Ancient Indian Colonies in the Far East (Vol. I: Champa; Vol. II: Suvarnadvipa) v2.c11.27

v2.c11.27

The foreign sources may be subdivided into two classes, the eastern and the western. To the former category belong the Chinese, and to the latter, the Indian, Greek, Latin, and Arabic texts. The Indian, Greek, and Latin sources contain stray references to Malayasia and its constituent parts, and occasionally, as in the case of Ptolemy’s Geography and Marco Polo’s accounts, some valuable geographical information. The Arab texts, consisting principally of travellers’ accounts, are also very valuable for a knowledge of the trade and commercial geography of the whole region. But these western sources do not offer much material for reconstructing the history of Malayasia. For this we have to turn to the Chinese texts which contain very valuable data for the political and cultural history of the entire region.