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Champa (Cham language: ꨌꩌꨛꨩ, چمڤا; ; 占城 or Chiêm Bá 占婆) was a collection of independent Chams Polity that extended across the coast of what is present-day Central Vietnam and southern Vietnam from approximately the 2nd century CE until 1832.
According to earliest historical references found in ancient sources, the first Cham polities were established around the 2nd to 3rd centuries CE, in the wake of Khu Liên's rebellion against the rule of China's Eastern Han dynasty, and lasted until when the final remaining principality of Champa was annexed by Emperor Minh Mạng of the Vietnamese Nguyễn dynasty as part of the expansionist Nam tiến policy. The kingdom was known variously as Nagaracampa (), Champa (ꨌꩌꨛꨩ) in modern Cham languages, and Châmpa (ចាម្ប៉ា) in the Khmer language inscriptions, Chiêm Thành in Vietnamese, Campa in Malay language, Zhànchéng (Mandarin Chinese: 占城) in Chinese records, and al-Ṣanf (Classical Arabic: صَنْف) in Middle Eastern Muslim records.
Early Champa evolved from the seafaring Austronesian Chamic languages Sa Huỳnh culture off the coast of modern-day Vietnam. Its emergence in the late 2nd century CE exemplifies early Southeast Asian statecraft at a crucial stage of the making of Southeast Asia. The peoples of Champa maintained a system of lucrative trade networks across the region, connecting the Indian Ocean and Eastern Asia, until the 17th century. In Champa, historians also found the Đông Yên Châu inscription, the oldest known native Southeast Asian literature written in a native Southeast Asian language dating to around 350 CE, predating first Khmer language, Mon language, Malay language texts by centuries.
Scholarly consensus has shifted several times as to what degree Champa functioned as a unified polity. Originally being viewed as a unified kingdom throughout most of its history, later authors suggested that Champa was better considered to be a federation of independent states. A number of modern scholars have suggested that Champa did form a unified kingdom in some periods but was disunified in others.
The Chams of modern Vietnam and Cambodia are the major remnants of this former kingdom. They speak Chamic languages, a subfamily of Malayo-Polynesian closely related to the Malayic and Bali–Sasak languages that is spoken throughout maritime Southeast Asia. Although Cham culture is usually intertwined with the broader culture of Champa, the kingdom had a multiethnic population, which consisted of Austronesian Chamic-speaking peoples that made up the majority of its demographics. The people who used to inhabit the region are the present-day Chamic-speaking Cham people, Rade people and Jarai people peoples in South and Central Vietnam and Cambodia; the Acehnese people from Northern Sumatra, Indonesia, along with elements of Austroasiatic Bahnaric and Katuic-speaking peoples in Central Vietnam.
Champa was preceded in the region by a kingdom called Lâm Ấp (Vietnamese), or Linyi (林邑, Middle Chinese (ZS): * liɪm ʔˠiɪp̚), that was in existence since 192 AD; although the historical relationship between Linyi and Champa is not clear. Champa reached its apogee in the 9th and 10th centuries CE. Thereafter, it began a gradual decline under pressure from Đại Việt, the Vietnamese polity centered in the region of modern Hanoi. In 1832, the Vietnamese emperor Minh Mạng annexed the remaining Cham territories.
Hinduism, adopted through conflicts and conquest of territory from neighboring Funan in the 4th century CE, shaped the art and culture of the Cham Kingdom for centuries, as testified by the many Cham Hindu statues and red brick temples that dotted the landscape in Cham lands. Mỹ Sơn, a former religious center, and Hội An, one of Champa's main port cities, are now World Heritage Sites. Today, many Cham people adhere to Islam, a conversion which began in the 10th century, with the ruling dynasty having fully adopted the faith by the 17th century; they are called the Bani ( Ni tục, from Arabic: Bani). There are, however, the Bacam ( Bacham, Chiêm tục) who still retain and preserve their Hindu faith, rituals, and festivals. The Bacam are one of the few surviving non-Indian people indigenous Hindu peoples in the world, with a culture dating back thousands of years. The other being the Balinese Hindus of the Balinese people and Tengger Hindus of the Javanese people in Indonesia.
Other academics however dispute the Indic origin explanation, which was conceived by Louis Finot, a colonial-era board director of the École française d'Extrême-Orient. In his 2005 Champa revised, Michael Vickery challenges Finot's idea. He argues that the Cham people always refer themselves as Čaṃ rather than Champa (pa–abbreviation of peśvara, Campādeśa, Campānagara). Most indigenous Austronesian ethnic groups in Central Vietnam such as the Rade people, Jarai people, Churu people, Raglai people peoples call the Cham by similar lexemes which likely derived from Čaṃ. Vietnamese historical accounts also have the Cham named as Chiêm. Most importantly, the official designation of Champa in Chinese historical texts was Zhànchéng – meaning "the city of the Cham," "why not city of the Champa?," Vickery doubts.
