phase was present also in the much wider area which has been stated above. The presence of Dong-s'on bronze drums and of Han objects in this wider area is definite proof of a sea-trade with Indo-China and the question arises, "Who conducted this sea-trade?" Here the identification, if possible, of P'i-ch'ien becomes very relevant, because the Chinese evidence proves that Chinese shipping itself did not trade into the South Sea during the period covered by this paper. On the other hand, there is a description of K'un-lun shipping which appears to date back to the third century A.D.³² which is the period of the facts concerning P'i-ch'ien. Communication between P'i-ch'ien and Fu-nan must have been by sea, and the jealousy displayed by P'i-ch'ien against the intrusion of foreign merchants is completely in keeping with what we know about other ancient people whose prosperity came from their sea-trade. The identification of P'i-ch'ien will be approached accordingly upon the a priori presumption that it was a state with a seaboard and engaged in a sea-trade with the Indo-Chinese mainland.

The account of P'i-ch'ien³³ was carried back to China in the third century A.D. by the Chinese envoys K'ang T'ai and Chu Ying together with the account of Tun-sun and appears in the Liang Shu as an appendage to the latter account. The only key to the location of P'i-ch'ien is provided by two master facts: (1) it was rich in gold; (2) it was beyond Tun-sun on an island (chou) in the Great Sea. With Tun-sun identified as the northern part, if not the whole, of the Malay Peninsula, the only identification of P'i-ch'ien which will fit the two master facts is Sumatra, and the statement that it was in the Great Sea does not militate against that identification. It is true that eventually the 'Great Sea' becomes clear as having been the South China Sea as far south as the Straits of Malacca, but the account of Tun-sun makes it clear that at that time (the third century A.D.) the bounds of the Great Sea were not known. According to the Chinese envoys no ship had ever travelled over it and to them, therefore, the Great Sea was merely a generic name for the whole unknown ocean expanse, part of which washed the shores of Fu-nan and doubtless the rest of the Indo-Chinese seaboard to the Culf of Tongking.

The account of the King of P'i-ch'ien is worthy of notice. He was supernatural and holy, and had not died from ancient times, so that no one knew his age. "The good and bad actions of the people of his kingdom, the things of the future-there is not one of which the king is not aware. Thus no one dares to impose on him. In the king-

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³² P. Pelliot, "Quelques Textes Chinois concernant I'lndo-Chine Hindouisée", Etudes Asiatiquex, vol. 2 (Paris, 1925), pp. 243-63.

³³ See p. 166, footnote 14, above.