Ancient Indian Colonization in South-East Asia c9.39

c9.39

The Arab writers generally refer to the power of the Mahārāja of Zābag over the numerous islands of the Archipelago. The location of Zābag, which was the seat of the central authority, is not free from difficulty. Some have identified Zābag with Śrī-Vijaya. Others take Zābag as embracing the entire archipelago, and possibly also the Malay Peninsula, but regard Sribuza, *i.e.* Śrī-Vijaya (Sumatra), as the most important island of Zābag, and the centre of the empire of the Mahārāja. Both these views completely ignore the fact that the Arabs clearly distinguish the island of Zābag from that of Śrī-Vijaya and regard the latter as a dependency of the former. Other scholars therefore identify Zābag with Java and, as stated above, this seems to be the most probable view. But this theory involves some difficulties and cannot be reconciled with the different statements of the Arab writers. Some have therefore proposed to place Zābag in the Malay Peninsula. But, this, too, is not free from difficulties. It is not unlikely that Zābag at first denoted Java, but though the seat of central authority was shifted elsewhere in course of time, the old designation still continued. On the whole Zābag cannot be definitely located and the question must be left open, until more positive evidence is forthcoming.