Pan Pan

Pan Pan or Panpan was a small Hindu kingdom believed to have existed around the 3rd to 7th century CE. It is believed to have been located on the east coast of the Malay Peninsula, with opinion varying from somewhere in Kelantan or Terengganu, in modern-day Malaysia to the vicinity of Phunphin district, Surat Thani province, in modern Thailand.

According to the Chinese text Jiu Tang Shu, Pan Pan was bordered in the south with Langkasuka, Jacq-Hergoualc'h speculates that the border may have been south of Nakhon Si Thammarat, possibly near Songkhla. From here, Kaundinya II is said to have tried to re-introduce Hinduism to the Kingdom of Funan on the other side of the Gulf of Siam.

Pan Pan sent tribute to the Liang dynasty and the Chen dynasty of China. in 529, 533, 534, 535 and 571 and again under the Sui dynasty during the Daye era (605–618). In 616 and 637, Pan Pan sent tribute to the Chinese Tang dynasty.

The kingdom was later conquered by Srivijaya under the leadership of Dharmasetu before 775.

Though rare, archeological discoveries show evidence of a lively economic flowering in the region through international maritime trade.

Chinese accounts

Several Chinese dynastic histories describe Pan Pan . They place it on the southern sea west of Linyi, separated from it to the north by a narrow sea, about forty days by ship from Jiaozhou, and neighbouring Langyaxiu. The Jiu Tang Shu states that its people all studied brahmanical texts and honoured the Buddha's teaching, and records a tributary mission in the ninth year of the Zhenguan era. The New Book of Tang and the Tongdian add that its people lived along the water and fenced their settlements with bamboo or timber, that there were no walled districts, and that arrowheads were made of stone.

The same works describe the court. The king, named Yang Suqu , sat on a golden dragon throne, and officials attending him knelt and crossed their arms over their shoulders. His father is named as Yang Dewu , and the records note that nothing was preserved of any generation before him, so that the two form the only sequence of Pan Pan rulers recoverable from the Chinese material. Four ranks of officer are named, Bolang Suolan , Kunlun Diye , Kunlun Bohe and Kunlun Bonan Sugan ; the element Kunlun is noted as close in sound to Gulong . Brahmans from India were numerous and sought endowments from the king, who is said to have held them in respect. Monasteries and temples housed both monks, who ate meat but abstained from liquor, and ascetics who called themselves brahmans and abstained from both.

Tributary missions are recorded in some number. The Book of Liang notes embassies during the Yuanjia (424–453), Xiaojian (454–456) and Daming (457–464) eras, and a letter brought by an embassy in 527 in which the king addressed the Chinese emperor in Buddhist terms. Further missions are entered under the Zhongdatong and Dabao eras, one of them presenting a trained elephant. The records also place Pan Pan in relation to its neighbours: Tuoheluo (Dvaravati) is said to lie to its north, with Jialasheefo beyond, and Geluo to its south-east.

The name also appears in the Funan king list, where a Pan Pan is named as the middle son of Pankuang and reigned three years before Fan Shiman was raised to the throne, and where the brahman Kaundinya is said to have reached Pan Pan on his way south before the people of Funan made him king.