History
Chenla
ចេនឡា
Chenla (ចេនឡា), also written Zhenla, is the name Chinese records gave to the Khmer lands after the decline of Funan (ហ្វូណន) and before the rise of Angkor.[1][2][3] Seshat dates the period from about 550 to 825. It describes Chenla as more likely a set of rival centers than a single state.[3] A main center was Isanapura, the site now called Sambor Prei Kuk.[2]
Name
Heng and Lavy write that Chinese accounts of the period call the Khmer lands Zhenla.[2] The historian Michael Vickery reads Chenla as one of the names the Chinese wrote to match the sound of a local name. Following Paul Pelliot, he notes that the Chinese first heard of Chenla in 616 or 617.[4]
Chenla and Funan
In Pelliot's summary of the Chinese reports, Chenla began as a vassal of Funan. Its king Citrasena brought Funan under his rule, and his son Isanasena, whose seat was the city of Isana, defeated Funan early in the reign period 627 to 649.[4][5] Envoys from Funan still reached the Chinese court between 618 and 649, so for more than thirty years China recognized both.[4]
Vickery rejects the idea of a fast Khmer descent from a Chenla in the north and judges the Chinese account of the change wrong. He reads the inscriptions that Bhavavarman and Mahendravarman left in the Dangrek mountains as northern campaigns by princes from the south, probably grandsons of Rudravarman, the last king of Funan.[4] He adds that inscription K. 600, from Angkor Borei in the old Funan lands, shows that people there spoke Khmer at the start of the 7th century.[4]
Kings
Sources give different dates for the kings. The dates below follow Heng and Lavy.[2]
- Bhavavarman I, about 550 to 600.[2]
- Mahendravarman, called Citrasena in the Chinese reports,[4] came to the throne about 600 and left inscriptions in the Dangrek mountains.[5]
- Isanavarman I, about 616 to 637.[2] Inscriptions in Sanskrit and Khmer record his reign,[4] and his inscriptions are found in Kampong Cham, Prey Veng, Kandal and Takeo.[5]
- Bhavavarman II, perhaps from about the late 630s to the 650s.[2] Vickery makes him a younger son of Isanavarman.[4]
- Jayavarman I, about 657 to 681, whose court issued royal edicts from Purandarapura, near the temple of Ak Yum in the Angkor region.[2] Vickery makes him a great-grandson of Isanavarman in another line.[4]
- Jayadevi, daughter of Jayavarman I, from about 681 to after 713.[2]
Isanapura
Heng and Lavy identify Isanapura with Sambor Prei Kuk, in Kampong Thom province, from inscription K. 438.[2] The World Heritage listing calls it the capital of the "Chenla Empire" in the late 6th and early 7th centuries, and counts 186 temples of fired brick.[6] Historians have credited Isanavarman with founding the city, but Heng and Lavy point to other inscriptions that suggest a link to Bhavavarman I. They write that its size and complexity exceeded those of every other city in their study until Angkor in the 12th and 13th centuries.[2] Cambodianess, drawing on Chinese records, puts its population at up to 20,000 families.[7] Sambor Prei Kuk joined the World Heritage List on July 8, 2017.[8]
The division of Chenla
Kuoch's 1976 thesis, as Angkor Database summarizes it, follows Chinese chronicles in which Chenla split soon after 706. Land Chenla, in the hilly north, kept some central power and sent embassies to China until 799. Water Chenla, the southern half, with its lakes and coast, broke into at least five principalities.[5] Seshat writes that the Chenla period ended around the turn of the 9th century.[3]
Inscriptions
Vickery counts more than 200 inscriptions from the 7th century, the first century of Chenla.[4] Many are in Sanskrit and Khmer.[4][7] Heng and Lavy write that pura is the territorial unit the inscriptions of the 7th and 8th centuries name most often, and that its governors held Khmer and Sanskrit titles.[2]
Toward Angkor
Heng and Lavy find no records of cities from after Jayadevi until Hariharalaya appears in an inscription of 969. Inscriptions of the 11th century say that Jayavarman II held his royal ceremonies at Mahendraparvata in 802, and Heng and Lavy judge Phnom Kulen the likeliest site for it. The year 802 is usually taken as the start of the Angkorian period.[2] Cambodianess places the move of the capital to the Angkor region in the late 8th and early 9th centuries.[8]
References
- ↑ Radio Free Asia Khmer, Chun Chanboth, History of the Khmer in the time of the kingdom of Phnom, part 3 (February 5, 2014; in Khmer)
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 Piphal Heng and Paul A. Lavy, Pre-Angkorian cities: Ishanapura and Mahendraparvata (undated book chapter)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Seshat Global History Databank, Chenla (undated)
- ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 Michael Vickery, Funan Reviewed: Deconstructing the Ancients, Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient 90-91 (2003-2004)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Angkor Database, summary of Haksrea Kuoch, Survey of the Southern Provinces of Cambodia in the Pre-Angkor Era, M.Phil. thesis, School of Oriental and African Studies (1976)
- ↑ UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Temple Zone of Sambor Prei Kuk, Archaeological Site of Ancient Ishanapura (inscribed 2017)
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Cambodianess, Nhek Sreyleak, Sambor Prei Kuk: Cambodia's Lost City of the 7th Century (February 18, 2023)
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Cambodianess, Sem Vanna, Sambor Prei Kuk: Capital of the Khmer Kingdom before Angkor (September 28, 2024)