From: lix@thames.bu.edu (Xiaowen Li)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.china,soc.culture.taiwan,soc.culture.hongkong
Subject: FWD for Mr. H. Anonymous - Learn from Geshu (10)
Date: 11 Nov 92 15:18:48 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.china
Organization: Boston University

This is again a forwarding.

===========================================================
  Re: Learn from Geshu (X)

Readers may recall what I wrote about General Zong Que a few days ago:

ME> ...  His chance came when the King of LinYi in what is now Indo-China 
ME> took up arms against the Liu-Song Dynasty.  Zong Que led the campaign 
ME> against Fan Yang2-Mai4, the King of LinYi.

On the same event, our learned "older chap" Sanyee chose to state:

>    Neither Li Bai nor Zong Que did it literally, though General Zong went
>very close to the sea: he secured Vietnam as a part of China for quite a
>while.

I hate to say it, but you have seen yet another example of what I
have termed irresponsible amateurism, if "half-filled bottle" (of
vinegar) is too strong a phrase for it.

Since Sanyee has uttered with such finality the term "Vietnam" in
describing Gen. Zong's feat, may those of us who might be losing 
some "big picture" venture to ask:

Does Sanyee mean that there was such a place, or state, or Jun4, or
an entity howsoever defined called Vietnam at the time of Gen. Zong's 
capture of LinYi?  Never mind which "China" Gen. Zong had supposely
"secured Vietnam" for.
 
If Sanyee, in his by-now-registered trade-mark "Back-to-the-Future" 
approach, uses "Vietnam" to refer to what was known after 968 CE,
then was it the "Vietnam' of 968, or was it the "Vietnam" of 1010, 
or 1225, or 1408, or 1427, or 1789, or 1802?   Or was it the "Vietnam" 
of 1884, or 1945, or even 1975?

Readers may rest assured that what our learned "older chap" has said 
and quoted above about "Vietnam" is simply and patently wrong.

For the Kingdom of LinYi which Gen. Zong defeated was also known 
as Zhan-Cheng2, or more precisely ZhanPo BuLuo (Champo City), 
because BuLuo = Pur, which is the Sanskrit word for "city".  This
Sanskrit word is now found in countless geographic names in India 
and Iran.  The name Singapore ( = Singapura, meaning City of Lion) 
is now the most prominent of names with the root Pur.  Sanskrit Pur 
came from Proto-Indo-European root "Pei", not attested but inferred.  
So did the Greek root polis, giving us politics, police, polite, 
metropolis, etc.

Readers need not consult Sanyee's old Yun4 book to realize that the
name Champo most probably referred to Cambodia, not "Vietnam."

Before our "older chap" uses his perfect "Back-to-the-Future"
hindsight to claim what was used to be the Kingdom of LinYi is
now largely (but perhaps not quite completely) annexed by Vietnam, 
let me point out that from the Earlier Han on until a long time after 
the separation of several Jun's to form the Kingdom of DaiViet (DaYue)
or AnNam( AnNan), the Sinicized Sino-Viet realm did not extend 
its southern limits beyond the 16 degree latitude.  Therefore while 
you are totally wrong in stating that Gen. Zong "secured" then non-
existent "Vietnam", you would be equally wrong to claim Zong "secured"
what was later to emerge as the highly Sinicized Vietnam, and you 
would be even more patently wrong to claim Zong Que had "secured" what 
is now modern Vietnam for "China" (again which China?).  There is 
absolutely no way for you to get out of this mess.

All modern research indicates the Kingdom of LinYi was located
further south to the then southernmost Sino-Viet domain, namely what 
was Han Dynasty's Ri4Nan2 Jun.  (Quiz: why this name?  Hint: check the
location of the Tropic [of Cancer].)  The people of that country 
belonged, linguistically and culturally, to a group closely related to 
what is now Cambodia.  They were entirely different from either Han4 
Chinese or Jing1 Vietnamese.  In response to possible accusation
that the research results cited here might have been "tainted" or even
"doctored" by Chinese "chauvinists", let me quote "big" names like 
Pelliot, Maspero and Aunouseau, all of whom reached at more or less 
the same conclusion on this.  

It is also interesting to point out that the earliest and only 
reliable source materials on this were exclusively Chinese, particularly 
the only surviving passages in the long lost treatise LinYi Ji4 as 
preserved in the immortal Chinese geography work _Shui3Jing1Zhu4_.

(To be continued)
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