Approximately four hundred Champa inscriptions have been found. Around 250 of them were deciphered and studied throughout the last century. Many Cham inscriptions were destroyed by American bombing during the Vietnam War. Currently, the Project Corpus of the Inscriptions of Campā launched by French School of Asian Studies (EFEO) partnering with the Institute for Study of the Ancient World (ISAW) of New York University is tasked for cataloging, sustaining and preserving ancient Cham inscriptions into an online index library and publications of scholarship's epigraphical studies into English, French, and Vietnamese.
The Cham have their written records in form of paper book, known as the Sakkarai dak rai patao, was a 5227-pages collection of Cham veritable records, documenting a history range from early legendary kings of 11th–13th century to the deposition of Po Thak The, the last king of Panduranga in 1832, reckoning in total 39 rulers of Panduranga, the tales of spread of Islam to Champa in 1000 CE, to Po Thak The. The annals were written in Akhar Thrah (traditional) Cham script with collection of Cham and Vietnamese seals imprinted by Vietnamese rulers. However, it had been dismissed for a long time by scholars until Po Dharma. Cham literature also have been greatly preserved in approximately more than 3,000 Cham manuscripts and printed books dating from the 16th to 20th centuries. The Southeast Asia Digital Library (SEADL) at Northern Illinois University currently contains an extensive collection of 977 digitized Cham manuscripts, totaling more than 57,800 pages of multigenre content.
Despite the frequent wars between the Chams and the Khmer people, the two nations also traded and their cultural influences moved in the same directions. Since royal families of the two countries intermarried frequently. Champa also had close trade and cultural relations with the powerful maritime empire of Srivijaya and later with the Majapahit of the Malay Archipelago, its easternmost trade relations being with the kingdoms of Ma-i, Butuan, and Sulu in the modern Philippines.
Evidence gathered from linguistic studies around Aceh confirms that a very strong Chamic cultural influence existed in Indonesia; this is indicated by the use of the Chamic languages language Acehnese as the main language in the coastal regions of Aceh. Linguists believe the Acehnese language, a descendant of the Proto-Chamic language, separated from the Chamic tongue sometime in the 1st millennium BCE. However, scholarly views on the precise nature of Aceh-Chamic relations vary. Tsat language, a northern Chamic language spoken by the Utsul on the Hainan Island, is speculated to be separated from Cham at the time when contact between Champa and Islam had grown considerably, but precise details remain inadequate. Under Chinese language influence over Hainan, Tsat has become fully monosyllabic, while some certain shifts to monosyllabicity can be observed in Cham language (in contact with Vietnamese). Eastern Cham has developed a quasi-registral, incipiently tonal system. After the fall of Vijaya Champa in 1471, another group of Cham and Chamic might have moved west, forming Haroi language, which has reversal Bahnaric linguistic influences.
The Sa Huỳnh culture was an Austronesian seafaring culture that centered around present-day Central Vietnam coastal region. During its heyday, the culture distributed across the Central Vietnam coast and had commercial links across the South China Sea with the Philippine archipelago and even with Taiwan, which now most archaeologists and scholars have consentient determined and are no longer hesitant in linking with the ancestors of the Austronesian Cham people and Chamic-speaking peoples.
While Northern Vietnam Kinh people assimilated Han Chinese immigrants into their population, have a sinicized culture, Cham people carry the patrilineal R-M17 haplogroup of South Asian Indian origin from South Asian merchants spreading Hinduism to Champa and marrying Cham females since Chams have no matrilineal South Asian mtDNA, and this fits with the matrilocal structure of Cham families. And compared to other Vietnamese ethnic groups, the Cham do not share ancestry with southern Han Chinese, along with Austronesian-speaking Mang.
Champa was known to the Chinese as 林邑 Linyi in Mandarin, Lam Yap in Cantonese and to the Vietnamese, Lâm Ấp (which is the Sino-Vietnamese pronunciation of 林邑). The state of Champa was founded in 192 CE by Khu Liên (Ou Lian), an official of the Eastern Han dynasty of China in Xianglin who rebelled against Chinese rule in 192.
Historians like Vickery criticize the use of Chinese and Vietnamese sources uncritically in reconstructing the history of Champa.Around the 4th century CE, Cham polities began to absorb much of Indic influences, probably through its neighbor, Funan Kingdom. Hinduism was established as Champa began to create Sanskrit stone inscriptions and erect red brick . The first king acknowledged in the inscriptions is Bhadravarman I, who reigned from 380 to 413 CE. At Mỹ Sơn, King Bhadravarman established a linga called Bhadresvara, whose name was a combination of the king's own name and that of the Hindu god of gods Shiva. The worship of the original god-king under the name Bhadresvara and other names continued through the centuries that followed.
