- 著者
-
三王 昌代
- 出版者
- 東洋文庫
- 雑誌
- 東洋学報 = The Toyo Gakuho (ISSN:03869067)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.91, no.1, pp.104-130, 2009-06
According to such Chinese sources as Da Ming Shi Lu and Da Qing Li Chao Shi Lu, several diplomatic missions were sent from Sulu to China during the years 1417-24 and 1726-63, during the Ming and the Qing Periods respectively. The present article deals with a Malay document written in Arabic script, called Jawi, which consists of a diplomatic message dispatched by Sultan Muhammad Azim al-Din of the Sulu Sultanate to China in the ninth month of the hijra year 1198 (1784 AD), some twenty years after the aforementioned missions. This diplomatic message was submitted to Emperor Qianlong through the hands of many officials, including the tongzhi 同知 of Xiamen (Amoy), the xunfu 巡撫 of Fujian, and the zongdu 総督 of Fujian and Zhejiang.After describing the circumstances that led to an exchange of documents between Sulu and China, the author deciphers this Jawi document and conducts a detailed analysis of its contents, including a comparison with a public letter addressed to Sulu in 1782 and with the Chinese translation of the document, which was included in a Qing official’s memorial to Emperor Qianlong in 1784.The results of the comparison show that both countries shared a common view of a villain who, engaged in foreign trade, and embezzled the takings, and of the quantity of silver and other merchandise that must be returned to Sulu. On the other hand, there are differences in expression or in recognition as to whether the Emperor’s instructions had been widely transmitted throughout the Sulu Sultanate. Moreover, the honorific expression for the Sultan himself in the opening sentence of the original was replaced in the corresponding part of the translation by some words that express deference to the Chinese Emperor. Also added is a tribute of respect and gratitude to the Emperor, which was nonexistent in the original. It may be reasonably concluded that the translation was not so much a literal rendering of the original as something close to the expressions in the 1782 public letter addressed to Sulu.Although Jawi documents in general have rarely been used in historical study, this particular source seems to be of great value in understanding diplomatic as well as economic relations between the two countries.