Champa: One Kingdom Two Countries?

In May 2020, an archaeological discovery from the site of My Son in Quang Nam province of Central Vietnam highlighted the shared cultural civilisation between India and Vietnam. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), while conducting conservation work at the Cham Temple Complex in My Son, discovered a monolithic sandstone Shiva Linga belonging to the 9th century CE. This discovery takes us back to the ancient Kingdom of Champa in Vietnam that drew major influences and inspiration from India. India shares a long history with South-East Asian countries like Vietnam and Cambodia. Vietnam, which was earlier known as Champa, actively traded with ports in the Indian subcontinent. Some of these ports were located in the ancient kingdom of Kalinga, which covered most of present-day Odisha and which played a crucial role in trade via the Bay of Bengal. There was a wide network of trade contacts between Kalinga and South East Asia. Kalinga, especially, facilitated close maritime contact with the ancient land of Champa, whose coast lay on one of the major trade routes between India and China. According to the records of the Chinese monks Fa-Hien and I-Tsing, there was regular maritime contact between the coast of Bengal and South East region, between the 5th and 7th centuries CE. The Kingdom of Champa or the Cham Civilisation occupied major portions of what is Central Vietnam today, between the 9th and 17th Century CE, after which it was merged with the Vietnamese territories. The kingdom is said to have been founded in the Annam region of central Vietnam in 192 CE. Not much is known of the early history of the Champa. According to legends and other sources, Champa of Vietnam is linked with the Champa in India, which corresponds to the modern-day town of Bhagalpur in Bihar. Champa in Bihar was the capital of the Anga republic, one of the 16 Mahajanapadas (7th-4th Century BCE) of the later Vedic period. Tale of Two Champas According to the Mahabharata, Karna is said to have been given the territory of Anga by Duryodhana, and legend has it that either Champa or Munger, another nearby settlement, was his capital. Champa was a significant political and cultural centre of the time. In fact, in the ancient text, the Vayu Puran, Vietnam was referred to as ‘Anga Dvipa’. According to the Jataka tales, it is believed that the people of Champa in Anga established another Champa in Vietnam. Cut to the Common Era and, according to Chinese annals, between 192 and 758 CE, the region was known as Lin-Yi. In 758 CE, the name ‘Huan Wang’ was being used. It was in 875 CE that the area was known as ‘Chiem Thanh’, the Sino-Vietnamese transcription of ‘Champapura’ or ‘City of the Chams’. The kingdom’s territories started from Annam but later encompassed Hindu principalities toward the south. By the 8th Century CE, Champa is believed to have stretched from the area of Annam in the north to the Donnai Basin in the south of Vietnam. At its peak, the Kingdom of Champa is said to have comprised almost two-thirds of the whole of Vietnam. Historian R C Majumdar, in his book Ancient Indian Colonies In The Far East, Vol. I. Champa, 1972, notes that in the 2nd Century CE, there was a kind of regeneration in the growth of the Chams in Vietnam. A rock inscription from the village of Vo-Canh in Vietnam talks about a Hindu king Sri Mara, who established a dynasty in the 2nd Century CE. According to the Chinese chronicles, king Sri Mara was a Shaivite by faith. This dynasty ruled over the region, later known as Kauthara, in the 2nd or 3rd century CE. He is associated with another king called Kiu Lien, who is also said to be the founder of this kingdom in local history. There are no records to verify that they were the same king, but some scholars identify Kiu Lien as Sri Mara. It is said that King Fan Hiong, who succeeded to the throne of Champa between 270 and 280 CE, was a maternal de ...