An outline, era by era

Southeast Asia

Funan

Classical Antiquity · ~500 BCE – ~500 CE

Funan was an early state centred on the Mekong delta, in present-day southern Vietnam and Cambodia. It flourished from about the first to the sixth century CE and is the earliest large polity in mainland Southeast Asia known from written sources. Our knowledge comes mainly from Chinese envoy reports, a few early Sanskrit inscriptions, and excavations at Oc Eo and nearby sites. Funan is a Chinese name, and what its people called their kingdom is unknown.

Funan lay on the sea route linking India and China, and its ports took part in a growing maritime trade. Indian goods, ideas, scripts and religions, including Hindu and Buddhist traditions, were adopted by local rulers, a process often called Indianization. Around the sixth century Funan declined, and power moved inland to Chenla, a forerunner of the Khmer kingdoms. The wider region in these centuries also included other early states, such as Champa on the Vietnamese coast and the Dong Son culture of the north.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. Oc Eo and the trade of the Mekong delta

    Event

    What happened

    From about the first to the sixth century CE, a canal-linked settlement at Oc Eo in the Mekong delta grows into a busy trading port. Excavations in 1944 by Louis Malleret reveal beads, jewellery, seals and tin and gold objects, along with a Roman gold medallion of Antoninus Pius and Indian and Chinese goods.

    The rest is history

    The finds show that the delta was linked to wide maritime networks by the second century CE. Aerial photographs showed a system of canals and walled sites around Oc Eo, suggesting organised rule and large-scale water management. Later excavations by Vietnamese archaeologists confirmed a large settlement. Oc Eo is generally treated as the main port of the kingdom Chinese sources call Funan, though how far the polity extended is debated.

    Sources

    1. BookMalleret, Louis. L'archéologie du delta du Mékong. Paris: École française d'Extrême-Orient, 1959-1963.
    2. BookHigham, Charles. The Civilization of Angkor. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001.

  2. Chinese envoys visit Funan

    Event

    What happened

    In the mid-third century CE the Chinese state of Wu sends envoys Kang Tai and Zhu Ying to Funan. Their reports, now surviving only in quotations, describe a kingdom with walled towns, taxes in gold, silver and perfumes, and a king who sends tribute to China. Funan sends embassies to Chinese courts into the sixth century.

    The rest is history

    These accounts, later quoted in works such as the Liang Shu and the Nan Qi Shu, are the main written source on Funan's society. They show a state in contact with India and China and with a recognisable court and trade economy. They also show that China knew the Mekong delta as a significant power by the third century. The reports are brief and second-hand, so historians use them together with archaeology.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryLiang Shu (History of the Liang Dynasty), account of Funan. Chinese dynastic history, compiled early 7th century CE.
    2. BookPelliot, Paul. Le Fou-nan. Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient 3. Hanoi: EFEO, 1903.

  3. Early Sanskrit inscriptions in Southeast Asia

    Event

    What happened

    From about the fourth to the sixth century CE, rulers in Southeast Asia begin to issue inscriptions in Sanskrit. The Vo Canh inscription from southern Vietnam, probably of the third to fourth century, is among the earliest. In Funan's territory, later inscriptions name kings such as Jayavarman and Rudravarman.

    The rest is history

    These texts show local courts adopting Indian script, language and royal titles, and honouring Hindu gods such as Vishnu and Shiva or Buddhist ideas. Scholars now stress that local elites chose what to adopt, rather than being conquered or colonised from India. Sanskrit remained a prestige language of rulers in the region for centuries. A Jayavarman of Funan sent tribute to China in 503 CE.

    Sources

    1. BookCoedès, George. The Indianized States of Southeast Asia. Honolulu: East-West Center Press, 1968.
    2. BookHigham, Charles. The Archaeology of Mainland Southeast Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

  4. Dong Son bronze drums

    Event

    What happened

    From about the fifth century BCE into the early centuries CE, the Dong Son culture of the Red River valley in northern Vietnam casts large decorated bronze drums. Found at Dong Son and many other sites, they show warriors, boats and birds. Similar drums turn up across mainland and island Southeast Asia.

