One for the Tang Dynasty Scholars: Maluku, Mi Li Ku, 馬魯古

[myriadthings]

 

Hi, Folks,

 

Wondering if there are any Tang dynasty scholars who could throw some light on something. I'm working on a project about East Indonesia, and I've come across one of those widely-disseminated but hard-to-authenticate 'facts' that I wanted to check out.

 

The claim is that the Indonesian province of Maluku ultimately owes its name to Tang dynasty annals which talk of "Mi li ku". Now, in contemporary Chinese, Maluku is 馬魯古, which is probably just a phonetic transliteration back into the Chinese. So does anybody know what the Tang dynasty term was for this part of the world? Or is this business of "Mi li ku" and Tang annals just one of those widely-circulated but spurious facts that passes for knowledge?

 

Everything I can find is impossibly vague: "Tang dynasty annals" really doesn't give a lot to go on. A cursory look at Chinese internet sources hasn't thrown anything up either.

 

If anybody has any thoughts, let me know.

 

All the best,

 

Will