Moel Djawa — in Ibn Battuta’s transcription Moel Djawa, De Roo de la Faille’s decoding semoe poela-ge- getta-djawa — was the kingdom on the east coast of Sumatra whose capital Qakola Ibn Battuta visited after his fifteen-day stay with Sultan Malik at-Tahir at Pasej in 1345/1346, and which De Roo de la Faille identifies with the ancestral land of Taroema at the bay of Aroe. Its capital Qakola is the same name, De Roo de la Faille argues, as the Kakoela of Javanese storytellers and the Qaciola of Arabic — the camphor-name by which the Hindu-Javanese chronicles denoted the ancestral land.
Ibn Battuta’s account
After fifteen days with Sultan Malik at-Tahir at Pasej, Ibn Battuta proceeded by junk to Moel Djawa, whose capital was called Qakola, “a land that lived in war with Samatra” (i.e. with Samudra). The city was surrounded by heavy walls of natural stone — i.e. not of baked brick (bata), and so not Beta-ksch but of Djawa-ge. There were many elephants as draught and transport animals; the products of the land included cloves and nutmeg, both available on the local market — evidence, De Roo de la Faille notes, of regular trade with the Moluccas.
Decoding: Qakola and Kapoelaga
The capital name Qakola De Roo de la Faille identifies with Arabic Qaclola / Sanskrit Kakkola — the camphor-name of the kapoelaga (cardamom), the plant with the very fragrant knob, by which the Hindu-Javanese chronicles denoted the ancestral land of Taroema. The same name, De Roo de la Faille argues, underlies the Kakoela of Javanese storytellers (shortened to kakoe), the Qaciola of De Conti’s account of the melegata (cardamom), and the Gauenispola of Marco Polo’s “very small island” (Gawé-nis pola-ga-nis, i.e. “make of the vanished Kapoelaga”). The kingdom Moel Djawa itself De Roo de la Faille decodes as semoe poela-ge- getta-djawa — “the united poelaga-getta of Djawa”, i.e. the troonzetel (throne-seat) of the Djawa-ge.
Identification with Taroema at the bay of Aroe
The same Moel Djawa, De Roo de la Faille argues, is the Taroema of the Adiparwa’s Churning of the Ocean of Milk — the ksir-nawa or tasik soesoe from which the gods drew the amrta. Its location is the bay of Aroe, and its sacred islet is Kampi — the Noesa-n-ta-ra of the Pararaton under the protection of the goddess Tara. The “many elephants” of Qakola are the war-elephants of the elephant-land Astina — the same that the Xarnauz of Vasco da Gama’s Roteiro records (“the king has 400 elephants of war”).
Significance
For AcehWiki, Moel Djawa is the principal Arabic-language landmark of the pre-Atjehnese east-coast Hindu-Javanese complex — the bedekte taal form by which Ibn Battuta’s Rihla records the ancestral land of Taroema at the bay of Aroe. Its identification, by De Roo de la Faille, with the Taroema of the chronicle tradition and with the Astina of the Javanese legend of praboe Djaja-Baja also fixes it as the principal east-coast landmark of pre-Atjehnese Sumatra in Arabic record.
See Also
- Ibn Battuta
- Pasej-Samodra
- Sultan Malik at-Tahir of Pasej
- Taroema
- Astina
- Aroe-baai
- Poelo Kampi
- Cyama-Tara
- Marco Polo
- Nicolo de Conti
- Vasco da Gama
- Bedekte taal
- Historische Curiositeiten uit Malajoe en Java
Source
Historische Curiositeiten uit Malajoe en Java, by P. de Roo de la Faille (Den Haag: Maart 1954), chapter “Over Sjahroe’n Noewi”, pp. 29-31.