Huilin (736-820) was a Buddhist monk from the royal family of the Central Asian oasis state of Kashgar (modern Kashi, Xinjiang). In his early teens, he moved to the Tang capital Chang’an and became a disciple of the Indian monk Amoghavajra (705-774), a master of the new “esoteric” or tantric techniques of Vajrayana Buddhism. He spent over ten years compiling the Yiqie jing yinyi, a dictionary of specialized Buddhist terms found in Chinese translations of the sutras. The two entries below reflect two skills that the peoples known as Kunlun were known for in Tang times: seafaring and freediving. It also indicates that the category “Kunlun” eventually included Southeast Asians, South Asians, and Africans, and that Huilin had picked up certain stereotypes of the Kunlun peoples as immoral, uncivilized, lawless, and cannibalistic.

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“Shipwrecked” (po bo): … Sima Biao’s commentary to the Zhuangzi says, “Large ships on the sea are called bo.”¹ The Guangya says, “Bo are seagoing ships.”² They have a draft of sixty feet and can be used to transport more than a thousand people in addition to goods. They are also known as Kunlun bo. To operate these ships, Gulun (i.e., Kunlun) are often used as sailors. They use ropes of coconut husk (coir) to tie [timbers] together and fill up the gaps with gelan sugar³ so that water cannot enter them. They do not use nails or sheets of metal [on the hull], for fear that when the iron gets hot, it will catch fire. They make their ships out of layers of wooden planks that are so thin that one fears they will break. The ships are several li long⁴ and divided into three sections from bow to stern. They spread their sails and use the wind to maneuver, being immovable by human strength alone.

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“The Kunlun language” (Kunlun yu): … In the vernacular speech of today, they are also called Gulun. They are barbarians from the islands in the south seas. They are extremely black and go naked. They have the ability to tame fierce beasts like rhinoceroses and elephants. There are many varieties of them, including the Sengqi (Zanji)⁵, Tumi⁶, Gutang⁷, and Gemie (Khmer)⁸. All are base and inferior people. Their countries have no ritual propriety or moral duty, and they practice banditry for a living. They like eating human beings, just like Rakshasas and demons.⁹ Their languages are strange-sounding and different from those of other foreign countries. They are good at diving in water and can stay underwater for a whole day without dying.

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1. Sima Biao (d. 306 CE) was a Western Jin aristocrat and a noted scholar who authored several works of Eastern Han history and a commentary to the Zhuangzi. Unfortunately, nearly all of his works are lost. ↩︎
2. The Guangya was a dictionary authored by Zhang Yi around 230 CE. ↩︎
3. This probably refers to the sap of the ganlan (Chinese olive) tree, which was used for caulking ships. ↩︎
4. In Tang times, a li was about 459 meters or 500 yards. ↩︎
5. The Arabic Zanji (derived from Persian Zanj) originally referred to the Swahili Coast of southeast Africa and its inhabitants, but came to mean people with black skin more generically. According to Tang records, the Srivijaya polity in Sumatra presented a Zanji (Sengqi) female slave to the Tang court as tribute in 724, and another polity in Java presented Zanji slaves in 815 and 818. ↩︎
6. Japanese scholar Fukami Sumio reads “Tumi” as a transcription of Tamil. See Fukami Sumio 深見純生, “Kaiiki tōnanajia niokeru Tōdai no Konron” 海域東南アジアにおける唐代の崑崙 (The Kunlun (崑崙) in Maritime Southeast Asia during the Tang Period), available online here. ↩︎
7. “Gutang” may be a transcription of Kadaram, the Tamil name for Kedah. Other known transcriptions include “Gantang” 甘棠. ↩︎
8. Another entry in the dictionary reads: “Gemie: … A word in the Kunlun language. In ancient times, it was called the country of Linyi. Among the Kunlun countries, this country is the biggest. It, too, reveres and believes in the Three Jewels [of Buddhism].” ↩︎
9. In Indian Hindu and Buddhist mythology, the Rakshasas are a race of fierce, man-eating, ogre-like beings. ↩︎