Being famously known as skillful sailors and navigators, as early as the 5th century CE, the Cham might have reached India by themselves. King Gangaraja (r. 413–?) of Champa was perhaps the only known Southeast Asian ruler who traveled all the way to India shortly after his abdication. He personally went on pilgrimage in the Ganges River, Northeast India. His itinerary was confirmed by both indigenous Cham sources and Chinese chronicles. George Coedès notes that during the 2nd and 3rd century, an influx of Indian traders, priests, and scholars travelled along the early East Asia–South Asian subcontinent maritime route, could have visited and made communications with local Chamic communities along the coast of Central Vietnam. They played some roles in disseminating Indian culture and Buddhism. But that was not sustained and decisive as active "Indianized native societies," he argues, or Southeast Asian kingdoms that had already been "Indianized" like Funan, were the key factors of the process. On the other hand, Paul Mus suggests the reason for the peaceful acceptance of Hinduism by the Cham elite was likely related to the tropical monsoon climate background shared by areas like the Bay of Bengal, coastal mainland Southeast Asia all the way from Myanmar to Vietnam. Monsoon societies tended to practice animism, most importantly, the creed of earth spirit. To the early Southeast Asian peoples, Hinduism was somewhat similar to their original beliefs. This resulted in peaceful conversions to Hinduism and Buddhism in Champa with little resistance.
Rudravarman I of Champa (r. 529–572), a descendant of Gangaraja through maternal line, became king of Champa in 529 CE. During his reign, the temple complex of Bhadresvara was destroyed by a great fire in 535/536. He was succeeded by his son Sambhuvarman (r. 572–629). He reconstructed the temple of Bhadravarman and renamed it Shambhu-bhadreshvara. In 605, the Sui Empire launched an invasion of Lam Ap, overrunning Sambhuvarman's resistance, and sacked the Cham capital at Tra Kieu. He died in 629 and was succeeded by his son, Kandarpadharma, who died in 630–31. Kandarpadharma was succeeded by his son, Prabhasadharma, who died in 645.
Between the 7th to 10th centuries CE, the Cham polities rose to become a naval power; as Cham ports attracted local and foreign traders, Cham fleets also controlled the trade in spices and silk in the South China Sea, between China, the Indonesian archipelago and India. They supplemented their income from the trade routes not only by exporting ivory and aloe, but also by engaging in piracy and raiding.Lê Thành Khôi, Histoire du Vietnam, p. 109. However, the rising influence of Champa caught the attention of a neighbouring thalassocracy that considered Champa as a rival, the Javanese (Javaka, probably refers to Srivijaya, ruler of the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Java). In 767, the Tonkin coast was raided by a Medang Kingdom fleet (Daba) and Kunlun pirates,
In 875, a new Buddhist dynasty founded by Indravarman II (r. ? – 893) moved the capital or the major center of Champa to the north again. Indravarman II established the city of Indrapura, near My Son and ancient Tra Kieu. Mahayana Buddhism eclipsed Hinduism, becoming the state religion. Art historians often attribute the period between 875 and 982 as the Golden Age of Champa art and Champa culture (distinguish with modern Cham culture). Unfortunately, a Vietnamese invasion in 982 led by king Le Hoan of Dai Viet, followed by Lưu Kế Tông (r. 986–989), a fanatical Vietnamese usurper who took the throne of Champa in 983, brought mass destruction to Northern Champa. Indrapura was still one of the major centers of Champa until being surpassed by Vijaya in the 12th century.
Afterwards, during the 1000s, Rajah Kiling, the Hindu king of the Philippine Rajahnate of Butuan instigated a commercial rivalry with the Champa Civilization by requesting diplomatic equality in court protocol towards his Rajahnate, from the Chinese Empire, which was later denied by the Chinese Imperial court, mainly because of favoritism for the Champa civilization.
However, the future Rajah of Butuan, Sri Bata Shaja later succeeded in attaining diplomatic equality with Champa by sending the flamboyant ambassador Likanhsieh. Likanhsieh shocked the Emperor Zhenzong by presenting a memorial engraved on a golden tablet, some Chinese dragon ( Bailong 白龍) camphor, Moluccas cloves, and a South Sea slave at the eve of an important ceremonial state sacrifice. Song Shih Chapter 7 to 8The Champa civilization and what would later be the Sultanate of Sulu which was still Hindu at that time and known as Lupah Sug, which is also in the Philippines, engaged in commerce with each other which resulted in merchant Chams settling in Sulu from the 10th-13th centuries, establishing trading centers. There they were called Orang Dampuan and, due to their wealth, many of them were killed by native Sulu Buranuns.
The twelfth century in Champa is defined by constant social upheavals and warfare, Khmer invasions were frequent. The Khmer Empire conquered Northern Champa in 1145, but were quickly repulsed by king Jaya Harivarman I (r. 1148–1167). Another Angkorian invasion of Champa led by Suryavarman II in summer 1150 also was quickly stalled, and Suryavarman died en route. Champa then plummeted into an eleven-year civil war between Jaya Harivarman and his oppositions, which resulted in Champa reunifying under Jaya Harivarman by 1161. After having restored the kingdom and its prosperity, in June 1177 Jaya Indravarman IV (r. 1167–1192) launched a surprise naval assault on Angkor, capital of Cambodia, plundering it, slaying the Khmer king, leading to a Cham occupation of Cambodia for the next four years. Jayavarman VII of Angkor launched several counterattack campaigns in the 1190s (1190, 1192, 1194–1195, 1198–1203), conquering Champa and making it a dependency of the Khmer Empire for 30 years.
