Lung-yaumen and Tan-Mah-hsi
Roland Braddell’s 1969 article, published in the Singapore 150th Anniversary Commemorative Issue of the JMBRAS, responds to a 1948 challenge by Han Wai Toon and H. D. Collings to the long-standing identification of the Chinese toponym Tan-ma-hsi with Singapore Island and Lung-ya-men with a passage in Singapore waters. Braddell defends the orthodox identification of Tan-ma-hsi as Singapore on linguistic and textual grounds, and argues that Lung-ya-men (“Dragon Teeth Gate”) most probably referred to the western entrance of Keppel Harbour rather than the Singapore main strait or the “Strait of Lingga.”
Summary
The article opens by confronting Collings’ provocative claim that no archaeological remains prove the existence of a settlement on Singapore Island, and that the “greatness of old Singapura” was merely a product of Malay folk tales. Braddell marshals Javanese literary sources—the Pararaton and Nagarakretagama—alongside the Sejarah Melayu to establish that Temasek (Tumasik) was a real place, and then turns to the eyewitness testimony of Stamford Raffles and John Crawfurd in 1819–1822, who described the surviving wall, moat, temple foundations, and graves on Bukit Larangan (Fort Canning). He concedes that the settlement’s importance was exaggerated in later Malay historiography but insists that the absence of modern archaeological finds is explained by the complete destruction of the site during colonial development, not by the absence of an ancient town.
The core of the article is a systematic review of the Chinese navigational and trade sources that mention Lung-ya-men and Tan-ma-hsi: Chau Ju-Kua’s Chu fan chi (1225), Wang Ta-yuan’s Tao i chih lio (1349), the Wu pei chih charts, Fei Hsin’s Hsing ch’a sheng lan (1436), and Chang Hsi’s Tung hsi yang k’ao (1618). Braddell carefully distinguishes Ling-ya-men (the “Strait of Lingga,” a real but poorly defined passage between Lingga and Singkep) from Lung-ya-men (a passage in Singapore waters), arguing that the two were confused by later Chinese writers. On the etymology of Tan-ma-hsi, he follows J. V. Mills in showing that the Amoy dialect rendering Tam-ma-sak is a direct transcription of the Malay Temasek, making the identification with Singapore Island linguistically irresistible. For Lung-ya-men, he favours Keppel Harbour on the strength of the “Dragon Teeth” metaphor matching the narrow, rocky western entrance described by Linschoten in 1598 and by the Malay name “Selat Panikam” (pointed-weapon strait) recorded by Crawfurd in 1822, though he acknowledges that J. V. Mills’ analysis of the Wu pei chih sailing directions points to the main strait.
A secondary thread concerns Marco Polo’s “Malaiur,” which Braddell argues is better identified with Singapore than with Malayu (Djambi) in Sumatra, since Polo explicitly separates the two. He notes that the Ramusio version contains the word “Chiamassie,” which is almost certainly a transcription of Tumasik, but concedes that the dating problem (Polo’s passage in 1292 predates Linehan’s founding date of 1299) and the description of a “large and noble city” remain unresolved difficulties.
Key Findings
- The Amoy dialect pronunciation of the characters for Tan-ma-hsi is Tam-ma-sak, an exact equivalent of the Malay Temasek (Temasak), confirming that the Chinese name was carried back by Fukienese sailors (p. 15).
- Wang Ta-yuan’s Tao i chih lio (1349) records that Siamese raiders arrived with seventy junks and attacked Tan-ma-hsi, whose inhabitants closed their gates and resisted for a month until an Imperial envoy’s passage caused the Siamese to withdraw (p. 17).
- The Tung hsi yang k’ao (1618) records water depths of thirty t’o (fathoms) in the middle and twenty t’o in the south of Lung-ya-men, and warns of the Liang-shan Rocks on its south side (p. 18).
- Linschoten’s 1598 description of Keppel Harbour’s entrance gives it a width of “about a stone’s throw” between two high mountains, with a least depth of four and a half fathoms, and notes a rock at the foot of the northern mountain called “Varella del China” (Lot’s Wife), part of which was blasted away in 1848 (p. 19).
- Crawfurd’s 1822 survey of the ancient town describes a wall sixteen feet broad at its base and eight to nine feet high, running nearly a mile from the sea to the base of the hill, with a moat formed by a rivulet; Chinese brass coins of the 10th and 11th centuries (reigns ending 967, 1067, 1085) were found among the ruins (pp. 22–23).
- Dr. Linehan’s dating places Singapura’s existence from 1299 to 1391 A.D., with its sack in 1376 A.D. (p. 11).
Conclusion
Braddell’s definitive position is that Tan-ma-hsi is unambiguously Singapore Island, confirmed by the linguistic match between the Amoy transcription and the Malay name, and that Lung-ya-men was most probably the western entrance to Keppel Harbour, where the “Dragon Teeth” metaphor is topographically apt. He does not claim certainty on the latter point, acknowledging that the Wu pei chih sailing directions may indicate the main strait, and suggests that the Chinese may have retained the old name even after changing their preferred passage—a parallel to the Portuguese, who similarly shifted from Keppel Harbour (Estreito Velho) to the main strait (Estreito Novo) by the early 17th century.
Context
- The article draws on the Wu pei chih charts, the Tao i chih lio, the Tung hsi yang k’ao, and the Hsing ch’a sheng lan, as well as Portuguese sources (Linschoten, Eredia’s map) and the 1819–1822 eyewitness journals of Raffles and Crawfurd.
- Its historiographical contribution lies in consolidating the identification of Tan-ma-hsi with Singapore against the revisionist challenge of Han Wai Toon and Collings, and in providing the most detailed comparative analysis of the “Dragon Teeth Gate” toponym available in the English-language literature of the period.