Philippine folklore: Princess Urduja Options

[salamat]

Urduja

This article is about Urduja as the heroine in Pangasinan. For the animated film about Urduja, see Urduja (film).
Philippine mythology

Region Pangasinan
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Urduja (ca. 1350 C.E - 1400 C.E.), is a legendary warrior-princess who is recognized as a heroine in Pangasinan, Philippines. The name Urduja appears to be Sanskrit in origin, and a variation of the name "Udaya," meaning "arise" or "rising sun," or the name "Urja," meaning "breath." A historical reference to Urduja can be found in the travel account of Ibn Battuta (1304 - possibly 1368 or 1377 C.E.), a Muslim traveler from Morocco.


[edit] Ibn Battuta
Ibn Battuta described Urduja as the ruler of Kaylukari in the land of Tawalisi. After reaching Samudra in what is now Sumatra, Ibn Battuta passed by Tawalisi on his way to China. Princess Urduja was described as a daughter of a ruler named Tawalisi of a land that was also called Tawalisi. The ruler of Tawalisi, according to Ibn Battuta, possessed many ships and was a rival of China, which was then ruled by a Mongol dynasty.[1] Ibn Battuta sailed for 17 days to reach China from the land of Tawalisi.[2]

Ibn Battuta made a pilgrimage to Mecca and he traveled to many other parts of the Islamic world. From India and Sumatra, Ibn Battuta reached the land of Tawalisi. Ibn Battuta described Urduja as a warrior princess whose army was composed of men and women. Urduja was a woman warrior who personally took part in the fighting and engaged in duels with other warriors. She was quoted as saying that she will marry no one but him who defeats her in duel. Other warriors avoided fighting her for fear of being disgraced.[3]

Urduja impressed Ibn Battuta with her military exploits and her ambition to lead an expedition to India, known to her as the "Pepper Country." She also showed her hospitality by preparing a banquet for Ibn Battuta and the crew of his ship. Urduja generously provided Ibn Battuta with gifts that included robes, rice, two buffaloes, and four large jars of ginger, pepper, lemons, and mangoes, all salted, in preparation for Ibn Battuta's sea-voyage to China.[4]

[edit] Research
Modern research indicates Ibn Batutta's story of Urduja to be pure fiction and the land of Tawalisi to be similarly fictitious. [5]

However, in the late 19th Century, Jose Rizal, national hero of the Philippines, who was also a respected scholar but who did not have access to the sources William Henry Scott accessed, speculated that the land of Tawalisi was in the area of the northern part of the Philippines, based on his calculation of the time and distance of travel Ibn Battuta took to sail to China from Tawalisi. In 1916, Austin Craig, a historian of the University of the Philippines, in "The Particulars of the Philippines Pre-Spanish Past," who also did not have access to the sources William Henry Scott accessed, traced the land of Tawalisi and Princess Urduja to Pangasinan. Philippine school textbooks used to include Princess Urduja in the list of great Filipinos. In the province of Pangasinan, the capitol building in Lingayen is named "Urduja Palace." A statue of Princess Urduja stands at the Hundred Islands National Park in Pangasinan.

The description of Princess Urduja's gifts of rice, buffaloes, ginger, pepper, lemons, mangoes, and salt fits Pangasinan perfectly because of the abundance of those products in Pangasinan. The closely related Ibaloi people have an oral tradition of a woman named Udayan who ruled an ancient alliance of lowland and highland settlements in Pangasinan and the neighboring province of Benguet. Ibn Battuta also mentioned that Urduja had some knowledge of Turkish. During the time of Ibn Battuta period, the influence of the Turkish Ottoman Empire was on the rise.

Ibn Batutta's travel account suggests that he also saw elephants in the land ruled by Urduja. Elephants can still be found in Borneo, and may have been gifts or traded in Pangasinan in earlier times. Ancient Malayo-Polynesian sailing vessels, like the ones used by the ancient Bugis and those depicted in the Borobudur bas-reliefs, were capable of transporting heavy cargoes, including elephants. There are depictions of such ancient ships in maritime Southeast Asia transporting several elephants for trade.

In Pangasinan, Urduja has been depicted as the only daughter of a Rajah whose sons lost their lives defending their agricultural settlements in the Agno River valley and sea trade routes to their Srivijaya and Champa allies. Urduja was trained in the art of war since she was a child, and she became an expert with the kampilan and a skilled navigator. She commanded a fleet of proas to protect their maritime trade networks against pirates and threats from Mongol ruled China. With her beauty, she attracted many suitors.