Champa was subjected to a Mongol Yuan dynasty invasion in 1283–1285. Before the invasion, Kublai Khan ordered the establishment of a mobile secretariat ( xingsheng) in Champa for the purpose of dominating the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean trade networks. It demonstrated the strategic importance of Champa as a naval juggernaut of medieval maritime Eurasia. The Yuan campaign led by General Sogetu against the Cham began in February 1283 with their initial capture of Vijaya forcing the Cham king Indravarman V (r. 1258–1287) and Prince Harijit to wage a guerrilla resistance against the Yuan for two years, together with Dai Viet, eventually repelling the Mongols back to China by June 1285. After the Yuan wars ended decisively in 1288, Dai Viet king Trần Nhân Tông spent his retirement years in Northern Champa, and arranged a marriage between his daughter, Princess Huyền Trân, and Prince Harijit – now reigning as Jaya Simhavarman III (r. 1288–1307) – in 1306 in exchange for peace and territory. From 1307 to 1401, not even a single surviving indigenous source exists in Champa, and almost all of its 14th-century history has to rely on Chinese and Vietnamese sources. Engraving Sanskrit inscription, the prestige language of religious and political elites in Champa, stopped in 1253. No other grand temple or other construction project was built after 1300. These facts marked the beginning of Champa's decline.
From 1367 to 1390, according to Chinese and Vietnamese sources, Che Bong Nga, who ruled as king of Champa from 1360 to 1390, had restored Champa. He launched six invasions of Dai Viet during the deadly Champa–Đại Việt War (1367–1390), sacking its capital in 1371, 1377, 1378, and 1383, nearly bringing the Dai Viet to its collapse. Che Bong Nga was only stopped in 1390 on a naval battle in which the Vietnamese deployed firearms for the first time, and miraculously killed the king of Champa, ending the devastating war.
After Che Bong Nga, Champa seemingly rebounced to its status quo under a new dynasty of Ko Cheng (r. 1390–1400). His successor Indravarman VI (r. 1400–1441) reigned for the next 41 years, expanding Champa's territory to the Mekong Delta amidst the decline of the Khmer Empire. One of Indravarman's nephews, Prince Virabhadravarman, became king of Champa in 1441. By the mid 15th century, Champa might have been suffering a steady dooming decline. No inscription survived after 1456. The Vietnamese under the strong king Le Thanh Tong launched an invasion of Champa in early 1471, decimating the capital of Vijaya and most of northern Champa. For early historians like Georges Maspero, "the 1471 conquest had concluded the end of the Champa Kingdom." Maspero, like other early orientalist scholars, by his logics, arbitrated the history of Champa as becoming a "worthy" subject for their study when it adapted and maintained "superior" Indian civilization.
The relationship between Champa and the Javanese states is also recorded in various historical chronicles, mainly in the 15th and 16th centuries. Especially the marriage relationship between the princesses of Champa and the kings of Java. The Cham people were also one of the main pioneers in the spread of Islam on the north coast of Central Java. One of the famous Islamic scholars of Champa descent in Java is Sunan Ampel, one of the nine Walisanga. He had a Champa mother.
Champa was reduced to the principalities of Panduranga and Kauthara at the beginning of the 16th century. Kauthara was annexed by the Vietnamese in 1653. From 1799 to 1832, Panduranga lost its hereditary monarchy status, with kings selected and appointed by the Vietnamese court in Huế.
The last remaining principality of Champa, Panduranga, survived until August 1832, when Minh Mang of Vietnam began his purge against rival Le Van Duyet's faction, and accused the Cham leaders of supporting Duyet. Minh Mang ordered the last Cham king Po Phaok The and the vice-king Po Dhar Kaok to be arrested in Hue, while incorporating the last remnants of Champa into what are the Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan provinces.
To enforce his finger grip, Minh Mang appointed Vietnamese bureaucrats from Hue to govern the Cham directly in phủ Ninh Thuan while removing the traditional Cham customary laws. Administratively, Panduranga was integrated into Vietnam proper with harsh measures. These reforms were known as cải thổ quy lưu ("replacing thổ aboriginal chieftains by circulating bureaucratic system"). Speaking Vietnamese and following Vietnamese customs became strictly mandatory for the Cham subjects. Cham culture and Cham identity were rapidly, systematically destroyed. Vietnamese settlers seized most of Cham farmlands and commodity productions, pushing the Cham to far-inland arid highlands, and the Cham were subjected to heavy taxations and mandated conscriptions. Two widespread Cham revolts against Minh Mang's oppression arose in 1833–1835, the latter led by khatib Ja Thak Wa – a Cham Bani cleric – which was more successful and even briefly reestablished a Cham state for a short period of time, before being crushed by Minh Mang's forces.
The unfortunate defeat of the people of Panduranga in their struggle against Vietnamese oppression also sealed their and remnant of Champa's fate. A large chunk of the Cham in Panduranga were subjected to forced assimilation by the Vietnamese, while many Cham, including indigenous highland peoples, were indiscriminately killed by the Vietnamese in massacres, particularly from 1832 to 1836, during the Sumat and Ja Thak Wa uprisings. Bani mosques were razed to the ground. Temples were set on fire. Cham villages and their aquatic livelihoods were annihilated. By that time, the Cham totally lost their ancestors' seafaring and shipbuilding traditions.
