Mabuhay!

Today's question comes from Marie from the East Coast.

Marie asks… “Kuya Kirby, is it true that a Filipino Sultan was buried in Ancient China?”

Yes and No.

No, because there was no "Filipino" identity yet.

And during this time there were no Sultanates yet in the Philippines.

According to scholars the Sultanate of Sulu was only established sometime around 1450.

But yes, it is true that there was a King of Sulu who was buried in Ancient China.

And his name was "Paduka Pahala" also known as "Paduka Batara"

This happened in 1417, a few decades before Sulu became a Sultanate.

In 1417, there were three kings from Sulu who sailed to China on a diplomatic mission.

To befriend and strengthen ties with the Ming Dynasty of China, led by the Yongle Emperor.

And these three kings of Sulu were;

With

And of course, the most powerful of them,

This diplomatic mission consisted of a delegation of over 343 people.

343 people on a diplomatic mission to befriend the most powerful empire on earth at the time.

They arrived in August of 1417 and stayed until October of the same year

And the Kings of Sulu also brought with them tremendous amount of magnificent treasures and gifts

To present to the Yongle Emperor of China.

When they arrived in China they were welcomed with a grand reception and a lot of festivities.

Celebrations prepared by the Ming Dynasty for their arrival.

During this time, the Yongle Emperor of China was the most powerful person on earth.

And the Yongle Emperor himself recognized the Kings of Sulu as fellow sovereigns.

He treated them as fellow kings, not as mere chieftains.

In fact there are only three known kingdoms from precolonial Philippines

Whose rulers were recognized by ancient Chinese emperors as fellow kings and not as mere chieftains.

And these were the rulers of Sulu, Butuan, and Luzon.

The three kings of Sulu and their entire delegation were treated with the best hospitality the Ming dynasty could offer

In other words, this was a successful diplomatic mission of strengthening the friendship between Sulu and China.

And in return the Chinese emperor showered the Kings of Sulu with countless treasures and even provided them with a formidable military escort on their way back.

But sadly, on their long journey back to Sulu, Paduka Pahala/Batara suddenly fell ill.

And he died in the City of Dezhou, in the present-day province of Shandong near Beijing.

And when the Yongle Emperor found out about the sudden death of his dear friend, Paduka Pahala/Batara

He was immensely grief-stricken.

In fact, he ordered his entire empire to mourn the death of his dear friend.

He ordered to give Paduka Pahala/Batara an imperial funeral fit for a Chinese King.

And this imperial funeral is also reflected in the magnificently, elaborately, monumental royal tomb that was built for Paduka Pahala/Batara.

And next to this royal tomb, they also established a village to watch over and take care of Paduka Pahala's resting place.

This royal tomb and this village still exist to this day.

In fact, it is one of the top tourist attraction and pilgrimage destination in the city of Dezhou.

A place I've been wanting to visit for a long time!

Not just as a historian, but also as a descendant of the First Sultan of Sulu.

Now back to 1417,

After the imperial funeral Paduka Batara’s first wife and his eldest son returned to Sulu.

They sailed back to Sulu while his second wife and two younger sons stayed behind.

His second wife and two younger sons remained in China to observe the traditional three years of mourning

But even after these three years of mourning period,

Paduka Pahala’s second son, Wenhali, and his third son, Antulu

Along with eighteen of their followers chose to remain in China to watch over the tomb of their beloved King and Father.

And they were taken cared of and welcomed warmly by the Chinese Muslim community along with a generous pension from the emperor.

Wenhali and Antulu’s descendants still live in the same village today.

In fact, there are thousands of their descendants with last names “Wen” and “An” scattered all over China today!

But who was Paduka Pahala? Who was the real Paduka Batara?

Debates over the true identity and life of Paduka Pahala continues to this day.

Prominent scholars like Cesar Majul believe that Paduka Batara was the same person as Raja Sipad the Younger of Sulu.

But of course six hundred years have passed. Much of our history was erased by colonialism.

Further research is still very much needed,

We still have so much to learn and unlearn about our precolonial past.

There’s so much more we still need to study and to dig deeper to get to know our ancestors.

So now what? What's the significance of this event?

As mentioned earlier, Sulu was one of the three known kingdoms,

Precolonial kingdoms in what is now the Philippines whose rulers were recognized as kings, as fellow kings by the ancient Chinese emperors.

And these were the Kingdoms of Sulu, Butuan, and Luzon.

Precolonial kingdoms whose tributes were not seen as signs of submission and surrender.

But instead they were testaments of their friendship and alliance.

In other words, these three precolonial kingdoms of Sulu, Butuan, and Luzon,

Were kingdoms recognized by the ancient Chinese emperors as friends and peers, not as occupied colonies.

And this historic event was also one of the earliest known diplomatic missions between China and the Philippines.

But it is not the earliest, not the very first diplomatic mission from the archipelago to China.

Because that would actually be the one from Butuan, hundreds of years before Paduka Pahala was born.

But this 1417 mission is in fact the earliest known diplomatic mission

In which sovereign kings from the islands of the Philippines went on the mission, on a diplomatic mission themselves.

This was the earliest recorded state visit of a leader, of a sovereign king from the Philippines to officially go visit a foreign land.

And this historic event also indicates ancient China’s utmost respect to our ancestors.

We can see in this historic friendship, the tremendous love, recognition, and respect by ancient Chinese towards our ancestors.

But what do you think?

What do you think are the important lessons from this historic friendship?

Let me know in the comments below.

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Dacal pung salámat!

See you next time, or in Tagalog,