kingdom · Mainland Southeast Asia

Pan Pan

424 CE – 700 CE (approx.)

A small Indianised kingdom on the Malay Peninsula that sent envoys to China in the 5th to 7th centuries and was known for its Brahmins and Buddhist monks.

Origins

Pan Pan appears in Chinese dynastic histories from 424, when it began sending tribute missions to the Liu Song court. Its location is uncertain: most scholars place it on the east coast of the Malay Peninsula, perhaps around the Bay of Bandon near Surat Thani, though Kelantan and Terengganu have also been proposed.

Rule and society

Chinese sources describe a kingdom where many Brahmins from India lived and were honoured by the king, and where there were Buddhist monasteries and monks who studied the scriptures. Like other peninsular ports, it profited from trade crossing the isthmus between the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea, offering aromatics and other local goods.

Decline and legacy

Missions from Pan Pan stop being recorded after the 7th century, and it was probably absorbed into larger networks such as Srivijaya or the states that became Tambralinga. Its main interest today lies in what it shows of early Indian religious influence on the peninsula.

Few sources survive for this state; details are uncertain.

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Cite this page
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Pan Pan. In The Epoch Institute States Register. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/pan-pan
MLA
“Pan Pan.” The Epoch Institute States Register, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/pan-pan. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Pan Pan.” The Epoch Institute States Register. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/pan-pan.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Pan Pan’, The Epoch Institute States Register. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/pan-pan (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random state ↻