After finalizing these heavy-handed pacifications of Cham rebels and assimilation policies, emperor Minh Mang declared the Cham of Panduranga a Tân Dân (new people), denoting the imposed mundanity that nothing to ever differentiate them with other Vietnamese. Minh Mang's son and successor Thiệu Trị, however, reverted most of his father's strict policies against Catholic Christians and ethnic minorities. Under Thiệu Trị and Tu Duc, the Cham were reallowed to practice their religions with little prohibition.
Only a small fraction, or about 40,000 Cham people in the old Panduranga remained in 1885 when the French completed their acquisition of Vietnam. The French colonial administration prohibited Kinh discrimination and prejudice against Cham and indigenous highland peoples, putting an end to Vietnamese cultural genocide of the Cham. But French colonialists also exploited the ethnic hatred in situ between Vietnamese and Cham to deal with remnant of the Can Vuong movement in Binh Thuan.
The regnal name of the Champa rulers originated from the Hindu tradition, often consisting of titles and aliases. Titles (prefix) like: Jaya (जय "victory"), Maha (महा "great"), Sri (श्री "glory"). Aliases (stem) like: Bhadravarman, Vikrantavarman, Rudravarman, Simhavarman, Indravarman, Paramesvaravarman, Harivarman... Among them, the suffix -varman belongs to the Kshatriya class and is only for those leaders of the Champa Alliance.
Started from the 17th century, Champa kings used title Paduka Seri Sultan in some occasions, a borrowed honorific from Muslim Malay rulers. Vietnam-Champa Relations and the Malay-Islam Regional Network in the 17th–19th Centuries by Danny Wong Tze Ken
The 13th-century Chinese gazetteer account Zhu Fan Zhi (c. 1225) describes the Cham king 'wears a headdress of gold and adorns his body with strings of jewels' and either rides on an elephant or is lifted on a 'cloth hammock by four men' when he goes outside the palace. When the king attends the court audience, he is encircled by 'thirty female attendants who carry swords and shields or betel nuts'. Court officials would make reports to the king, then make one prostration before leaving.
The last king of Champa, Po Phaok The, was deposed by Minh Mạng in 1832.
During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, northern Champa was consisted by several known districts (viṣaya, zhou 洲): Amaravati (Quảng Ngãi), Ulik (Thừa Thiên–Huế), Vvyar (Quảng Trị), Jriy (southern Quảng Bình), and Traik (northern Quảng Bình). Other junctions like Panduranga remained quietly autonomous.
Two notable examples of this multi-centric nature of Champa were the principalities of Kauthara and Pāṇḍuraṅga. When Northern Champa and Vijaya fell to the Vietnamese in 1471, Kauthara and Pāṇḍuraṅga persisted existing untouched. Kauthara fell to the Vietnamese 200 years later in 1653, while Panduranga was annexed in 1832. Pāṇḍuraṅga had its full list of kings ruled from the 13th century until 1832, which both Vietnamese and European sources had verified. So Pāṇḍuraṅga remained autonomous and could conduct its foreign affairs without permission from the court of the king of kings.Vickery conjectures that by the 1100s, North (Indrapura, Amaravati, Vijaya) and South Champa (Kauthara, Panduranga) had become quite separate.However, there were two exceptional periods in Cham history when multiple Cham and foreign sources firmly indicated that there was only single king exercising strong authority over the whole Cham realms during given period. They were Jaya Harivarman I of the mid-12th century and the Virabhadravarmadevas (Indravarman VI and Virabhadravarman) of the early 15th century.
According to the Huanghua Sidaji (皇華四達記, 800 AD?), which then was complied into the Old Book of Tang, a Tang dynasty prime minister named Jia Dan detailing his itineraries to Champa, began with his arrival in a northern Cham state called Huanwang (環王國), probably located in modern-day Quảng Trị that had invaded the Tang southernmost province of Annan in 803. The center of Champa by the late 8th and early 9th centuries was in the south, in Gǔdá Guó 古笪國 (Kauthara), Bēntuólàng 奔陀浪洲 (Pāṇḍuraṅga). Chinese texts from 758 to 809 referred to the whole of Champa as Huánwáng, but it must be a convenient way for the Chinese to assume the name of a state that had deployed diplomacy and war with them to be the toponym for all territories of the Cham confederation. The Cham assaulted the Tang and seized Nghệ An in 803. The Chinese barely defeated the Cham and recovered lost regions in 809. Harivarman I (r. 803–?) left a document in Po Nagar Temple (Nha Trang) dating from 817, explaining his campaign in northern Champa to expel the Chinese (" Cinas" in the inscription, today lauv in modern Cham language) when they menaced to the northern Cham states.
