Abstract
At the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century, a series of long-distance sea voyages started out from Western Europe. The earliest and most widely publicized among them were (1) the trans-Atlantic voyage which in 1492 brought Christopher Columbus to districts now known as Cuba and Haiti; and (2) the voyage undertaken by Vasco da Gama in 1498, in the course of which he rounded the Cape of Good Hope, crossed the Indian Ocean and eventually reached the modern Kozhikode (formerly known as Calicut, mentioned in ancient Chinese records as Kuli) in South India. With this tremendous expansion of geographical vista, the Europeans landed in a continent where they had never set foot before and found a passageway hitherto unknown to the East. These events they commemorate under the imposing titles of discovery of the new continent and discovery of the new sea-route respectively. With these began the era of “great geographical discoveries”, which looms large in the history of European geographical discovery and standard textbooks on European history.
This paper was read at Beijing Scientific Symposium in 1964.—Editor’s note.
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Notes
- 1.
J. N. L. Baker, A History of Geographical Discovery and Exploration, London, 1931, pp. 63–70.
- 2.
Herodotus, The History of Herodotus, translated by G. Rawlingson, New York, 1946, pp. 216–217.
- 3.
The account of Herodotus has raised much controversy, but of late there has been a tendency to belief. See J. Oliver Thomson, History of Ancient Geography, Cambridge, 1948, pp. 71–73. J. N. L. Baker points out that “the geographical conditions do not make such a feat impossible.” op. cit., p. 23.
- 4.
World History (in Russian), vol. 4, M. M. Smirin (chief editor), Moscow, 1958, p. 88. G. Ferrand cited the identification of D. Couto and maintained that the Java had sailed as far as the southern tip of the African continent long before. See Gahriel Ferrand, An Investigation of the Voyage in Kunlun and China North Sea (in Chinese), translated by Feng Chengjun, Zhonghua Book Company, 1957, p. 66.
- 5.
K. G. Jayne, Vasco da Gama and His Successors: 1460–1580, London, 1910, p. 48. See also J. N. L. Baker, op. cit., pp. 69–70.
- 6.
With reference to the life and work of Ibn Madjid, see article on Shihab al-Din Ahmad ъ Madjid in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, pp. 362–370, London, 1934.
- 7.
Han Shu (Dynastic History of Han), Chüan 28, Ti Li Chih (Book on Geography).
- 8.
For detailed account of Fa Hsien’s travel in India and Ceylon, see his own work Fo Kuo Chi.
- 9.
The Khalifah Empire is recorded in ancient Chinese works as Ta Shih.
- 10.
A distinguished Chinese geographer Chia Tan in the eighth century made a valuable record on the sea-route from Canton to the Gulf of Iran. See Hsin T’ang Shu (New Dynastic History of T’ang), Chüan 43, Ti Li Chih (Book on Geography).
- 11.
H. Yule and H. Cordier, The Book of Ser Marco Polo: Concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East, revised 3rd. ed., pp. 234–235, London, 1903.
- 12.
Voyages d’Ibn Batoutah, vol. 4. Paris, 1922, pp. 268–269.
- 13.
Situzo Kuwabara has made an extensive study on the life of P’u Shou-keng and his scholarly work has been translated into Chinese by Chen Yü-ch’ing entitled P’u Shou-keng K’ao (2nd. print, Shanghai, 1954).
- 14.
The dates of the seven voyages of Cheng Ho are as follows:
-
1. 1405–1407, 2. 1407–1409, 3. 1409–1411, 4. 1413–1415, 5. 1417–1419, 6. 1421–1423, 7. 1431–1433.
During the last 90 years various studies on the life of Cheng Ho have been published by European and American scholars. The French Orientalist P. Pelliot has written a comprehensive dissertation, “Les grands voyages maritimes Chinois au début du xve siècle,” Toung Pao, 1933, pp. 237–452. Owing to the lack of indispensable source materials, mistakes in his conclusions on the dates of the last six voyages of Cheng Ho are unavoidable.