[edit] Animated film

[taolander]

anybody watch the recent cartoon adaption ?

[salamat]

anybody watch the recent cartoon adaption ?

saw a trailer for it....thought it was a rip-off of pocahontas

just replace john smith with a chinese guy...lol

[taolander]

only saw the trailer on youtube...

Try this out if you want to translate more into baybayin

[*promo]

saw a trailer for it....thought it was a rip-off of pocahontas

just replace john smith with a chinese guy...lol

just saw it too.

OMFG! seriously! at least speak CORRECTLY! CORRECTLY! CORRECTLY! that cartoon is piece of $hit!

oh one more point speak CORRECTLY!

fu-k this taglish BS! you all sound like a bunch retards. replacing words that DO EXIST in the (insert your own language) VOCABULARY in place of another language.

another point you all sound like a bunch retards when you speak! are you retarded?


is this some sort of wannabe upperclass i'm motherfu-kin cash money i's gots me some edumakation $hit? i wanne rub it yo poo face type of thang? /ghetto thang over.


keyword some...

[trismegistos]

I had created a thread before about Urduja and Tawalishi or Shilifoshi... http://www.asiafinest.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=205787

Let's see...

- A rival of China, which was then ruled by the Mongolians

- a desire to conquer the pepper country now called India(formerly British India with now Malaysia)

- possessed many paraos or sea-going vessels for trade and alliance purposes

All appears like sri-Bisayan este Srivijayan to me. he he

Coedes termed Srivijayas to refer to an alliance of rajanates then known to the early Arabs as Zabag whose ruler was known as the Maharaja or known to the early chinese as Shilifoshi or TAWALISHI or Sanfoqui or Sanfotsi.

This folkloric legend could be an allusion to the actual.

The people of Sanfotsi accdg to the early chinese writers rode in Posse ships which was wrongly translated as Persian ships perhaps because of the alliance of Sanfotsi with the Persian Sayabiga forerunner of the Assassins, allies of the Knight templars.

Sanfotsi or Srivijayan elements in Lusung must be gone after the Pinatubo eruption and Islamization during the invasion of Raja Baguinda of Sulu and Maguindanao also known as Sultan Bolkeiah or Nakhoda Ragam of the Sultanate of Brunei.

Google the Laguna copperplate inscription, Sanfotsi and Zabag.

In fairness to Rizal, the late William Henry Scott also didn't have accessed to the Laguna copperplate Inscription as well as the early chinese and arab writings though he possessed much greater access to the early spanish and portuguese documents or writings pertaining to the Philippine isles which Rizal had no full access at that time.

Jose Rizal would not waste his time about Battuta's travel if he didn't believe it except for the gross exaggerations. Urduja, of course was not the real name. The name of the princess is written in Arabic consonants equivalent to English GTRDJ or WHRDJ which was read by Dr. Jose Rizal and other authors during his time as Wahi Arduja and later it is read as Urduja.

Kingdom of Luzon with its eastern capital Tongduk and Urduja: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Tondo

Tondo achieved its greatest power during the reign of Rajah Lontok and his consort Dayang Kaylangitan believing that she bore her talents from her Tawalisi princess, Urduja which happened to be her ancestor through his father Rajah Gambang.

Raja Gambang, btw, was the ruler back then of the Kingdom of Lusong or Selurung as it was known to the invader Sri-Bisayan Sultan Bolkeiah of Sulu, Maguindanao and Brunei. Sultan
Bolkeiah or Ragam married the daughter of the slain ruler to continue the line of the Pasig dynasty. The descendants include Soliman or Raja Muda and Lakandula.
links...
http://www.asiafinest.com/forum/index.php?...t&p=4185102
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/4059/ascend.htm
http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Coast/7446/Ragam.htm


I think we need more movies like this Urduja no matter fantastical or grossly inaccurate it is, can aid our youth for searching about our lost past with the Srivijayas etc which was lost after 400 years of colonization.

