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Boni In Chinese Sources From The Tenth To The Eighteenth Century

The present national history of the Sultanate of Brunei includes a fabricated history of official Brunei-China relations that extends as far back as the sixth century AD. The present paper treats the subject of Boni, a place well documented by pre-modern Chinese sources starting from the tenth c...

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Main Author: L. Kurz, Johannes
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM Press) 2014
Subjects:
P1-1091 Philology. Linguistics(General)
Online Access:http://eprints.usm.my/40663/1/Art1.pdf
http://eprints.usm.my/40663/
http://ijaps.usm.my/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Art1.pdf
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spelling my.usm.eprints.40663 http://eprints.usm.my/40663/ Boni In Chinese Sources From The Tenth To The Eighteenth Century L. Kurz, Johannes P1-1091 Philology. Linguistics(General) The present national history of the Sultanate of Brunei includes a fabricated history of official Brunei-China relations that extends as far back as the sixth century AD. The present paper treats the subject of Boni, a place well documented by pre-modern Chinese sources starting from the tenth century. It attempts to address some major issues in the use of these sources to establish Boni as a precursor of modern Brunei. Since the late 1970s writers within Brunei, foremost among them Robert Nicholl, have contributed to the project of a long history of pre-modern Brunei by interpreting the available Chinese sources very narrowly. Based on a close reading of the original texts, this essay argues that the majority of the texts until the Ming dynasty quote from the first extant source in the tenth century. Hence, official Chinese perception of Boni did not increase over time, but in fact did stagnate. Consequently, identification with a specific location in Borneo, as Nicholl and C. Brown suggested, is impossible. What the essay suggests is that with the extant official pre-modern Chinese texts Boni cannot be established as Brunei, but that more likely, Boni under different dynasties referred to various places on the north coast of Borneo Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM Press) 2014 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://eprints.usm.my/40663/1/Art1.pdf L. Kurz, Johannes (2014) Boni In Chinese Sources From The Tenth To The Eighteenth Century. International Journal of Asia Pacific Studies (IJAPS), 10 (1). pp. 2-32. ISSN ISSN: 1823-6243 http://ijaps.usm.my/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Art1.pdf
institution Universiti Sains Malaysia
building Hamzah Sendut Library
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Sains Malaysia
content_source USM Institutional Repository
url_provider http://eprints.usm.my/
language English
topic P1-1091 Philology. Linguistics(General)
spellingShingle P1-1091 Philology. Linguistics(General)
L. Kurz, Johannes
Boni In Chinese Sources From The Tenth To The Eighteenth Century
description The present national history of the Sultanate of Brunei includes a fabricated history of official Brunei-China relations that extends as far back as the sixth century AD. The present paper treats the subject of Boni, a place well documented by pre-modern Chinese sources starting from the tenth century. It attempts to address some major issues in the use of these sources to establish Boni as a precursor of modern Brunei. Since the late 1970s writers within Brunei, foremost among them Robert Nicholl, have contributed to the project of a long history of pre-modern Brunei by interpreting the available Chinese sources very narrowly. Based on a close reading of the original texts, this essay argues that the majority of the texts until the Ming dynasty quote from the first extant source in the tenth century. Hence, official Chinese perception of Boni did not increase over time, but in fact did stagnate. Consequently, identification with a specific location in Borneo, as Nicholl and C. Brown suggested, is impossible. What the essay suggests is that with the extant official pre-modern Chinese texts Boni cannot be established as Brunei, but that more likely, Boni under different dynasties referred to various places on the north coast of Borneo
format Article
author L. Kurz, Johannes
author_facet L. Kurz, Johannes
author_sort L. Kurz, Johannes
title Boni In Chinese Sources From The Tenth To The Eighteenth Century
title_short Boni In Chinese Sources From The Tenth To The Eighteenth Century
title_full Boni In Chinese Sources From The Tenth To The Eighteenth Century
title_fullStr Boni In Chinese Sources From The Tenth To The Eighteenth Century
title_full_unstemmed Boni In Chinese Sources From The Tenth To The Eighteenth Century
title_sort boni in chinese sources from the tenth to the eighteenth century
publisher Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM Press)
publishDate 2014
url http://eprints.usm.my/40663/1/Art1.pdf
http://eprints.usm.my/40663/
http://ijaps.usm.my/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Art1.pdf
_version_ 1643710004364050432
score 13.211869

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