-
- 15.
Chu Yün-ming, Chien Wen Chi, article on the voyages of Cheng Ho, Chi Lu Hui Pien edition, Chüan 202, p. 37.
- 16.
Chu Yün-ming, ibid., and Cheng Ho Hang Hai T’u (The Sailing Chart of Cheng Ho), edited by Hsiang Ta, Peking, 1961.
- 17.
For detailed information, see S. A. Huzayyin, Arabia and the Far East, Their Cultural Relations in Graeco-Roman and Irano-Arabian Times, Cairo, 1942, pp. 112–113, and J. N. L. Baker, op. cit., pp. 19–20.
- 18.
Tu Huan (in Ching Hsing Chi) and Tuan Ch’eng-shih (in Yu Yang Tsa Tsu) of the T’ang Dynasty gave the earliest information in Chinese records about Berbera and Malindi respectively. Tuan’s work is easily available, while Tu’s work is now preserved in the form of citations in other works. A collection of these citations with commentaries has been published recently by Chang Yi-ch’un under the title Ching Hsing Chi Chien Chu, Peking, 1963.
- 19.
Sung Shih (Dynastic History of Sung), Chüan 490, section on Tsengtan.
- 20.
Feng Ch’eng-chün, Chu Fan Chih Chiao Chu, Shanghai, 1956, pp. 54–55. Chu Fan Chih was written by Chao Ju-kua in 1225. It has been translated and annotated by F. Hirth and W. W. Rockhill (Chao Ju-kua: His Work on the Chinese and Arab Trade in the XIIth and XIIIth Centuries, entitled Chu-fan-chi. St. Petersburg, 1911).
- 21.
See Feng Ch’eng-chün, ibid., and Wang Ta-yüan, Tao Yi Chih Lueh, written about 1349.
- 22.
Hsia Nai, “Porcelain Links in Sino-African History,” Wen Wu Monthly, 1963, no. 1, pp. 17–19; Zhang Tiesheng, “Discussion of Sino-Africa Relation based on Eastern African History,” History Studies, no. 2, 1963.
- 23.
Chu Yü, P’ing Chou K’ê T’an, Shou Shan Kê edition, Chüan 2, 1922, p. 3. Hsu Ching, Hsüan Ho Feng Shih Kao Li T’u Ching, T’ien Lu Lin Lang edition, chüan 34, p. 12, 1931.
- 24.
Situzo Kuwabara, A Study of P’u Shou-keng (in Japanese), Tokyo, 1935, pp. 92–93.
- 25.
Hsiang Ta, Cheng Ho Hang Hai T’u (The Sailing Chart of Cheng Ho), p. 57.
- 26.
Feng Ch’eng-chün, Hsing Ch’a Sheng Lan Chiao Chu, Shanghai, 1954, pp. 21, 24. Hsing Ch’a Sheng Lan written by Fei Hsin is one of the three important geographical works compiled at the time of Cheng Ho’s navigations. The other two works are Ying Ya Sheng Lan by Ma Huan and Hsi Yang Fan Kuo Chih by Kung Chen. Both Ma and Kung also took part in Cheng Ho’s voyages and gave an account of the countries they visited in their works.
- 27.
Details concerning these transactions, please see Ying Ya Lan Sheng (Wonders Overseas), Xing Cha Sheng Lan (Description of the Starry Raft), and Xi Yang Fan Guo Zhi (Foreign States in the West Sea). Upon arrival, Chinese vessels would give presents to the local authorities in the name of Ming Dynasty. Then the local authorities or executives would command the people to start commercial activities.
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Hou, R. (2015). Oversea Communications Between China and East Africa Before the So-called Discovery of New Sea-Route. In: Symposium on Chinese Historical Geography. China Academic Library. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-45272-1_5
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