. This rests on a retelling of an old 1894 translation, not a direct check of the original text. The Nicobar Islands are not treated as a port in this atlas. So the stop shown there is schematic, read off a modern map. Yijing made this same trip in reverse on his way home. One entry stands here for both directions. [Dayalan, 2019, offprint p. 27]

Facts

Mode
Maritime (open sea)
From
Kedah (Kataha)
To
Tamralipti

Ports on this route

  • Tamralipti

    A historian called Tamralipti 'the first and foremost' of ancient Odisha's ports, at the top of the Bay of Bengal. Monks and traders sailed from here to Sri Lanka, Burma and China.

    [Patra, 2014, pp. 118-119]; [Dayalan, 2019, offprint pp. 24-25, section 'Tamralipti']; [Patra, n.d., p. 110]
    1. Benudhar Patra. *Ports in Ancient Odisha: Historical Perspective*. in Odisha Review. 2014 , pp. 118-119 ('Of all the ports of ancient Odisha ... the first and foremost was the port of Tamralipti.' Identified with Tamluk, at the Rupnarayana confluence, 'Lat. 22 deg 17' N and Long. 87 deg 57' E'. Ptolemy's Tamalities; Fa-Hien, Xuanzang and Yijing embarked here for China.)
    2. Duraiswamy Dayalan. *Ancient Seaports on the Eastern Coast of India: The Hub of the Maritime Silk Route Network*. in Acta Via Serica 4. 2019 , offprint pp. 24-25, section 'Tamralipti' (Independently gives Tamluk at 22 deg 17' N; 87 deg 57' E; the Dudhapani rock inscription of Udayamana (c. 8th century CE) recording Ayodhya merchants frequenting the port; Chinese, Sri Lankan and Southeast Asian potsherds from Tamluk and its neighbouring villages. Journal pagination not verified.)
    3. Sushanta Kumar Patra, Benudhar Patra. *Archaeology and the Maritime History of Ancient Orissa*. in Orissa Historical Research Journal XLVII. n.d. , p. 110 (Large quantities of rouletted ware from the ancient port site of Tamralipti; a Ganga fanam found at Tamralipti, taken to show the port lay under Eastern Ganga suzerainty; Roman gold coins from Bamanghati in Mayurbhanj argued to have arrived through Tamluk.)

  • Kedah (Kataha)

    Kedah was a stopping place on the Malay Peninsula where old sailing ships waited for the right winds. A Chinese monk passed through it twice on his voyage to India and back.

    [Dayalan, 2019, offprint p. 27]
    1. Duraiswamy Dayalan. *Ancient Seaports on the Eastern Coast of India: The Hub of the Maritime Silk Route Network*. in Acta Via Serica 4. 2019 , offprint p. 27 (Yijing 'proceeded northwest to Kie-tcha. Then, he proceeded east and reached the Nicobar Islands ... Proceeding northwest from these islands, Yi-Jing reached Tamralipti.' Returning to China 'he took the same route, landing again at Kie-tcha and Fo-che.' Citing Chavannes's 1894 translation.)
Scholar notes

Only one source was read, so the tier stops at Probable; this rests on Dayalan's paraphrase of Chavannes's 1894 translation, not an independent primary reading. The Nicobar Islands are not modelled as a port here, so the waypoint there is schematic, read off a modern map. Yijing made the same voyage in reverse on his way home; this single entry stands for both directions.

  1. Duraiswamy Dayalan. *Ancient Seaports on the Eastern Coast of India: The Hub of the Maritime Silk Route Network*. in Acta Via Serica 4. 2019 , offprint p. 27 ('Then, he proceeded east and reached the Nicobar Islands ... Proceeding northwest from these islands, Yi-Jing reached Tamralipti.' Returning to China 'he took the same route, landing again at Kie-tcha and Fo-che.' Dayalan cites Chavannes's 1894 translation of Yijing's account.)