Page 43 - Ming_China_Courts_and_Contacts_1400_1450 Craig lunas

Horses were perhaps the most important of these transit indicates the continued importance of the South Asian
goods destined for China. According to Fei Xin, horses were coastal regions to Chinese merchants even after the state-
brought to the Malabar coast from West Asia, bred locally sponsored commercial activity ceased. Much of this trade
and ‘transferred’ for hundreds or thousands of coins for was conducted through Melaka and other ports in Southeast
onward sale. To purchase these transit goods and local Asia where Chinese traders had established their
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products such as pepper, the Ming officials offered gold, diasporas. These sites were also places where traders from
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silver, silk, blue-and-white porcelain, pearls, musk, Bengal and Gujarat had settled and engaged in commercial
quicksilver and camphor. While some of these objects came exchanges with their Chinese counterparts. While the fact
from China, others, such as camphor, originated in that the Chinese continued to visit South Asia after the 1450s
Southeast Asia. is suggested by the report by Joseph of Cranganore cited
Ma Huan describes the procedure through which trading above, the extensive trading activity of Chinese and South
activity took place between the representatives of the Ming Asian merchants is found in several Portuguese records,
court and local traders in Calicut. While the two Muslim including one by Tomé Pires, the Portuguese envoy to Ming
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chiefs of Calicut oversaw the commercial transactions, a China in the early 16th century.
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Chetty trader and a local broker participated in the
purchase of goods from the Ming officials. One of the The enduring interest in Buddhist South Asia
commanders from the Ming fleet was responsible for fixing In 1403, soon after he ascended to the Ming throne, the
the date for trade. On that designated date, commodities Yongle emperor sent an invitation to the Fifth Karmapa
were displayed, prices agreed upon and a written agreement (Deshin Shekpa, 1384–1415) of Tibet. Carried by Hou Xian,
executed. After the sale of goods by the Chinese, the locals the same person who later visited Bengal in 1415 and 1420 by
exhibited their merchandise. The prices were negotiated the maritime route, the invitation requested the Karmapa to
and paid with silk, the price of which was fixed in the written visit the Ming capital and perform rituals for the deceased
agreement. parents of the Yongle emperor. A little over three years later,
For Fei Xin, Sri Lanka was inferior only to Java in terms of in 1407, the Karmapa accompanied by Hou Xian arrived in
its importance in maritime trade. The fact that the island Nanjing. After conducting several ceremonies at the capital,
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produced several types of precious stones and gems, as well as the Karmapa also visited Mount Wutai (Pl. 3.7), the
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pearls, is noted by both Fei Xin and Ma Huan (see discussion perceived abode of the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī. In 1408, the
by Craig Clunas in Chapter 27 of this volume). Musk, hemp- Yongle emperor invited to the Ming capital Tsongkhapa
silk, blue-and-white porcelain, copper coins, gold and silver (1357–1419), the other important Tibetan leader, who,
objects and camphor were used by the Ming representatives to however, declined the invitation. In 1413, when Hou Xian
purchase goods from Sri Lanka. The trilingual inscription set
up by Zheng He on the island suggests that the Ming Plate 3.7 View of the Buddhist pilgrimage site Mount Wutai, located
representatives conducted trade with Tamil and Persian in Shanxi province southwest of Beijing
merchant guilds in addition to other local traders. From the
nearby islands of the Maldives and Laccadives, the Chinese
procured ambergris and perhaps also cowries.
Bengal seems to have been a leading trading partner of
the Ming court and the Chinese traders who had settled in
Southeast Asia. Cotton, textiles, precious stones and gems
(mostly acquired from other regions of the Indian Ocean)
and kingfisher feathers were some of the commodities sold to
the Chinese. In return, the local merchants received gold
and silver objects, silk fabrics, blue-and-white porcelain,
copper coins, musk, vermilion, quicksilver and pepper. Ma
Huan mentions that the ruler of Bengal owned ships that
were sent to trade with foreign polities. It was perhaps
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through such shipping networks that the giraffes presented
to the Yongle emperor reached Bengal. In fact, the gifting of
giraffes seems to have been a fairly common aspect of
long-distance commercial interactions during the early 15th
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century.
The extensive trading relations between Bengal and
Ming China, official as well as the indirect private
commerce through Southeast Asia, might explain how
Bengali script (Pl. 3.6) and a list of more than 200 Bengali
words transcribed in Chinese found their way into the
16th-century Ming work Siyi guangji 四夷廣記 (Extensive
Records of the Four Barbarian [Regions]). The work, which
includes words related to terrestrial objects, types of
clothing, commodities, names for birds and animals, etc.,

Diplomacy, Trade and the Quest for the Buddha’s Tooth: The Yongle Emperor and Ming China’s South Asian Frontier | 33