Note 14 — Chapter I

The term Zapagé or Zabaja seems also to have been a corruption from Jawa, and to have been used with the same latitude, according to the following notices by Major Wilford. "There was a constant intercourse, both by sea and land, between the kingdom of Magad'hi and China, on the authority of Chinese history; and they traded to an island and kingdom, called Founan, to the eastward of Siam, during the third and fourth centuries. This was probably a Malay kingdom; but we cannot ascertain its situation. It seems that the Malay emperors and kings, as those of Zapagi and Founan, did what they could to introduce trade and learning into their dominions, but their exertions proved ineffectual; at least they were not attended with much success; and their subjects soon relapsed into their former mode of life." ... "There are two countries called Maharaja, which are often confounded together; the first, at the bottom of the Green Sea, including Bengal and all the countries on the banks of the Ganges; the second comprehended the peninsula of Malacca, and some of the adjacent islands in the seas of China. In these countries the emperor, or king, always assumed the title of Maharaja, even until this day. Their country, in general, was called Zapagé or Zabaja, which is a corruption from Java or Jaba, as it was called in the west, and was also the name of Sumatra, according to Ptolemy, who calls it Jaba-diu, and to Marco Polo. In the peninsula of Malacca was the famous emporium of Zaba: Zubaja, in Sanscrit, would signify then Zaba. The empire of Zabajé was thus called, probably, from its metropolis, Zaba, as well as the principal islands near it. Zaba was a principal emporium even as early as the time of Ptolemy. It remained so till the time of the two Mussulman travellers of Renaudot, and probably much longer. It is now called Batu Sabor, upon the river Jehor, which is as large as the Euphrates, according to these travellers; who add, that the town of Calabar, on the coast of Coromandel, and ten days to the south of Madras, belonged to the Maharaja of Zabaje. The wars of this Maharaja with the king of Alkoner or countries near Cape Comorin, are mentioned by the two Mussulman travellers in the ninth century, and it seems that, at that time, the Malayan empire was in its greatest splendor."​—Asiatic Researches, vol. ix.