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The kingdom of Champa

The weathered but beguiling towers that punctuate the scenery upcountry from Phan Thiet to Da Nang are the only remaining legacy of Champa, an Indianized kingdom that ruled parts of central and southern Vietnam for over fourteen centuries. In 192 AD, Chinese annals reported that a man named Khu Lien (later to be titled King Sri Mara) had gathered a chain of coastal chiefdoms in the region around Quang Tri in defiance of the expansionism of the Han Chinese to the north, and established an independent state which the Chinese referred to as Lin Yi. Subsequently, Champa unified an elongated strip from Phan Thiet to Dong Hoi, and by the end of the fourth century Champa comprised four provinces: Amaravati, around Hué and Da Nang; Vijaya, centred around Quy Nhon; Kauthara, in the Nha Trang region; and Panduranga, which corresponds to present-day Phan Thiet and up to Phan Rang. The unified kingdom's first capital, established in the fourth century in Amaravati, was Simhapura ("Lion City"); nearby, just outside present-day Hoi An, My Son, Champa's holiest site, was established.

Concertinaed between the Khmers to the south and the clans of the Vietnamese (initially under Chinese rule) to the north, Champa's history was characterized by consistent feuding with the neighbours. Between the third and fifth centuries, relations with the Chinese followed a cyclical pattern of antagonism and tribute, culminating in the 446 AD sacking of Simhapura when the Chinese made off with a fifty-tonne, solid gold Buddha statue. Wars raged with the Khmers in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, one fateful retaliatory Cham offensive culminating in the destruction of Angkor. With the installation on Champa's throne of warmongering Binasuor in 1361, three decades of Cham expansionism ensued; upon his death in 1390, though, the Viets regained all lost ground, and soon secured the region around Indrapura. In a decisive push south, the Viets, led by Le Thanh Tong, overran Vijaya in 1471; Champa shifted its capital south again, but by now it was becoming profoundly marginalized. For a few centuries more, the Cham kings still claimed nominal rule of the area around Phan Rang and Phan Thiet, but in 1697 the last independent Cham king died, and what little remained of the kingdom became a Vietnamese vassal state. Minh Mang dissolved even this in the 1820s, and the last Cham king fled to Cambodia. Most of the estimated 100,000 descendants of the Cham kingdom reside around Phan Rang and Phan Thiet, though there are also tiny pockets in Tay Ninh and Chau Doc.

Champa's economy hinged around agriculture, wet-rice cultivation, fishing and maritime trade, which it carried out with Indians, Chinese, Japanese and Arabs through ports at Hoi An and Quy Nhon. Exposure to Indian traders in the fourth century had a particularly strong influence upon the kingdom's culture, agriculture and religion. Though Buddhism flourished for a time in the ninth century, Hinduism was the dominant religion in Champa until Islam started to make inroads in the second half of the fourteenth century. Orthodox Hindu gods, and in particular Shiva, were fused with past kings, in accordance with the belief that kings were devaraja – reincarnations of deities.

To honour their gods, Cham kings sponsored the construction of the religious edifices that still stand today. The typical Cham temple complex is centred around the kalan, or sanctuary, normally pyramidal inside, and containing a lingam, or phallic representation of Shiva, set on a dais that was grooved to channel off water used in purification rituals. Having first cleansed themselves and prayed in the mandapa, or meditation hall, worshippers would then have proceeded under a gate tower and below the kalan's (normally) east-facing vestibule into the sanctuary. Any ritual objects pertaining to worship were kept in a nearby repository room, which normally sported a boat-shaped roof.

 

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