Editing History of Cambodia (section)

==Funan Kingdom (1st century – 550/627)==
{{Main article|Kingdom of Funan}}
[[File:FunanMap001.jpg|thumb|200px|Map of Funan at around the 3rd century]]

Chinese annals<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.funan.de/culture1.php |title=THE VIRTUAL MUSEUM OF KHMER ART - History of Funan - The Liang Shu account from Chinese Empirical Records |publisher=Wintermeier collection |access-date=13 July 2015 |archive-date=13 July 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150713144007/http://www.funan.de/culture1.php |url-status=dead }}</ref> contain detailed records of the first known organised polity, the [[Kingdom of Funan]], on Cambodian and Vietnamese territory characterised by "high population and urban centers, the production of surplus food...socio-political stratification [and] legitimized by Indian religious ideologies".<ref>{{cite book |author-link1=Miriam Stark |last=Stark |first=Miriam T. |date=2003 |chapter=Chapter III: Angkor Borei and the Archaeology of Cambodia's Mekong Delta |chapter-url=http://www.anthropology.hawaii.edu/people/faculty/stark/pdfs/2003_AngkorBorei.pdf |editor-last=Khoo |editor-first=James C. M. |title=Art and Archaeology of Fu Nan |publisher=Orchid Press |location=Bangkok |page=89 |quote=Archaeolgic, epigraphic and art historical research illustrate, that the delta was the center of the region's first cultural system with trappings of statehood... |access-date=7 July 2015 |archive-date=23 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923172505/http://www.anthropology.hawaii.edu/people/faculty/stark/pdfs/2003_AngkorBorei.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.learner.org/courses/worldhistory/support/reading_10_1.pdf |title=Southeast Asian Riverine and Island Empires by Candice Goucher, Charles LeGuin, and Linda Walton - Funan rulers of the early first century legitimized their rule on the basis of claimed descent from heroic ancestors |publisher=The Annenberg Foundation |access-date=13 July 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160109081448/http://www.learner.org/courses/worldhistory/support/reading_10_1.pdf |archive-date=9 January 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Centered around the lower [[Mekong]] and [[Bassac river|Bassac]] rivers from the first to sixth century CE with "walled and moated cities"<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.khamkoo.com/uploads/9/0/0/4/9004485/pre_angkorian_and_angkorian_combodia.pdf |title=Pre-Angkorian and Angkorian Cambodia by Miriam T. Stark - Chinese documentary evidence described walled and moated cities... |publisher=Khamkoo |access-date=13 July 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304130404/http://www.khamkoo.com/uploads/9/0/0/4/9004485/pre_angkorian_and_angkorian_combodia.pdf |archive-date=4 March 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref> such as [[Angkor Borei District|Angkor Borei]] in [[Takeo Province]] and [[Óc Eo]] in modern [[An Giang Province]], [[Vietnam]].

Early Funan was composed of loose communities, each with its own ruler, linked by a common culture and a shared economy of rice farming people in the hinterland and traders in the coastal towns, who were economically interdependent, as surplus rice production found its way to the ports.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.learner.org/courses/worldhistory/support/reading_10_1.pdf |title=Southeast Asian Riverine and Island Empires by Candice Goucher, Charles LeGuin, and Linda Walton - Early Funan was composed of a number of communities... |access-date=13 July 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160109081448/http://www.learner.org/courses/worldhistory/support/reading_10_1.pdf |archive-date=9 January 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

By 1986 Funan controlled the strategic coastline of [[Indochina]] and the maritime trade routes. Cultural and religious ideas reached Funan via the [[Indian Ocean trade]] route. Trade with [[India]] had commenced well before 500 BCE as [[Sanskrit]] hadn't yet replaced [[Pali]].<ref name="Stark1999"/> Funan's language has been determined as to have been an early form of Khmer and its written form was [[Sanskrit]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://rooneyarchive.net/books/khmer_ceramics/khmer_ceramics.pdf |title= Khmer Ceramics by Dawn Rooney – The language of Funan was... | publisher= Oxford University Press 1984 |access-date=13 July 2015}}</ref>
{{Main article|Chenla Kingdom}}

