Suvarnabhumi

This article is about the ancient toponym. For the airport serving Bangkok, see Suvarnabhumi Airport. For the 18th-century settlement and present-day district in Northeast Thailand, see Suwannaphum District.

Suvarṇabhūmi (Sanskrit: सुवर्णभूमि; Pali: Suvaṇṇabhūmi)[a] is a toponym, that appears in many ancient Indian literary sources and Buddhist texts[1] such as the Mahavamsa,[2] some of the Jataka tales,[3][4] the Milinda Panha[5] and the Ramayana.[6]

Though its exact location is unknown and remains a matter of debate, Suvarṇabhūmi was an important port along trade routes that run through the Indian Ocean, setting sail from the wealthy ports in Basra, Ubullah, and Siraf, through Muscat, Malabar, Ceylon, the Nicobars, Kedah and on through the Strait of Malacca to fabled Suvarṇabhūmi.[7]

Ian Glover, Emeritus Reader in Southeast Asian Archaeology at the University of London, has said: “It is widely accepted in the 21st century that Suvarnabhumi as reported in early Indian literature was not a specific location which can be marked on a map. Rather, it was an idealised place, perhaps equivalent to Atlantis in Western history, a distant somewhere to the east of India where traders, sailors, and Buddhist and Hindu teachers went to make their fortunes and spread their teachings and bring back gold and other exotic products desired by a rising elite and the wealthy classes at home.”[8]


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  1. ^ Sailendra Nath Sen (1999). Ancient Indian History and Civilization. New Age International. ISBN 9788122411980. Retrieved November 30, 2018.
  2. ^ "To Suvarnabhumi he [Moggaliputta] sent Sona and Uttara"; Mahānāma, The Mahāvaṃsa, or, The Great Chronicle of Ceylon, translated into English by Wilhelm Geiger, assisted by Mabel Haynes Bode, with an addendum by G.C. Mendis, London, Luzac & Co. for the Pali Text Society, 1964, Chapter XII, "The Converting of Different Countries", p.86.
  3. ^ Sussondi-Jātaka, Sankha-Jātaka, Mahājanaka-Jātaka, in Edward B. Cowell (ed.), The Jātaka: or Stories of the Buddha's Former Births, London, Cambridge University Press, 1897; reprinted Pali Text Society, dist. by Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969, Vol. III, p.124; Vol. IV, p.10; Vol. VI, p.22
  4. ^ J. S. Speyer, The Jatakamala or Garland of Birth-Stories of Aryasura, Sacred Books of the Buddhists, Vol. I, London, Henry Frowde, 1895; reprint: Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 1982, No.XIV, Supâragajâtaka, pp.453-462.
  5. ^ R.K. Dube, "Southeast Asia as the Indian El-Dorado", in Chattopadhyaya, D. P. and Project of History of Indian Science, Philosophy, and Culture (eds.), History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1999, Vol.1, Pt.3, C.G. Pande (ed.), India's Interaction with Southeast Asia, Chapter 6, pp.87-109.
  6. ^ Anna T. N. Bennett (31 December 2009). "Gold in early Southeast Asia (paragraph no. 6)". Archeosciences. Revue d'Archéométrie (33). Open Edition: 99–107. doi:10.4000/archeosciences.2072. Retrieved November 30, 2018.
  7. ^ Schafer, Edward H. (1963). The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of Tang Exotics. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-05462-2.
  8. ^ Ian Glover, “Suvarnabhumi – Myth or Reality?”, Banchā Phongphānit& Somčhēt Thinnaphong (ed.), Suvarnabhumi: the Golden Land: the New Finding for Suvarnabhumi Terra Incognita, Bangkok, Thailand, GISTDA and BIA, 2019, pp.11-16.