Historical Champa consisted of up to five principalities:
Within the four principalities were two main clans: the "Dừa" (means "coconut" in Vietnamese) and the "Cau" (means "areca catechu" in Vietnamese). The Dừa lived in Amravati and Vijaya, while the Cau lived in Kauthara and Panduranga. The two clans differed in their customs and habits and conflicting interests led to many clashes and even war. But they usually managed to settle disagreements through intermarriage.Rutherford, Insight Guide – Vietnam, p. 256.
Another northern group inhabiting around Bình Định and Phú Yên provinces is the Cham Haroi language (Haroi), who practice Chamic animism. Under the previous Republic of Vietnam, they were considered a distinct ethnic group. Since 1979, they have been reclassified by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam government as a subgroup of the Cham.
Before the conquest of Champa by the Đại Việt ruler Le Thanh Tong in 1471, the dominant religion of the Cham upper class ( Thar patao bamao maâh) was Hinduism, and the culture was heavily influenced by that of India. The commoners generally accepted Hindu influence, but they embedded it with much as possible indigenous Cham beliefs to become parts of the Ahier religion today. The Hinduism of Champa was overwhelmingly Shaivism and it was liberally combined with elements of local religious cults such as the worship of the Earth goddess Lady Po Nagar. The main symbols of Cham Shaivism were the lingam, the mukhalinga, the jaṭāliṅgam, the segmented Lingam, and the kośa.
The predominance of Hinduism in Cham religion was interrupted for a time in the 9th and 10th centuries CE, when a dynasty at Indrapura (modern Đồng Dương, Quảng Nam Province, Vietnam) adopted Mahayana Buddhism as its faith. King Indravarman II (r. 854–893) built a giant Buddhist monastery, meditation halls, and temples for Champa's monks (Sangha), and celebrated the veneration of the Buddhist deity Lokeśvara under the name Laksmindra Lokeśvara Svabhayada in 875. Mahayana in Champa was blended with observable elements of Vajrayana, manifesting in many traces. For example, Indravarman's successor Jaya Simhavarman I (r. 897–904) according to his verbatim in 902, Vajrapāṇi is the Bodhisattva capable of leading humans into the "path of the Vajra." The Buddhist art of Đồng Dương has received special acclaim for its originality.
Buddhist art of Champa also shared the same unique aesthetics, paralleling with Dvaravati (Mon) art, highlighting in the similarities of both cultures in their iconographic form of the Buddha-Stūpa-Triad, where the Buddha seats in padmāsana (lotus) flanked by on either side by a depiction of a stūpa. Other shared features are makara lintel, fishtail-shaped sampot illustrating, Gaja-Lakṣmī, pendant-legged Buddhas. The sources of Mon–Cham cultural interaction may be the inland routes between the Muang Fa Daed site on Khorat Plateau, near a lost kingdom called Wèndān by the Chinese (probably the site of Kantarawichai in Kantharawichai, Maha Sarakham), Southern Laos, via Savannakhet, then to Central Vietnam coast through Lao Bảo and Mụ Giạ Passes.
Beginning in the 10th century CE, Hinduism again became the predominant religion of Champa. Some of the sites that have yielded important works of religious art and architecture from this period are, aside from Mỹ Sơn, Khương Mỹ, Trà Kiệu, Chanh Lo, and Tháp Mắm.
From the 13th to 15th centuries, Mahayana among the Cham was practiced in form of syncretic Saivite–Buddhism or the fusion of the worship of Śiva (seen as the protector) and Buddha (seen as the savior). Buddhism prevailed secondary. With the decline of royal power of the ruling Simhavarmanid dynasty in the 15th century and the fall of their capital Vijaya in 1471, all Mahayana or Vajrayana traces of Champa disappeared, enabling space for the rising Islamic faith.
Historical documents regarded that 18th-century Cham and Malay Sunni settlements in the Mekong Delta established by the Nguyen lords earlier than Vietnamese settlements in order to establish Viet-controlled settlements for frontier defense. The embodiment of more fundamentalist Sunni faiths in the Mekong Delta and Cambodia gave the Cham communities here socio-cultural inclinations toward the wider Malay/Islamic world compared with the fairly isolated Cham Bani in Central Vietnam. Islam also instigated certain ethno-religious values to the Mekong Delta Cham, which help them preserve and retain their distinct ethnic identity in a dynamic transnational environment.
Muslim preachers or sailed to Champa shores not long after the fall of Vijaya to teach their school among the local community, academic ties there were also established leading to long-lasting exchange of teachers between both regions over the centuries; certain placenames in Kelantan like Pengkalan Chepa (lit. 'Champa Landing') reflect this fact. Indonesian 15th-century records indicate that Princess Daravati, of Cham origin, converted to Islam, and influenced her husband, Kertawijaya, Majapahit's seventh ruler to convert the Majapahit royal family to Islam. The Islamic tomb of Putri Champa (Princess of Champa) can be found in Trowulan, East Java, the site of the Majapahit imperial capital. In the 15th to 17th century, Islamic Champa had maintained a cordial relationship with the Aceh Sultanate through dynastic marriage. This sultanate was located on the northern tip of Sumatra and was an active promoter of the Islamic faith in the Indonesian archipelago.
