Zhou Daguan: Who Was the Chinese Envoy Who Reached Angkor in 1296?
His book is famous. The man himself is barely known. Zhou Daguan left Wenzhou in the spring of 1296, spent almost a year in Angkor and wrote the main surviving account of Khmer life at the time. Two researchers, Kenneth So and Duan Lisheng, retrace his journey and piece together what little is known of his life.
A witness without a biography
The Customs of Cambodia describes the politics, economy, religion and daily life of the country in the Angkor period. It rests on what the author saw himself. Specialists consider the account accurate and reliable. The author, however, stays in the shadows.
Chinese researcher Duan Lisheng points this out in a study published in 2021 by the Angkor Database. The official history of the Yuan dynasty has no entry on him. The chronicles of his home region, Zhejiang and the prefecture of Wenzhou, say nothing either. The annotated catalogue of the great imperial collection known as the Siku quanshu gives a single sentence: "Daguan, a native of Wenzhou."
A name that changed
Even his name is a problem. Once his book was finished, the author sent it to Wu Qiuyan, a poet and scholar living in Hangzhou. Wu wrote three poems as a gift and addressed his correspondent as Zhou Dake. Duan Lisheng draws a hypothesis from this: Dake was the original name. Daguan, which can be rendered as "the one who has seen everything" or "at ease in all circumstances," would have been adopted on his return, when he came to write. The new name was not yet known, which would explain why Wu Qiuyan kept using the old one.
Later, the author gave himself a scholar's pen name: Caoting Yimin, the hermit of the thatched cottage. A third form, "Jianguan," appears in old books. Duan Lisheng sees it as an engraving error, copied from one book to the next, because the two characters look alike.
A man with no official title
Zhou Daguan never held an official post. He went to Cambodia in the retinue of the imperial envoy, as an attaché. His family remains a mystery. An article by H.W. Ponder, translated into Chinese, speaks of a notable family from Yongjia, in Zhejiang, without offering proof. Duan Lisheng finds a clue in the preface Zhou wrote for the Chengzhai zaji, a collection of notes by Lin Kun: Zhou writes that his family owns a copy in its library. A family that keeps books is hardly poor, he reasons. Even so, he refuses to draw firm conclusions about Zhou's name, dates, family or character.
No source gives his dates of birth and death. Duan Lisheng offers an estimate. In his poems, Wu Qiuyan describes Zhou as being in the prime of life at the time of the 1296 journey. Duan Lisheng reads that as about thirty years old, which puts his birth around 1266, at the end of the Song dynasty. At the other end, Zhou wrote the preface to the Chengzhai zaji in 1346. He was still alive then, around eighty. Duan Lisheng thinks he died shortly afterwards.
Wu Qiuyan had a reputation as a proud, unruly poet. He compared corrupt officials and wicked rich men to maggots on rotten meat. That such a man strongly recommended Zhou's book says a lot, according to Duan Lisheng: the two men were alike.
Wenzhou, March 1296
Zhou Daguan was from Wenzhou, a port in Zhejiang. In 1296, Emperor Temür Khan, grandson of Kublai Khan and second ruler of the Mongol Yuan dynasty, sent an embassy to Angkor. Zhou was part of the journey.
The fleet left on 24 March 1296 and sailed south-southwest. It reached Champa on 18 April. Fifteen days later, around 3 May, Zhou arrived at Chen-pu. Kenneth So identifies it as Baria, today's Bà Rịa-Vũng Tàu in Vietnam.
The Mekong delta, then the river
The ships then skirted the sea of K'un-lun, which Kenneth So links to Koh Tralach, the island of Côn Sơn, and reached the mouth of the Mekong.
Zhou writes that, of all the river mouths, only the fourth can be entered. The others are blocked by sandbanks. Everywhere, rattan, old trees, yellow sand and white reeds. Even sailors struggle to find the passage. Kenneth So thinks it is Mé Sâ, today's My Tho.
It then took fifteen days, with the current, to go upriver to Ch'a-nan, which Kenneth So recognizes as Kompong Chhnang. The crew changed to smaller boats. Ten days later it reached Fo-hsuen, the "village of the Buddha."
Pursat, a translation error?
Fo-hsuen raises a question. Kenneth So sees Pursat. The Khmer name, Pôsat, supposedly comes from a legend: villagers saw a banyan tree drifting down a river, rescued it and replanted it as a sign of good luck.
Zhou would have confused this name with Pothisat, which means bodhisattva, and rendered it as "village of the Buddha." There is another lead. The Chinese chronicle Shu-yi Chou-tzu lu, written under the Yongle era (1403-1424), spells the name P'u-t'i-sa. The Chinese would then have transcribed the word instead of describing it. Was the original name of Pursat Pothisat? Kenneth So raises the question without settling it.
