Hello everyone! My name is Rhys and I am from the Philippines. Let me share you some of the facts I know about the Royalty in our country a long time ago:
This is a picture of the
Laguna Copperplate Inscription:
http://www.mts.net/~pmorrow/pictures/lciphoto.gif
Article about the Inscription:
http://www.mts.net/~pmorrow/lcieng.htm
The
Laguna Copperplate Inscription is an ancient steele that was found in 1989 near the mouth of the Lumbang River near Laguna de Bay by a man who was dredging to sand to turn into concrete. The man later sold it to an antique dealer, thinking that the artifact might have some value. When no one wants to but it, the antique dealer eventually sold it to the National Museum of the Philippines.
A year later, the Dutch Anthropologist and Mangyan language expert, Antoon Postma, who is also a long-time resident of the Philippines, was at the National Museum, and he noticed that the letters written in the Inscription has a similarity to the
Kavi script, an ancient script from Indonesia. Postma, with the help of fellow Dutchman, Dr. Johann de Casparis, translated the script and found that the document dated itself to the
Saka year 822, in the old Hindu calendar or the year 900 C.E. (common era) on our calendar.
The language written on the Inscription was a mixture of Sanskrit, Old Javanese, Old Malay and Old Tagalog, and the writing method was different. The document mentions the places of
Tondo,
Pila and
Pulilan in the area around the Manila Bay and
Mdan (or rather, the Javanese Kingdom of
Medang) in Indonesia.
The discovery of the Inscription proves that there are cultural links between the Tagalog-speaking people of this time and various contemporary civilizations in Asia.
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According to Wikipedia, the Capital City of the Philippines, Manila, is mentioned in the Laguna Copperplate Inscription. According to it, Manila is described as an Indianized Kingdom maintaining diplomatic relations with the Kingdom of Mdan (Medang) and commercial exchanges with Ancient Japan and Song Dynasty China.
The city was invaded by Brunei's Sultan
Bolkiah and was already Islamized by the 15th Century when the Spanish first arrived. Manila was first known as
Gintu (Land of Gold) or
Suvarnadvipa by its neighboring provinces, and was officially the
Kingdom of Maynila (
Maynila is the Tagalog name for the City of Manila and is still used to call the City)
.
The Kingdom of Maynila flourished during the latter half of the Ming Dynasty as a result of trade relations with China. Ancient Tondo was maintained as the traditional capital of the empire. Its rulers were equivalent to kings and not mere chieftains, and they were addressed as
panginuan or
panginoon ("lords"),
anak banwa ("son of heaven") or
lakandula ("lord of the palace"). During the 13th century, the city consisted of a fortified settlement and trading quarter at the shores of the Pasig River, on top of previous older towns.
There is also early evidence of Manila being invaded by the Indianized empire of
Majapahit, due to the epic eulogy poem
Nagarakretagama which inscribed its conquest by
Maharaja Haram Wuruk.
Saludong or
Selurong which is a historical name for the city of Manila is listed in
Canto 14 alongside
Sulot, which is now
Sulu, and
Kalka.
During the reign of Sultan Bolkiah in 1485 to 1521, the Sultanate of Brunei decided to break the Dynasty of Tondo's monopoly in the China trade by attacking it and establishing the state of Selurong (now Manila) as a Bruneian satellite-state.
A new dynasty under the Islamized
Rajah Salalila, was also established to challenge the House of Lakandula in Tondo. Islam was further strengthened by the arrival to the Philippines of traders and proselytizers from Malaysia and Indonesia. The multiple states that existed in the Philippines simplified Spanish colonization. Manila was temporarily threatened by the invasion of Chinese pirate-warlord
Limahong before it became the seat of the colonial government of Spain.
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I hope this might help, Thank you very much!
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