The lunisolar Cham Cham calendar is an amalgamation of the Islamic and traditional Cham calendars, which was based on the Indian Shaka era. A normal year in Sawaki consists of 354 days with 12 months; the average length of each month is either 29 or 30 days. The calendar has a 12-year cycle of zodiac called Nâthak. It sets three leap years for every eight years, compared to 11 leap years for every 30 years of the orthodox Islamic calendar.
The vast majority of Champa's export products, mostly medieval commodities, came from the mountainous hinterland, sourced from as far as Attapeu Province in southern Laos. They included gold and silver, slaves, animal and animal products, and precious woods. Cham pottery, characterized by distinct olive-green and brown glazes, were primary produced by the kilns of Gò Sành, just in the suburbs of Vijaya. Cham ceramic production peaked around the 14th to 16th century, and have been reported to be discovered in present-day Egypt, the UAE, Malaysia, and the Philippines.
By far the most important export product was eaglewood. It was the only product mentioned in Marco Polo's brief account and similarly impressed the Arab trader Sulayman several centuries earlier. Most of it was probably taken from the Aquilaria crassna tree, just as most of the eaglewood in Vietnam today. The largest amount of eaglewood products extracted from the highland of Champa occurred in 1155, when Cham envoy reportedly shipped 55,020 catties (around 33 tons) of incense of Wuli to the Song dynasty as trade tribute.
The Zhu Fan Zhi describes the port cities of Champa, 'on the arrival of a trading ship in this country, officials are sent on board with a book made of folded slips of black leather.' After an inventory has been taken, the cargo may be landed. 20% of the goods carried on is claimed as tax, and the rest may be traded privately. If they discovered that 'any items were hidden away during the customs check, the whole cargo will be confiscated.'
When French scholars arrived in the mid-19th century, they were impressed with Cham ruins, Cham urbanism, and medieval networks throughout the former kingdom. The middle-age densely populated areas of Tra Kieu and My Son were well connected by paved stone roads, bridges, urban ruins that were 16 feet high, rampart and stone citadel in a rectangle shape of 984 feet by 1640 feet, which hosted temples, fortified palaces, and resident structures, and were supplied by canals, irrigation projects, underground aqueducts and wells.
From the 4th to 15th century, these cities were relatively wealthy. Foreign traders and travelers from across medieval Eurasia were well-aware of Champa's richness and eyewitnessed the crowded, prosperous Cham port-cities. Abu'l-Faradj described the city of Indrapura "this temple is ancient that all the Buddhas found there enter into conversation with the faithful and reply to all the requests made to them." Columbus during his fourth voyage in 1502 along the coast of Central America, in accordance with contemporary knowledge that confused Central America with eastern Asia, thought that he had reached the kingdom of "Ciampa" visited by Marco Polo in 1290. Peter Martyr d'Anghiera recorded in De Orbe Novo Decades that on his fourth voyage in 1502, Columbus: "found a vast territory called Quiriquetana in the language of the inhabitants, but he called it Ciamba (Champa)"."tellurem reperit vasta, nomine incolarum Quiriquetanam: ipse vero Ciambam nuncupavit." Pietro Martire d’Anghiera, De Orbe Novo Decades, “1502: Quarte navigationis Coloni descriptio”, in Guglielmo Berchet (ed.), Fonti italiane per la Storia della Scoperta del Nuovo Mondo, Reale Commissione Colombiana pel Quarto Centenario dalla Scoperta del l'America, Raccolta di Documenti e Studi, Parte III, Volume II, Roma, Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione, 1893, p. 33. Portuguese travelers in the early 16th century, such as Fernão Mendes Pinto, reported vestiges of these cities "a town of above ten thousand households" which "encircled by a strong wall of brick, towers, and bulwarks." Because of this, Champa was the target of multiple warring powers surrounding: the Chinese in 4th century-605 CE; the Javanese in 774 and 787, the Vietnamese in 982, 1044, 1069, 1073, 1446, and 1471; the Khmer in 945–950, 1074, 1126–1128, 1139–1150, 1190–1220; and the Mongol Yuan in 1283–85, many cities were ransacked by invaders and rebuilt or repaired over time. They also had to face constant threats from hazards per annum such as flood, tropical cyclones, fire. Some Cham port-cities later ended up captured by Vietnamese in the mid-15th century, which later resulted in the rise of Nguyễn domain depending on these port-cities, whom benefited international trades, and was well-balanced enough to fend off several northern Trịnh invasions in the 17th century.
The 4th century Vo Canh inscription denotes the existence of matrilineage of early Cham rulers. Another prominent example of Cham matrilinealism in royal succession was King Rudravarman I of the Gangaraja dynasty. Rudravarman was the son of Manorathavarman's niece.
Female gods constitute the majority of divinities in Cham historical legends. The most sacred Goddess of the Cham people is Lady Po Nagar, a mythical princess who was said to be the founder of Champa. Po Dava, the Cham God of Virginity, is the symbol of learning and literature. She is worshipped at the Po Nagar Hamu Tanran temple in Panduranga.
