Chile and
Vietnam are spaghetti shaped countries; Chile is clearly delimited by the mighty
Andes, while Vietnam’s shape had been similarly influenced by the much lower
Anammite Mountains, separating it from the
Tai-Kadai people to the west.
During my first visit to Vietnam I comprehended another – not less dramatic – border; Vietnam is geographically divided also on the north to south axis. Roughly at the center of the country, the mountains dramatically drop to the sea creating a real barrier between the northern and southern parts. At least two times this barrier has defined political frontiers; the last was during the Vietnam-USA War; the first was when it roughly defined the northern border of the
Champa Kingdom with the
Dai Viet Kingdom (future Vietnam).
The Champa Kingdom reached all the way south to the
Mekong Delta; the last was under tight control of the
Khmer Empire. The Cham people began organizing themselves around the fourth century AC and their kingdom existed until 1832; it was preceded by an earlier kingdom called Lin Yi or Lam Ap. Following the tenth century a steady decline of the kingdom began due to the pressure of the Dai Viet and the Khmer. In 1471, Viet troops sacked the northern Cham capital of Vijaya, and in 1697 the southern principality of Panduranga became a vassal of the Vietnamese emperor. In 1832, the Vietnamese emperor Minh Mang annexed the remaining Cham territories.
Five CitiesChampa was a confederation of five cities named after historic regions in India – a result of their having been successfully converted by Buddhist missionaries from there.
Indrapura was near modern
Hoi An, the city is now called Dong Duong, and the nearby My Son Valley bears the highest number of Champa ruins.
Amaravati was in modern Quang Nam,
Vijaya is modern Cha Ban while historical
Kauthara became modern Nha Trang, the only one of these cities that retained some importance. Finally,
Panduranga is now called Phan Rang. The relative importance of each city varied along time; invariably they became tourist attractions offering awesome nature views and historic sights.
HistoryThe Cham descended from Malayo-Polynesian settlers who reached
South East Asia from Borneo during the second century BC; their language belongs to the Austronesian family. Their society at this time is known as the Sa Huynh culture; the
Chinese referred to it as Lam Ap or Lin Yi during the second century AD.
Champa was an important stop along the
Spice’s Route which connected the Persian Gulf to southern China. The kingdom had complicated relations with the Khmer, which included intermarriages, architectonic similarities and – of course – wars. As the Khmer, the Cham were highly Indianized, and from the 4th century AD stone inscriptions in Sanskrit and their own language, which uses a unique script, can be found. King Bhadravarman (349-361AD) was the first Cham king; he reigned from My Son and established a god named Bhadresvara, who was a combination of the king’s name and that of the Shiva Hindu god.
The Champa Kingdom was at its peak from the 7th to the 10th century AD, when they controlled the trade in spices and silk between China, India, the Indonesian islands, and the Abbassid empire in Baghdad. Some of the royal and religious temples at My Son date back to this period. In 875AD, King Indravarman II founded a northern dynasty at Indrapura and adopted
Mahayana Buddhism as the official religion; fifty years later they returned to classic Hinduism. Later, In 944AD, the Khmer invaded the region of Kauthara and pillaged Po Nagar, the Cham King Jaya Indravaman recovered the area in 965AD. Due to clashes with Dai Viet, the Cham abandoned Indrapura in 1000AD and relocated south to Vijaya, which was pillaged by the Dai Viet in 1044AD. Similar events characterised the next century.
The following decline of Champa roughly follows the decline of the Khmer Empire and the Raise of the Dai Viet and the
Thai Sukhothai Kingdom; an interlude apeared in the form of the Cham sacking the Khmer capital in 1177AD which resulted in a subsequent conquest of Vijaya by the Khmer in 1203AD.
Later, in 1283AD, the Mongols invaded Champa and occupied Vijaya. Instead of engaging the invaders, the Cham retreated to the mountains and fought as guerrillas until the Mongols left two years later.
Che Bong Nga (1360-1390) was the last strong king of the Cham; in 1372 he almost conquered Dai Viet from the sea and successfully pillaged Thang Long (modern
Hanoi, their capital). In a critical turn of history, the Dai Viet, led by the emperor Le Thanh Tong, invaded Champa in 1470 and caused the first major Cham emigration to Cambodia and Malacca.
Afterwards, what remained of Champa was the southern principality of Panduranga. In 1594, the Cham Lord Po At assisted the Sultanate of Johor's attack on Portuguese Malacca; and in 1692, the Cham Lord Po Sot rebelled against Nguyen Phuc Tran, ruler of southern Vietnam. After that, the Cham Lords kept authority over their own people but not over Vietnamese settlers in their territory. This situation was kept until 1832 when the Cham territories were finally annexed by the Vietnamese.
Until the conquest of Champa by the Vietnamese in 1471, the Cham main religion of the people was a Hinduism focused in Shiva. Afterwards, Islam – that appeared in the area in the tenth century - became the main force. By 1832, it was the main religion and nowadays the easiest way of recognizing surviving Cham communities is by their mosques, which can be found all along southern Vietnam and large parts of Cambodia.
SitesThe largest Cham ruins are nowadays at My Son, near Hoi An; sadly it was heavily damaged by US bombing during the Vietnam-USA War. Po Nagar and Poklongarai Towers (near Nha Trang) are additional sites featuring Cham Towers.
The largest collection of Cham sculpture is in the Danang Museum of Cham Sculpture, but additional items can be found in the Museum of Fine Arts and Museum of History in
Hanoi and the museums of the same name in
Ho Chi Minh City.
This journal focuses on their cities and centers in modern Vietnam.