    The rest is history

    The drums show skilled metalworking and a society with powerful chiefs, and their spread points to trade and contact across the region. Northern Vietnam came under Han Chinese rule in 111 BCE, which ended the independent Dong Son polities. The drums continued in use and remain symbols of early Vietnamese heritage. They show that Southeast Asia had complex societies before Indian and Chinese influence grew.

    Sources

    1. BookHigham, Charles. The Bronze Age of Southeast Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
    2. BookTaylor, Keith Weller. The Birth of Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.

  5. The founding of Champa at Linyi

    Event

    What happened

    In 192 CE, according to Chinese sources, a local official named Qu Lian rises against Han rule in the far south of the Chinese province of Rinan and founds the kingdom of Linyi. Linyi becomes the earliest state of the Cham people on the central Vietnamese coast, and raids and fights with Chinese authorities in the following centuries.

    The rest is history

    Linyi is usually seen as the early form of Champa, which lasted until the fifteenth century. The early Cham inscription of Vo Canh and later Sanskrit texts show Indian influence there too. Champa became a rival and neighbour of Funan and later of the Khmer. The identification of Linyi with Champa is widely accepted, though early details rest on Chinese reports.

    Sources

    1. BookCoedès, George. The Indianized States of Southeast Asia. Honolulu: East-West Center Press, 1968.
    2. BookHall, Kenneth R. A History of Early Southeast Asia. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011.

  6. Kaundinya and Soma, the founding of Funan

    Origin story

    The legend

    A Brahmin named Kaundinya arrives by sea and is met by the local queen Soma, a daughter of the Naga king. He takes up a magic bow, shoots an arrow at her ship, and she submits. They marry, and he rules the land, founding its royal line. The Naga king drinks up the waters that flooded the land to make it ruled ground.

    The rest is history

    The tale is recorded in Chinese sources of the third to sixth centuries, with a Brahmin called Hun-tien or Kaundinya and a woman ruler, Liu-ye. A similar story later appears in Cambodian inscriptions as the origin of the Khmer kings, with a Naga princess. It probably reflects the real arrival of Indian ideas and priests, joined to local traditions of a woman chief and water spirits. No evidence shows a single founding by an Indian visitor. Historians treat it as an origin story that later kingdoms adapted.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryNan Qi Shu (History of the Southern Qi), account of Funan. Chinese dynastic history, early 6th century CE.
    2. BookCoedès, George. The Indianized States of Southeast Asia. Honolulu: East-West Center Press, 1968.

  7. The Naga and the Khmer royal line

    Myth

    The legend

    In later Khmer tradition, the land is born from the union of a Brahmin hero and a Naga princess, a serpent being of the waters. The Naga king draws the floods away and gives the land to the couple as a dowry. Their descendants become the kings of the country.

    The rest is history

    The story is told in Khmer inscriptions of the seventh century onward and in Chinese accounts of the later Chenla and Angkor period. It echoes the earlier Funan tale. Serpent beings linked with water and fertility were important in local belief long before Indian religion arrived, and Nagas still decorate Khmer temples. The myth explained how a ruling line held its link to land and water in a delta country.

    Sources

    1. BookHigham, Charles. The Civilization of Angkor. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001.
    2. BookBriggs, Lawrence Palmer. The Ancient Khmer Empire. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1951.

  8. Funan as a great empire

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Funan is often described as a vast empire that ruled much of Southeast Asia, with a mighty fleet under the king Fan Shih-man that conquered lands around the Gulf of Siam and the Malay Peninsula.

    The rest is history

    Chinese sources do say that a king named Fan Shiman, early in the third century, built ships and attacked neighbouring lands. But the accounts are brief and mix report with hearsay. Archaeology shows several linked trading centres, not necessarily one tightly ruled empire. Some scholars now argue that Funan was a looser network of ports and chiefdoms. The size of its power is debated.

    Sources

    1. BookVickery, Michael. Society, Economics, and Politics in Pre-Angkor Cambodia. Tokyo: Centre for East Asian Cultural Studies, 1998.
    2. BookHall, Kenneth R. A History of Early Southeast Asia. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011.

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