Suvarnabhumi (
Sanskrit) or
Suvannabhumi (
Pali) meaning the "Golden Land" or "Land of Gold", is a term coined by the ancient Indians which refers broadly to Lower
Burma, Lower
Thailand, the
Malay Peninsula and
Sumatra, but more generally accepted to refer more specifically to Lower Burma. Another term which was used by the ancient Indians is
Suvarnadvipa which means the "Golden Peninsula/Island". Suvarnabhumi may have been used primarily as a vague general designation of an extensive region in Southeast Asia, but, over time, different parts of it came to be designated by the additional epithets of island, peninsula or city. In contrast the ancient name for the Indian subcontinent is Jambudvipa.
Nomenclature and Etymology
Suvarnabhumi and
Suvarnadvipa (Sanskrit). The word
Suvarnabhumi may be parsed into
Suvarna, meaning "having a beautiful colour", "glittering", "golden" and
bhumi holding the semantic field: "earth", "soil","territory","country","land". Hence, the term "Suvarnabhumi" may be rendered into English as "Golden Land". For the word
Suvarnadvipa,
dvipa mean a "land having water on two of its sides", which can mean "Peninsula" or "Island". Hence, the term
Suvarnadvipa may be rendered into English as "Golden Peninsula" or "Golden Island".
Origin
The reference to Suvarnabhumi appear in various ancient
India,
Sri Lanka,
Greek, Latin,
Arabic, and
Chinese writings. . The name appear in the
Ramayana text (3rd century BC) in the form of Suvarnadvipa (the Golden Peninsula/Island) or Suvarnabhumi (the Golden Land), which can be assigned with certainty to Southeast Asia. Ancient Indian texts Arthasashtra of Kautilya (c. 300 BC), mentioned that the Brahmin Sanka sailed from
Varanasi to Suvarnabhumi. Other ancient texts, such as the Kathakosa tells the story of Nagadutta who went to Suvarnabhumi with five hundred ships to conduct a profitable trade. The first latin geographer who made a reference to a location in Southeast Asia is Pomponius Mela, who refer to the island of gold (Chryse) in his 'De Chorographia' (c. 45AD). The Greek mathematician and astronomer
Claudius Ptolemy, who worked in
Alexandria in the 2nd century A.D. used the name Chryse Chersonesos (Golden Peninsula/Island) to refer to an area which scholar have identified as the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra. While the term Suvarnadvipa (Golden Island) is usually identified with the island of Sumatra, numerous Arab writer have identified the whole Malay archipelago as the location of Suvarnabhumi. In an illustrated ancient Nepalese manuscript, a picture is entitled "Suvarnnapure Sri-Vijaya-pure Lokanatha" or
(the image of) Lokanatha (AvalokiteSvara) in Sri Vijaya-pura in Suvarnnapura, which refer to the powerful
Sri Vijaya kingdom located in Southeast Asia. Even as late as the 16th century A.D., it have been recorded that Budhagupta, a Buddhist monk, visited two islands called Suvarnadvipa located in the eastern sea of India. In 1478, King Dhammazedi from the
Mon kingdom of Ramannadesa, erected ten stone inscriptions written with Mon and
Pali language. The inscriptions stated that his kingdom is also known as Suvannabhumi. The stone inscription is known among scholars as the "Kalyani Sima" or "Kalyani Inscription". The inscription deal mainly with the the reform undertaken by the king to purify
Theravada Buddhism in his kingdom. According to Tibetan source Dharmapala (7th cent. A. D.) and Dipankara Atisa (11th Century A. D.) have visited Suvarnadvipa.
Suvannabhumi and Buddhism
Suvannabhumi have been mentioned in various Theravada Buddhist text such as
Milindapanha, Mahaniddesa and
Jatakas. In the Sri Lanka chronicle
Mahavamsa (4th Century AD), it stated that after the conclusion of the
Third Buddhist Council, two monk Sona and Uttara were sent to Suvannabhumi for missionary activities. . It is known from local inscriptions that Theravada Buddhism definitely existed in Lower Burma by the 5th century AD. Chinese sources which have been dated to around 240 A.D. have mentioned a Buddhist kingdom by the name of Lin-Yang, which scholars have identified as the ancient
Pyu kingdom of Beikthano which is 300 km north of
Yangon, the same Chinese sources also mentioned a kingdom by the name of Chin-Lin (“Golden Wall”) located on a large bay, which some scholar have identified as the
Mon kingdom of Thaton.
See also