This post has been edited by trismegistos: Oct 3 2009, 08:48 AM

[Suzuka00]

Urduja

This article is about Urduja as the heroine in Pangasinan. For the animated film about Urduja, see Urduja (film).
Philippine mythology

Region Pangasinan
This box: view • talk
Urduja (ca. 1350 C.E - 1400 C.E.), is a legendary warrior-princess who is recognized as a heroine in Pangasinan, Philippines. The name Urduja appears to be Sanskrit in origin, and a variation of the name "Udaya," meaning "arise" or "rising sun," or the name "Urja," meaning "breath." A historical reference to Urduja can be found in the travel account of Ibn Battuta (1304 - possibly 1368 or 1377 C.E.), a Muslim traveler from Morocco.


[edit] Ibn Battuta
Ibn Battuta described Urduja as the ruler of Kaylukari in the land of Tawalisi. After reaching Samudra in what is now Sumatra, Ibn Battuta passed by Tawalisi on his way to China. Princess Urduja was described as a daughter of a ruler named Tawalisi of a land that was also called Tawalisi. The ruler of Tawalisi, according to Ibn Battuta, possessed many ships and was a rival of China, which was then ruled by a Mongol dynasty.[1] Ibn Battuta sailed for 17 days to reach China from the land of Tawalisi.[2]

Ibn Battuta made a pilgrimage to Mecca and he traveled to many other parts of the Islamic world. From India and Sumatra, Ibn Battuta reached the land of Tawalisi. Ibn Battuta described Urduja as a warrior princess whose army was composed of men and women. Urduja was a woman warrior who personally took part in the fighting and engaged in duels with other warriors. She was quoted as saying that she will marry no one but him who defeats her in duel. Other warriors avoided fighting her for fear of being disgraced.[3]

Urduja impressed Ibn Battuta with her military exploits and her ambition to lead an expedition to India, known to her as the "Pepper Country." She also showed her hospitality by preparing a banquet for Ibn Battuta and the crew of his ship. Urduja generously provided Ibn Battuta with gifts that included robes, rice, two buffaloes, and four large jars of ginger, pepper, lemons, and mangoes, all salted, in preparation for Ibn Battuta's sea-voyage to China.[4]

[edit] Research
Modern research indicates Ibn Batutta's story of Urduja to be pure fiction and the land of Tawalisi to be similarly fictitious. [5]

However, in the late 19th Century, Jose Rizal, national hero of the Philippines, who was also a respected scholar but who did not have access to the sources William Henry Scott accessed, speculated that the land of Tawalisi was in the area of the northern part of the Philippines, based on his calculation of the time and distance of travel Ibn Battuta took to sail to China from Tawalisi. In 1916, Austin Craig, a historian of the University of the Philippines, in "The Particulars of the Philippines Pre-Spanish Past," who also did not have access to the sources William Henry Scott accessed, traced the land of Tawalisi and Princess Urduja to Pangasinan. Philippine school textbooks used to include Princess Urduja in the list of great Filipinos. In the province of Pangasinan, the capitol building in Lingayen is named "Urduja Palace." A statue of Princess Urduja stands at the Hundred Islands National Park in Pangasinan.

The description of Princess Urduja's gifts of rice, buffaloes, ginger, pepper, lemons, mangoes, and salt fits Pangasinan perfectly because of the abundance of those products in Pangasinan. The closely related Ibaloi people have an oral tradition of a woman named Udayan who ruled an ancient alliance of lowland and highland settlements in Pangasinan and the neighboring province of Benguet. Ibn Battuta also mentioned that Urduja had some knowledge of Turkish. During the time of Ibn Battuta period, the influence of the Turkish Ottoman Empire was on the rise.

Ibn Batutta's travel account suggests that he also saw elephants in the land ruled by Urduja. Elephants can still be found in Borneo, and may have been gifts or traded in Pangasinan in earlier times. Ancient Malayo-Polynesian sailing vessels, like the ones used by the ancient Bugis and those depicted in the Borobudur bas-reliefs, were capable of transporting heavy cargoes, including elephants. There are depictions of such ancient ships in maritime Southeast Asia transporting several elephants for trade.

In Pangasinan, Urduja has been depicted as the only daughter of a Rajah whose sons lost their lives defending their agricultural settlements in the Agno River valley and sea trade routes to their Srivijaya and Champa allies. Urduja was trained in the art of war since she was a child, and she became an expert with the kampilan and a skilled navigator. She commanded a fleet of proas to protect their maritime trade networks against pirates and threats from Mongol ruled China. With her beauty, she attracted many suitors.

[edit] Animated film

Urduja is the ancestor of the Ibalois according to their tradition.