Diplomatic Relations with China
Chinese records on Shili foshi cover the years 672 to 904. An imperial ambassador accompanied by a Buddhist monk visited Srivijaya in 683. In 695 the Chinese court published regulations for supplying provisions to ambassadors from foreign countries, including Srivijaya, Cambodia, and Java.[1135]
Srivijayan embassies reached China in 702 and 716.
In 717 Vajrabodhi, a South Indian monk, left Sri Lanka with 35 Persian merchants and sailed to Srivijaya, where he stayed five months to wait for the change of the monsoon. In 724 a mission from Srivijaya’s king brought tribute to China, including a woman from East Africa.[1136]In 742 the king of Srivijaya sent his son with tribute.[1137] This was Shili foshi’s last recorded embassy. Chinese sources from this time depict Srivijaya as a “double kingdom” with a “separate administration” in an area named Barus.[1138] Yijing had mentioned Barus as a separate kingdom.
A charter from Nalanda, northeast India (dated approximately 860), uses the old Sanskrit term Suvarnadvipa (Golden Island/Peninsula), not Srivijaya, to refer to southeast Sumatra. A Nepalese manuscript of the late tenth or early eleventh century depicts three deities in Suvarnnapure Srivijayapure, probably meaning “Srivijaya City in Sumatra.”[1139] The last appearance of the name Srivijaya in any known primary source is found in the record of the Chola conquest of Srivijaya carved in 1027.[1140]
Arab and Persian authors beginning with Ibn Hordadbeh (844-848) refer to “The king of Zabag... the king of the isles of the eastern sea, the Maharaja... In Zabag are enormous camphor trees... Every year he makes a brick of gold, throws it into the water and says, here is my treasure.”[1141] The tale of Sulayman the merchant, dated 851, says that from the Nicobars, “ships gather to enter the strait called Kalah- bar. By bar is meant both a kingdom and a coast. Kalah- bar [is part of] the empire of Zabag which is south of this country. Kalah-bar and Zabag are governed by the same king.”[1142] Ibn al-Fakih, 902, wrote that the king was very rich; he lived furthest to the south; and one of Zabag’s countries was called Fansur (Barus).
Arab and Persian texts of the ninth and tenth centuries say that the maharaja of Zabag ruled Srivijaya, transcribed in Arabic as SRBZA, Rami (northernmost Sumatra), and Kalah. Mas’udi in 995 said the maharaja had more perfume, camphor, spices, and other precious goods than any other king. All these sources point to Srivijaya as wealthy Zabag, but give no information about the political situation in the empire.