The Mausoleum of a Ruler of Boni in Nanjing

Johannes Kurz 3 January 2024

On my way to the Southern Tang tombs in 2008, to my surprise I noticed the Brunei flag being flown in an area along the main road. On the return trip to the city we asked the driver to stop there for a few minutes, and I then took a few pictures of the tomb. It is generally assumed that Boni refers to an ancient Brunei, but the final verdict is not yet out, as far as I am concerned.

Entrance was free. There were some elderly men sitting in one of the buildings, the “tourist centre”, but they did not mind our presence. The text on the stele below was illegible, but the original text (“Boni guo gongshun wang mubei 浡泥國恭順王墓碑”) was copied at the back of the building which stands next to the “tourist centre”. (For a translation of the text see my “Two Early Ming Texts on Borneo”, Ming Studies 70 (2014): 60-72). To the right of the stele is a map of Southeast Asia, and to the left an aerial view of the tomb. Note that the characters for Borneo on the map are 渤泥 and not 浡泥, and that this Boni comprises all of the island.

The tomb had been discovered in 1958 and the inscription here says that the tomb in 2001 (strange to see this written er 00 yi nian 二00一年) was put under state protection as a historical and cultural site (quanguo zhongdian wenwu baohu danwei 全国重点文物保护单位).

The following are pictures taken at the spirit path (shendao 神道) towards the actual tomb.

This is certainly quite modest compared to the spirit path at the Ming founders’ tomb in Nanjing, but nevertheless quite impressive, since it was built for a foreign dignitary. Unfortunately, some of the statues have suffered some damage.

Finally, the tumulus with an inscription that reads “tomb of Manarejiananai, the former king of Boni” (Gu Boni guo wang Manarejiananai zhi mu 古浡泥國王麻那惹加那乃之墓).

Apart from the tomb, there is also the China-Brunei Friendship Hall built in a pseudo-Malay style in 2006. In 2008, Princess Masnah, sister of the sultan of Brunei, officially opened the “Brunei Style Park”. For more information, see https://seasoc.org/2023/02/25/the-brunei-kings-grand-tomb-in-nanjing-china/, accessed 6 December 2023.

More informative text that confirms Boni as Brunei. In 2008 a conference was planned to commemorate the 600th anniversary of the Boni ruler in Beijing. At one point, my yearly leave was threatened since someone thought I should participate there. Luckily, there was a change of mind, and instead, a delegation from the geography department at Universiti Brunei Darussalam was dispatched.

The China-Brunei Friendship Hall (Zhongguo Wenlai youyi guan 中國文萊友誼圖館). So if Boni was Brunei, and Brunei was always Brunei, why was the hall not called Zhongguo Boni youyi guan. Not the only inconsistency in the “history” of China and Southeast Asia. An individual who had been alerted by the men at the entrance hastily opened the buildings.

The flag of one of the last absolute monarchies flying next to that of a “Communist” country.

I do not know what to say about this testament (Wenlai fengjing shanzhuang 文萊風景山莊 ~ Brunei scenery mountain villa???) to the imagination of the person who built it. Since the royal family in Brunei nowadays have their palaces on dry land atop hills, they are commonly referred to as bukit orang (“hill people”). Should this represent a residence?

There were a number of interesting items on show in the China Brunei Friendship Hall.

Money, a coin commemorating the marriage of the crown prince (according to a SRF documentary (“Die Mutter der Prinzessin – Hofnachrichten aus Brunei”, 15 March 2006) a man who possesses an unobtrusive intelligence “seine Intelligenz wirkt unaufdringlich”), in 2006, and an article on the bestowal of titles, a favourite of expats, as many newspaper articles that involved dignitaries and royals consisted merely of the enumeration of old titles and new titles conferred, with not much in between.

Leaders among themselves.

There were also a number of plates that reported on the assumed history between China and Brunei going back to the Western Han.

The highlight was the genealogy, for even though in the park an alleged early Brunei ruler is interred who even was identified post facto as Abdul Majid Hasan, he is nowhere to be found in this list of rulers, the earliest of which are “legendary”, if not fictional. The geneaolgy was produced before knowledge of the tomb had reached Brunei.

With a last look at the flags we left.