Crossing the Tonlé Sap in full flood
From Pursat, Zhou crossed the "freshwater sea," the Tonlé Sap. It was August, the height of the rainy season. The lake then covers about 16,000 km², against 2,700 km² in the dry season. Pursat, which lies about 25 km inland when the water is low, ends up much closer to the shore. Zhou landed at Kan-p'ang hsui, which the scholar Étienne Aymonier linked to Kampong Chei, the "port of victory."
The two researchers date the arrival differently, but their dates agree. Kenneth So puts it in August 1296. Duan Lisheng, going by Zhou's own preface, speaks of the seventh month of the bingshen year. The departure from Wenzhou, on the 20th day of the second month, falls on 24 March. The seventh month of the Chinese calendar therefore corresponds roughly to August. The envoy then stayed about a year.
What was Angkor called?
Paul Pelliot, who translated the text into French in 1902, noticed an oddity. Zhou never writes "Angkor." He says "the city," "the walled city" or "the capital."
The name Angkor Thom comes from the French. Older sources give other names: Indrapatha Nagara in the Emerald Buddha Chronicle; Sri Yasodharapura, which George Coedès recognized behind a name cited in an inscription from Sukhothai; Preah Nokor Luong among the people of Ayutthaya; Eyntapath Moha Nokor in the Cambodian chronicles. The word Eyntapath appears on a silver coin struck in 1847 under King Ang Duong. Zhou may simply have preferred a plain term.
A throne taken by sword and marriage
The envoy arrived in the first year of Indravarman III's reign. Before his coronation the man was called Srindravarman. He was a general under King Jayavarman VIII and, according to tradition, came from Samrè.
He was also the lover of the king's daughter. He asked her to steal the Preah Khan Reach, the Sacred Sword, without which no monarch was legitimate. The crown prince tried to act. Srindravarman had him arrested, had his toes cut off and locked him up. A mutilated prince could no longer claim the throne.
Zhou reports the episode himself: the king's son-in-law, the golden sword handed over by his wife, the brother cut out of the succession, the severed toes, the dungeon. Srindravarman then married the princess and was crowned by the chief Brahmin Vidyesavid. He later married Sri Suryalakshmi, niece of his guru Madhurendrapandita.
What the envoy saw
The king left the palace and walked the streets. Zhou notes the dates of the festivals, the science of Khmer astronomers, who could calculate eclipses, and the calendar. He describes monuments covered in gold, including the towers of the Bayon and the Phimeanakas. Noble houses have verandas and lead tiles. He puts the number of women in the palace between 3,000 and 5,000.
On religion, he admits his confusion. He distinguishes three groups:
• the Pan-ch'i, dressed like ordinary people but wearing a white cord around the neck. Kenneth So sees them as Brahmin priests, the Bakous;
• the Ch'u-ku, monks with shaved heads, in yellow robes, right shoulder bare, barefoot. They are Theravada Buddhists;
• the Pa-ssu-wei, whom he calls Taoists. Pelliot and Finot saw them as Shaivites of the Pashupata school.
Among the most sought-after Chinese goods, Zhou lists gold, silver and coloured silks, then a little tin, lacquerware, mercury, blue porcelain, paper, sandalwood, musk, umbrellas, iron pots, wooden combs and mats.
An Angkor still thriving
The image of an Angkor already in decline holds up poorly against this testimony. Historian Lawrence Palmer Briggs writes that the Customs describe a rich Cambodia at the height of its splendour. The country had been ravaged by the Siamese, but a vigorous young king now held the enemy at bay. The empire had lost territory. The Kambujadesa proper remained intact.
After the envoy left
Zhou left Angkor in July 1297. Ten years later, in 1307, Indravarman III abdicated in favour of a Yuvaraja, probably his brother-in-law. According to an inscription of 1309, he gave a village the following year to the senior monk Mahathera Siri Sirindamoli, then had a monastery built and a statue of the Buddha erected. George Coedès thinks he ended his life studying Theravada Buddhism.
Nothing more is known. No descendants are mentioned. Kenneth So wonders whether the king wanted to atone for forcing his father-in-law to abdicate. He also notes that this reign of a commoner coincides with the legend of Ta Chey, the gardener who became king, also called Ta Trasâk Paêm, "the grandfather of the sweet cucumbers." Is the legend based on real events? The question remains open.
Sources : « Itinéraire de Zhou Daguan de la Chine à Angkor en 1296-1297 », Kenneth So, 22 novembre 2025 ; « Zhou Daguan, l'auteur des Coutumes du Cambodge », Duan Lisheng, Angkor Database, Chinese Sources Series n° 004, 2021
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