I.

Introduction
Philippine mythology include a collection of tales and superstitions
about magical creatures and entities. Many Filipinos, even though heavily
Christianized, still believe in these tales. Philippine mythology includes a
collection of tales and superstitions about magical creatures and entities.
The prevalence of belief in the figures of Filipino mythology is strong in
the provinces. Because the country has many islands and is inhabited by
different ethnic groups, Philippine mythology and superstitions are very
diverse.
Just like in Pangasinan, the Myth of Princess Urduja. The name "Urduja"
appears to be sanskrit in origin and a variation of the name "Udaya" meaning
"arise" or "rising sun"

II. Background of the study

The following study will be about the Myth of Princess Urduja. Her life
and works and how she lived soundly as a warrior princess in Pangasinan.
The study we conducted is to seek and prove whether Princess Urduja is an
actual historical figure or whether she is just a mythical character.
III. Presentation of historical data
Urduja (ca.

13501400

legendary warrior princess who

AD)
is

is

recognized

said
as

to
a

be
heroine

a
of

either Pangasinan, Philippines or Champa, today located in Southern Vietnam

. 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 A historical reference to Urduja can be found in the travel account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 AD), a Muslim traveler
from Morocco.
The legend of Princess Urduja can be attributed to the famous story of
Mohammedan traveler, Ibn Batuta of India. In 1347 he was a passenger on a
Chinese junk, which has just come from the port of Kakula, north of Java and
Sumatra and passed by Pangasinan on the way to Canton, China.
Urduja, who had a particular fascination for the renowed "Pepper Country"-pepper being considered black gold then--was quoted by Batuta as saying, "I
must positively go to war with that country, and get possession of it, for its
great wealth and great forces attract me."
The Philippines' national hero Dr. Jose Rizal, in Dr. Austin Craig's 1916
paper
"Particulars of the Philippines' Pre-Spanish Past" was quoted as saying in one
of his letters: "While I may have doubts regarding the accuracy of Ibn
Batuta's details, I still beleive in the voyage to Tawalisi". He went as far as to
calculate the distance and time of travel from the port of Kakula. Rizal's
commentary was triggered by a scholar, Sir Henry Yule, who wrote in his time
that:

"Tawalisi

may

be

found

only

in

Gulliver

geography."

Today, years after scholars have passionately debated whether the

14th-century heroine is a product of mythology or history, Princess Urduja
continues to fascinate Filipinos. In Pangasinan, the Governor's office building
in the coastal town of Lingayen is called the Urduja Palace. So is a hotel
along

the

highway.

Urduja's name still has great resonance among the Ibaloi, one of the
major ethnolinguistic tribes in the Cordillera region. Dr. Morr Tadeo Pungayan,
a respected scholar of Ibaloi culture and professor at the St. Louis University
of Baguio City, said, "Linguistically, Urduja is Deboxah (pronounced Debuca)
in Ibaloi. We've always had a woman named Deboxah from time immemorial
among the genrations of Ibaloi. The name usually describes a woman of
strong quality and character who's nobly descended. That name is an Ibaloi
name.

That's

why

Ibaloi

trace

their

ancestry

from

Urduja".

The Cordillera tribes, also known collectively as Igorots, pride

themselves as being the only ethnic group that doesn't talk about the origin
of man according to Spanish chronicles. Among the tribes, genealogy and
family history are orally passed history. The Ibaloi, just like other highland
tribes, could easily trace their ancestry. This is ensured by their custom of
naming newborns after ancestors to help keep their memory alive and evoke
affection and protection.

"No Ibaloi will bear the name of an ancestor unless she's related," Dr.
Pungayan explained. While the Bontoc tribe bestows the name of an
ancestor to a grandchild, the Ibaloi style is namesaking the great-grandchild,
he added.
A book on the history of Benguet province, written by Anavic
Bagamasbad and Zenaida Hamada-Pawid, shows the Benguet genealogy
tracing tribal family lines from the year 1380 to 1899. The book says, "The
extent of inter-settlement alliances is climaxed in the memory of Tublay
informants with the reign of Deboxah, Princess Urduja, in Pinga. She's
acknowledged as the granddaughter of Udayan, an outstanding warrior of
Darew. Her death signaled continuous decline of kinship and alliance
between

highland

and

lowland

settlements."

Darew mountain range is remembered as the earliest settlement in the

mining town of Tublay. The close relations between the Cordilleras and
Lingayen are well-accounted for in Batuta's chronicle. It said that the
Kingdom of Tawalisi was very extensive, including the vast areas up to the
fringes of the Benguet mountains and the Cordillera ranges in the east of
Luzon.
The ruler, Batuta further said,"possesses numerous junks with which he
makes war upon the Chinese until they sue for peace and consent to grant
him certain concessions.

Modern

research

by

historian William

Henry

Scott indicates

Ibn

Batutta's story of Urduja to be pure fiction and the land of Tawalisi to be

similarly fictitious.
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 William Henry
Scott's sources, 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, an American 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 relied upon by William Henry Scott, traced the land of
Tawalisi and Princess Urduja to Pangasinan. However, the sources relied upon
by William Henry Scott was very limited and not definitive; he did not do
substantive archaeological work in Pangasinan or a more detailed study of
Pangasinan history. Philippine school textbooks used to include Princess
Urduja in the list of great Filipinos. In the province of Pangasinan, the
governor's residence in Lingayen is named "Urduja House". A statue of
Princess Urduja stands at the Hundred Islands National Park in Pangasinan.
Princess

Urduja's

gifts

of rice,

buffaloes, ginger, pepper, lemons, mangoes, and salt are products that are
abundant in Pangasinan and India. 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, which indicates some contact with foreigners. During
the time of Ibn Battuta, the influence of the Turkish Ottoman Empire was on
the rise in India, but not in the Philippines, which provides a conflicting
account of whether Urduja was indeed from the Philippines.
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 MalayoPolynesian sailing vessels (such as the Balangay), 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, the legendary 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 trained in the art of war since she
was a child and became an expert with the kampilan and a skilled navigator.
She commanded a flotilla of proas to protect her country's maritime trade
networks against pirates and threats from Mongol ruled China. With her
beauty, she attracted many suitors.