According to the legend of Po Klong Garai, Princess Po Sah Inö was the mother of Po Klong Garai. She was born of sea foam scrubbings. When she grew up, she drank water from a spring, and magically got pregnant. In one day, her scabby son encountered a dragon who then healed him and predicted that he should become king. The boy, Po Klong Garai, then acquired supernatural powers. The chief of royal astronomy ought to ask Po Klong Garai to marry his daughter. Po Klong Garai then became king, destroying the Cambodian invaders, bringing peace and prosperity to the Kingdom of Champa. To commemorate the legendary hero, in 1242 the future King Jaya Simhavarman III (r. 1288–1307) offered the construction of the Po Klong Garai Temple at Phan Rang.
Some of the network of wells that was used to provide fresh water to Cham and foreign ships still remains. Cham wells are recognisable by their square shape. They are still in use and provide fresh water even during times of drought.
Despite that, according to modern Vietnamese historians, although Champa was absorbed, the Vietnamese were influenced by it. In 1044, after raiding Champa, Vietnamese emperor Lý Thái Tông took some 5,000 prisoners, and brought back to Đại Việt a number of court dancers familiar with Indian-style dances, settling to them in a palace specifically built for them. Both Lý Thái Tông and his son Lý Thánh Tông had a great appreciation for Cham music, and in 1060 Lý Thái Tông ordered his court musicians to study the Cham drum rhythms along with Cham songs he himself had translated into Vietnamese. According to some Vietnamese scholars, the Vietnamese cult of Princess Liễu Hạnh might have been influenced by Cham deity Yang Pu Inu Nagara (Lady Po Nagar).
Even the Vietnamese Quan họ music and Lục bát (six-eight) poetry could have been influenced by Cham poetry and folk music.
Cham art also spread far across the Red River Delta, where many Vietnamese Buddhist temples hosted Cham-style statues of dragons, lions, nāgá, makara, kinnari, Brahma and Hamsa dated back to the 11th–13th century (however, since these creatures also existed in China, it was more likely Chinese influence and not Champa). Thousand of bricks inscribed with Cham script indicate that a multitude of Vietnamese temples and holy sites were built by Cham engineers. A Buddhist stone stupa of Dạm tempe in Bắc Ninh Province, built by Vietnamese emperor Lý Nhân Tông in 1086, is a representation of a lingam and its yoni (a Hindu-Cham symbol of fertility and the power of creation).
In 1693, after lord Nguyễn Phúc Chu's take over of Panduranga, the Cham were forced to wear regulated Vietnamese attire, at least the members of the ruling Mâh Taha dynasty, Cham king Po Saktiraydapatih, and Cham court officials.
Cham culture influenced nearby communities and tamed most of present-day Vietnam and surrounding areas. Despite being formed from one of the least coherent places on Earth, Champa was a formidable seafaring kingdom that outlasted most empires. The Cham today, one of the few microcosms in Southeast Asia that still maintain strong links with neighboring countries in the region while still retaining their distinct ethnic identity.
Modern Vietnamese perceptions of Champa and its legacy are varying.Pre-1975 South Vietnamese/RVN intellectuals were quite aware and but satisfying with Vietnamese colonization and destruction of Champa. Most Viet nationalist writers entangled Champa with the ethnocentric Nam tien narrative, at the same time racism was constructed to rationalize and justify the dark subjugation, colonization, and genocide over the indigenous peoples, and the (South) Vietnamese identity. Vastly contrasting to North Vietnam/DRV, where Marxist authors in the 1950s criticized all Viet ruler after 1471 for their oppressive rule over the Cham while sympathetic for a multiethnic Vietnamese nation, but their views drastically changed in the 1960s and 70s during the height and end of the Vietnam War. Later DRV and SVN (Socialist Republic of Vietnam) authors, while pushing for a monolithic Vietnamese nation-state narrative, deliberately altered or misinterpreted historical events in favor of the VCP's stultifying narrative, and so state historians have actively decontextualized and downplayed Cham heritages and the Vietnamese conquest of Champa. After DRV's 1971 publication, Cham and indigenous history were virtually disenfranchised from official Vietnamese historiography, and the Cham and indigenous peoples are perceived by Hanoi authors as merely insignificant outsiders that offer no matter in official Vietnamese history but considered as peripherical, supplemental parts of the deeply-internalized ethnocentric Kinh history, neither being told from the Cham and indigenous peoples' own perspectives. The Doi moi period (post-1986) sees significant resurgences of nationalist and ethnocentric sentiments in Vietnamese scholarship. Overtime, most authors and the general Vietnamese historiography got extremely low thresholds, great unconscious biases and intolerance for enduring any discomfort associated with discussions on the historic Vietnamese conquest and repressions of Vietnam's indigenous peoples. The French revisionist academics in the late 1980s also attempted to "rescue" the neglected Champa and indigenous history from the Vietnamese nationalist nation-state narrative. Today, the Cham are seen as one minority group within the unnoticeable multi-ethnic Vietnam, and their legacy is incorporated into the Vietnamese national heritage.
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