Suvarnadvipa , “Island of Gold” in Sanskrit , is a name mentioned in the Indian epic Ramayana written between the iii th century BC. BC and iii th century AD. BC , and which perhaps designates the Indonesian island of Sumatra .
Accompanying Emperor Mahmud of Ghazni in his trip to India, the Persian scholar Al-Biruni writes in 1030 : “The islands of the east in this ocean, which are closer to China than to India, are the islands. of Zabaj, called by the Hindoos, Suvarnadvipa, that is to say the islands of gold … because we get a lot of gold in deposit if we wash only a little earth of this country . “