Historical figure
Rudravarman (Funan)
Rudravarman was the last known king of Funan, and reigned from 514 to 550.[1] No ruler of Funan after him is known by name.[1]
Reign
Rudravarman followed Kaundinya Jayavarman, who reigned from 484 to 514.[1] A table of Funan's rulers in an article by Minh Giang Vu, of Vietnam National University, Hanoi, gives Rudravarman's name in Chinese characters as 留陁跋摩 (Luu Da Bat Ma).[1]
Vu wrote that rivalry for the throne after 514 weakened Funan, and that Chenla attacked its capital, Vyadhapura, again and again in this period.[1] In his account, the Vyadhapura court gave up the citadel of Dac Muc in 550, which marked the end of Funan as an empire.[1]
Rudravarman died in 550.[1] Haksrea Kuoch wrote in 1976 that Funan suffered unrest within the kingdom in the years after Rudravarman's reign. Chinese records name embassies from Funan in the first half of the 7th century, while Chenla, a former northern vassal of Funan, attacked it in the second half of the 6th century.[2] Vu gives 627 as the year of the last envoy from Funan recorded in China.[1]
Foundations
An inscription known as K. 44 names a temple of Utpanneśvara and a Śreṣṭhāśrama, and Dominic Goodall wrote in 2025 that it appears to link both foundations to the patronage of Rudravarman in the 6th century.[3]
In later genealogies
Rüdiger Gaudes wrote in 1993 that members of the royal houses of Funan and Chenla must have been related by the 6th century. Some later texts give ancestors from Chenla and, at the same time, Rudravarman from Funan.[4]
Not every King Rudravarman in these lineages is the king of Funan. The Saptadevakula family traced its line to a King Rudravarman and Queen Narendralakshmi. Michael Vickery wrote that this Rudravarman was probably the maternal grandfather of Indravarman, who reigned from 877 to 889, rather than the Rudravarman of Funan.[5]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 VMOST Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, Minh Giang Vu, FUNAN (Phu Nam) from a new perspective (December 2022)
- ↑ Angkor Database, Haksrea Kuoch, Survey of the Southern Provinces of Cambodia in the Pre-Angkor Era (1976)
- ↑ Udaya, Journal of Khmer Studies, Dominic Goodall, Administrative zones for pious foundations under Īśānavarman I? Edition and translation of the seventh-century Sanskrit inscription K. 1418 (No. 16, 2025)
- ↑ Asian Folklore Studies, Rüdiger Gaudes, Kaundinya, Preah Thaong, and the Nāgī Somā: Some Aspects of a Cambodian Legend (Volume 52, 1993)
- ↑ Angkor Database, Michael Vickery, The Reign of Suryavarman I and Royal Factionalism at Angkor (undated)