Despite recent research, however, most academicians remain cold to

oral history, saying that such accounts still have to pass through stringent
rigors of scholarship.
Today, some historians consider the issue of Urduja's historicity as
closed. Compounding the issue is the lack of archaelogical evidence on the
existence of the Shri-Visayan Empire. In fact, other aspects of Philippine
history are being doubted,too, especially since the late William Henry Scott,
an American historian in the Cordillera, proved that the so-called preHispanic laws--the Kalantiaw and Maragtas Codes--were faked or invented by
psuedo historians who only wanted fame or riches for themselves.

IV. Analysis
The only firsthand account of Princess Urduja is found in the
travelogues of the Islamic writer Ibn Battuta. In his diaries, Battuta narrated
his journey as he passed by the province of Pangasinan on his way to
Canton, China, in the year 1347. He was appointed as an honorary citizen of
a kingdom named Tawalisi which was ruled by a king with a daughter named
Urduja. Urduja had proven herself in battle where her brother had fallen
short, and so was granted charge over much of the kingdom. Battuta
described Urduja as a warrior princess who personally fought in battles and
duels and led a retinue of skilled female warriors riding on horseback.

For a time, feminists tried to revive the Urduja story but were
discouraged to learn that Batuta's account of the voyage to Tawalisi was
labeled as either an intrigue or a fantasy. Scholars, considering the story
absurd, declared Urduja a myth.
In 1916, Austin Craig's paper entitled "The Particulars of the Philippines PreSpanish Past" quoted Jose Rizal's belief in Ibn Battuta's journey to Tawalisi,
although he had doubts about its accuracy. Rizal based his own speculations
on his calculation of the time and distance of travel Battuta took to sail from
China

to

Tawalisi.

The Ibaloi tribe of the Cordillera region are said to trace their ancestry from
Urduja. The name "Urduja" is rendered as "Deboxah" or "Debuca" in the
Ibaloi language, and refers to a strong woman of noble descent.
Restituto Basa (author of Footnotes on Pangasinan History and The Story of
Dagupan) believes that Urduja was not a Pangasinense but a Cambodian. He
asserts that one who should be honored as a heroine of Pangasinan is
Princess Kabontatala, daughter of the ruler of Barangay Domalandan, who
married the Chinese pirate Lim-Ahong and helped him dig a canal to escape
from the Spanish forces who blockaded the mouth of the Agno River.
When only an account by a foreign traveler is the only reliable source,
the existence of Urduja should be examined by other means. The Ibaloi oral
tradition has been there for centuries and was passed from generation to
generation, surprisingly there was no mentioned of the existence of a power
warrior princess. However, in the tradition, a prominent woman was

mmentioned. Deboxah is believed to be Urduja (maybe her probable Islamic

name was coined by Battuta). According to Saint Louis University proffesor
Dr. Morr Tadeo Pungayan, a renowned expert in Ibaloi culture, Linguistically,
Urduja is Deboxah (pronounced Debuca) in Ibaloi. Weve always had a
woman named Deboxah from time immemorial among the genrations of
Ibaloi. The name usually describes a woman of strong quality and character
whos nobly descended. That name is an Ibaloi name. Thats why Ibaloi trace
their ancestry from Urduja. Writer John Smart believes that Urduja is a
mispronounciation of Deboxah.
But one thing that leaves a big question mark in my head, why did
Battuta mentioned Urduja in his account? Was she a really important person?
The questions of Urdujas existence in Battutas travelogue only added
more questions than answers. According to Smart, Urduja was a leader of
such significant import that the lowland and highland tribes, from Mountain
Province to Zambales, acknowledged her unifying power such that peace
reigned throughout the central regions of Luzon for fear of retribution by her
red-breasted warriors or kinalakian. Batutas explicit description no doubt
stems from the striking contrast a topless, suntanned, copper-skinned
woman must have offered when compared to those in his own country, who
more timidly exposed their bodies in private and far away from any
sunlight, Smart adds.

Urduja inherited her fathers kingdom after her brother failed to make
an impact in battle. The Kingdom of Tawalisi was believed to be located in
Pangasinan, according to an estimate of Battutas travel to China (Battuta
said that he reached Tawalisi after a sea voyage of 71 days, 34 of which were
spent rowing due to no wind and reached China from Tawalisi after a voyage
of 17 days). However, Battutas description seemed to point to somewhere
else as he mentioned elephants in the kingdom, no elephants and fossilized
remains existed in the Philippines. Though its possible to transport
elephants via an extensive tribute system and if such system existed then
Tawalisi would probably been a powerful country because enforcing such
system would mean a powerful army and navy.
V. Conclusion
We still yet cannot prove whether it is actually a part of history or it is
just pigments of our cultures imagination. Although there are proofs or
evidences to prove her existence, its still not potent enough to state that it
is indeed true.
Dr. Jaime Veneracion, the University of the Philippines head of history
department, said that the old Chinese scripts which may have chronicled
Urduja's kingdom have remained inaccessible for their archaic language and
calligraphy.

But history buffs like writer Ed Reyes remain undaunted. He says: "The
researchers aren't conclusive, given the fact that the Philippine history has
only been covered in writing for the last 500 years"
VI. Recommendation
We conducted this research to prove whether Princess Urduja is a myth
or she was just a pigment of our cultures imagination.