IV. “Cina is Guangzhou”

Guangzhou was the maritime trade center of China in the Tang dynasty and the only port with a Maritime Trade Supervisorate. The City was situated in an important geographic location; to the common people, it was regarded as a prosperous place. Foreign goods were shipped to the city every day, including beads, incense, ivory, rhino horn and jewelry. These numerous treasures circulated in China and they seemed inexhaustible.Prelude:Farewell to Liu Xielü by Yuzhao wrote,"Upon the South China Sea an important city to the country is situated. In the city, products from northern China converged and scholars and the common people congregated, whose numbers reached hundreds or even thousands every day so that the ships seemed to link with one another and the wheels of the wagons collided". The Arabian geographic classic,Book of Roads and Kingdoms(Kitābal-Masālik w'al-Mamālik)documented several ports on the south coasts in the Tang dynasty: Lūqīn (Hanoi, Vietnam today), Khānfū (Guangzhou, China) which was the largest port in Tang times, Khānfū(arguably Fuzhou or Quanzhou of China) and Qāntū (Yangzhou, China).

Guangzhou had already earned its fame in the world in those days. The Arabs called Guangzhou "Khānfū" while the Indians named the place 'Cina' (China). In the Tang dynasty, Monk Yiseng, on his introduction of 'Cina Temple' built by Sri Gupta(King of Gupta)for the 'Cina Monks who were paying pilgrimage',explained in his Biographies of Famous Pilgrims, "Cina is Guangzhou and Mahacina is the capital [Changan], which is also called Devaputra meaning the emperor". Zanning also confirmed the reference of 'Cina' in Song Biographies of Eminent Monks.When he introduced Monk Jiliang, he wrote, "Monk Jiliang came from central India. His Sanskrit name was Pramiti (transliteration) and here he is called Jiliang. He believed in the teachings of the Buddha and Nirvana, he travelled around the world to spread them. And he reached 'Cina'." Zanning annotated on 'Cina' in these sentences, "The Indian called Guangzhou Cina and the capital of the court [i.e. the capital of China] Mahacina by custom."

Guangzhou became the alternative name for China, chiefly attributed to the fact that it was a major transit hub: foreign envoys, merchants or civilians who travelled to China in the Tang dynasty normally reached other parts of the country via Guangzhou. As was recorded in New History of the Tang Dynasty, among the foreign countries which paid tributes, "for those travelling by sea, Guangzhou authorities chose the chief envoy and two of his companies to the court. The amount of their tributes should be reported to the Honglu[the officer in charge of tribute]". If foreigners exited the country by sea, they had to embark from Guangzhou. Meanwhile, the city was interwoven with Chinese and foreigners. Guangzhou being 'cosmopolitan' , its citizens lived with foreigners from overseas as well as merchants from everywhere. In the west of the city,a dedicated community called the 'Foreign Quarter' (Fanfang)was set up for foreigners. In the 9th century, Arab merchant Sulayman al-Tajir remarked in his Ancient Accounts of India and China(Akhbār al-Sīnwa'l-Hind)that Guangzhou was "the Port for all Arabian Merchants " and "the Port for all Merchants from Siraf".Recorded in The Story of the Eminent Monk who Sailed to the East in the Tang Dynasty,in the 7th year of Tianbao,Master Jianzhen of the Vinaya School of Chinese Buddhism that focuses on the rules of monastic life, travelled to Japan for the fifth time by ship from Yangzhou. Unfortunately, he was caught in a storm at sea and his ship drifted to Zhenzhou in Hainan. Subsequently, reaching Guangzhou after several further attempts, he caught sight of the 'numerous' vessels of Brahmans, Persians and with draughts reaching 6 to 7 zhang in depth, berthed upon the Pearl River, fully loaded with piles of incense and jewelry like hills; various foreign merchants such as those from Sinhala, Tazi (Arabia), Gutang Kingdom (Condore) and those of the 'White Barbarians' (Europeans) and the 'Red Barbarians' (Africa) traveled to and from Guangzhou as well as resided in the city". As a result, American Sinologist E. H Schafer asserted, "Of all the cities of the south, and of all the towns where foreign merchants congregated, none was more prosperous than the great port of Canton, the Khanfu of the Arabs, the 'China' of the Indians."