眞臘風土記

Zhēnlà fēngtǔ jì 眞臘風土記

Record of the Customs of Cambodia by 周達觀 (Zhōu Dáguān, fl. 1295–1312) — zhuàn 撰

About the work

A 1-juan Yuán-period monograph on Khmer Cambodia (Zhēnlà 真臘 / Zhēnlà 眞臘 = the Khmer Empire of Angkor), composed by Zhōu Dáguān 周達觀 of Wēnzhōu following his service in the Yuán imperial mission to Cambodia of Yuánzhēn 1 yǐwèi (1295) — Dàdé 1 dīngyǒu (1297), under the Chéngzōng of Yuán. The mission left Wēnzhōu in 1295, sailing past Mǐn-Guǎng, the Seven Stars sea, the Gulf of Tonkin, Zhānchéng (Champa), to Zhēnpǔ (the southern coast of Cambodia, near modern Mỹ Tho), then up the Mekong; arrived at the Khmer court in Yuánzhēn 2 bǐngshēn (1296); resided at Angkor for over a year; and returned to China in Dàdé 1 (1297). The work is divided into 40 zé (sections) treating: (1) general introduction; (2) walled cities and palaces (chéngguō); (3) palaces; (4–8) costume, language, officials, and the three teachings (sānjiào); (9–11) people, women, slaves; (12–13) writing, calendar; (14–15) law, sickness, leprosy; (16–18) death, agriculture, terrain; (19–22) products, trade, currency, silkworms-and-mulberry; (23–25) tools, ox-carts, boats; (26–32) prefectures, villages, raw and cooked foods, climate, calendrical seasons, festivals, customs of bathing-and-cleansing; (33–35) sojourners, the army, princes-going-out-and-returning; (36) Khmer royalty.

The work is the only first-hand pre-modern Chinese-language witness to Angkorian Cambodia at its zenith — Zhōu’s descriptions of Angkor Thom, the royal palace, the Bayon and other temple-complexes, the king’s processions, and Khmer language and society are the principal source on which the modern Western and Cambodian re-discovery of Angkor was built (Henri Mouhot’s 1860 “rediscovery” was guided by Zhōu’s descriptions in Abel Rémusat’s 1819 French translation).

Tiyao

We respectfully note: the Zhēnlà fēngtǔ jì in one juan is by Zhōu Dáguān of Yuán. Dáguān was a man of Wēnzhōu. Zhēnlà originally was a small country in the South Sea, subordinate to Fúnán; later gradually growing strong, from the Suíshū it begins to appear in the wàiguó zhuàn; the Táng and Sòng histories both record it; but tribute-and-court visits did not regularly arrive — hence what is recorded of customs and natural products is mostly thin and incomplete.

In Yuán Chéngzōng Yuánzhēn 1 yǐwèi (1295) an emissary was sent to summon and instruct that country; Dáguān went along; in Dàdé 1 dīngyǒu (1297) he returned. Beginning to end three years; familiar with their customs; therefore he set down what he heard and saw to make this work — 40 zé in all; the literary substance is rather full and rich. Only in the 36th zé, in the matter of “incest divine punishment,” he does not take it as the regular tiāndào but credits it to the Buddha — that view is rather narrow.

But the Yuánshǐ does not establish a Zhēnlà zhuàn; this work supplements its lacuna with full beginning-and-end. Surely it ought to be preserved for use in cross-verification, as the outer-record for those who compose zhífāng. Dáguān’s making of this work, when complete, he showed it to Wú Yǎn 吾衍; Yǎn composed a poem in praise — extremely warm — seen in his Zhúsù shānfáng shī jí. Presumably Yǎn also acknowledged its skill of narration. Respectfully proof-read in the third month of Qiánlóng 43 (1778).

Abstract

The Zhēnlà fēngtǔ jì is the principal — and indeed the only first-hand — pre-modern documentary monograph on Angkorian Cambodia at the height of the Khmer Empire’s classical period (Mahidharapura dynasty, Indravarman III / Śrīndravarman, r. 1295–1308). It was composed by Zhōu Dáguān 周達觀 (CBDB 33210; native of Wēnzhōu in Zhèjiāng; otherwise undocumented; fl. 1295–1312) following his year-long residence in Angkor in 1296–1297 as a member of the Yuán imperial mission to Cambodia. The mission was sent by Chéngzōng Tiěmùěr in late 1295 in the wake of Khubilai’s earlier (1283) inconclusive contacts; Zhōu kept detailed notes during the year of residence, and composed the work shortly after his return to China — the autograph could be shown to Wú Yǎn (1268–1311) within his lifetime, placing the composition before 1311.

The 40 sections treat: the geography, climate, walled cities, palaces, royalty, language, religions (Theravāda Buddhism, Brāhmanism, Bāntīng / Spṅī the local cults), costume, social classes (royal-and-noble, commoners, slaves), women, writing, calendar, justice, illness, death, agriculture, terrain, products and trade, currency, silkworm cultivation, tools, vehicles, boats, foods (raw and cooked), seasonal observance, festivals (the New Year kě-jiè-tóng festival, the bā-shé festival), bathing customs, foreign sojourners (Chinese, Lù-zhū / Persians?), the army, royal processions, and the king’s daily life. The work is the principal pre-modern documentary source on which the modern recovery of Angkor (after Henri Mouhot’s 1860 “rediscovery”) was built: Mouhot was guided by Abel Rémusat’s 1819 French translation.

The work is preserved in Wényuāngé Sìkù quánshū (vol. 594.3).

Translations and research

Reminder: AI generated list - beware of hallucinations. Corrections and additions welcome

• Peter Harris, A Record of Cambodia: The Land and Its People (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2007). The standard modern English translation, with extensive commentary.
• Paul Pelliot, Mémoires sur les coutumes du Cambodge de Tcheou Ta-kouan (Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1951; posthumous publication of Pelliot’s life-long study). The classic critical apparatus, still essential.
• Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat, Description du royaume de Cambodge par un voyageur chinois qui a visité cette contrée à la fin du XIIIe siècle (Paris, 1819). The original French translation that introduced Angkor to European audiences.
• Michael Vickery, Society, Economics and Politics in Pre-Angkor Cambodia (Tokyo: Centre for East Asian Cultural Studies for UNESCO, 1998), comparative.
• David Chandler, A History of Cambodia (Boulder, multiple editions), uses Zhōu extensively as the principal Khmer-period source.
• Wilkinson §73.5.

Other points of interest

The Zhēnlà fēngtǔ jì is, by some accounts, the most consequential pre-modern Chinese contribution to global cultural memory: the 1819 French translation by Abel-Rémusat made the existence of Angkor known to a European public, and the 1860 “rediscovery” by Henri Mouhot was guided by Zhōu’s descriptions. The text remains the principal pre-modern documentary witness to the height of Khmer civilisation.

Links

• Wikidata
• Harris, A Record of Cambodia (Silkworm Books, 2007)
• Pelliot, Mémoires sur les coutumes du Cambodge (1951)
• Wilkinson §73.5