[[File:China 5.jpg|thumb|200px|left|The territories of Eastern Wu (in green), 262 CE]]
[[File:Periplous of the Erythraean Sea.svg|thumb|200px|left|Roman trade with India according to the ''[[Periplus Maris Erythraei]]'', 1st century CE]]
In the period 2012-2013 dignitaries of the Chinese [[Eastern Wu|Kingdom of Wu]] visited the Funan city Vyadharapura.<ref>{{cite book|first=Jacques|last=Gernet|title=A History of Chinese Civilization|year=1996|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-49781-7|pages=[https://archive.org/details/historyofchinese00gern_0/page/126 126–127, 196–197]|url=https://archive.org/details/historyofchinese00gern_0/page/126}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/cambodia/history-funan.htm |title= Funan Kingdom - 100-545 CE - In the mid-3rd century A.D. two chinese traders, Kang Tai and Zhu Ying, visited Vyadharapura | publisher= Global Security |access-date=13 July 2015}}</ref> Envoys Kang Tai and Zhu Ying defined Funan as to be a distinct [[Hinduism|Hindu]] culture.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.e-reading.club/bookreader.php/142071/Encyclopedia_of_ancient_Asian_civilizations.pdf |title=Encyclopedia of Ancient Asian Civilizations by Charles F. W. Higham – the inscriptions, written in Sanskrit and employing the Indian Brahmi script, record the presence of kings and queens who took Indian names and founded temples dedicated to Indian gods |publisher=Library of Congress |access-date=13 July 2015 |archive-date=4 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200804224753/http://www.e-reading.club/bookreader.php/142071/Encyclopedia_of_ancient_Asian_civilizations.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> Trade with China had begun after the [[southward expansion of the Han Dynasty]], around the 2nd century BCE Effectively Funan "controlled strategic land routes in addition to coastal areas"<ref>{{cite web |url=http://rooneyarchive.net/books/khmer_ceramics/khmer_ceramics.pdf |title= Khmer Ceramics by Dawn Rooney – Funan became an important centre because it controlled strategic land routes in addition to coastal areas | publisher= Oxford University Press 1984 |access-date=13 July 2015}}</ref> and occupied a prominent position as an "economic and administrative hub"<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.khamkoo.com/uploads/9/0/0/4/9004485/pre_angkorian_and_angkorian_combodia.pdf |title=Pre-Angkorian and Angkorian Cambodia by Miriam T. Stark – ...economic and administrative hub |publisher=Khamkoo |access-date=13 July 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304130404/http://www.khamkoo.com/uploads/9/0/0/4/9004485/pre_angkorian_and_angkorian_combodia.pdf |archive-date=4 March 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259378719 |title= The "Indianization" of Funan: An Economic History of Southeast Asia's First State by Kenneth R. Hall – providing suitable stopping places for sailors and traders; available to them were food, water, and shelter as well as storage facilities and market places for exchange... | publisher= Kenneth R. Hall |access-date=13 July 2015}}</ref> between The Indian Ocean trade network and China, collectively known as the [[Maritime Silk Road]]. [[Roman trade with India|Trade routes]], that eventually ended in distant [[Roman Empire|Rome]] are corroborated by Roman and [[Sasanian Empire|Persian]] coins and artefacts, unearthed at archaeological sites of 2nd and 3rd century settlements.<ref name="Stark2006" /><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/cambodia/history-funan.htm |title= Funan Kingdom – 100–545 CE The remains of what is believed to have been the kingdom's main port, Oc Eo (now part of Vietnam), contain Roman as well as Persian, Indian, and Greek artefacts. | publisher= Global Security |access-date=13 July 2015}}</ref>
{{multiple image|perrow=2|total_width=400|caption_align=center
| image1 = Inscribed limestone stele, Bia đá có khắc chữ, Thap Muoi, Dong Thap, 2nd half of 5th century AD, Museum of Vietnamese History, Ho Chi Minh City03.jpg|caption1=This [[stele]] found at [[Tháp Mười]] in [[Đồng Tháp Province]], Vietnam. The text is in [[Sanskrit]], written in [[Grantha alphabet]] of the [[Pallava dynasty]], dated to the mid-5th century AD, and tells of a donation in honour of [[Vishnu]] by a Prince Gunavarman of the Kaundinya lineage.
| image2 = Bodhisattva Lokeshvara of My Tho.jpg|caption2= Statue of Bodhisattva Lokeshvara excavated in [[My Tho]], Tien Giang province, Vietnam. Style of Phnom Da (Funan). 7th century AD. Guimet Museum, Paris.
}}
Funan is associated with myths, such as the [[Óc Eo|Kattigara]] legend and the Khmer founding legend in which an Indian [[Brahman]] or prince named Preah Thaong in Khmer, Kaundinya in Sanskrit and Hun-t’ien in Chinese records marries the local ruler, a princess named Nagi Soma (Lieu-Ye in Chinese records), thus establishing the first [[List of monarchs of Cambodia|Cambodian royal dynasty]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.anthropology.hawaii.edu/people/faculty/Stark/pdfs/YoffeePages313332.pdf |title=9 Textualized Places, Pre-Angkorian Khmers and Historicized Archaeology by Miriam T. Stark – Cambodia's Origins and the Khok Thlok Story |publisher=University of Hawaii |access-date=13 July 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923172439/http://www.anthropology.hawaii.edu/people/faculty/Stark/pdfs/YoffeePages313332.pdf |archive-date=23 September 2015 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Scholars debate as to how deep the narrative is rooted in actual events and on Kaundinya's origin and status.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://michaelvickery.org/vickery2003funan.pdf |title= Funan Reviewed : Deconstructing the Ancients In: Bulletin de l'Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient. Tome 90–91, 2003. pp. 101–143. – In that case the place from which the stranger started his voyage to Funan would have been on the east coast of the Malay peninsula. | publisher= Michael Vickery’s Publications |access-date=13 July 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://odisha.gov.in/e-magazine/Orissareview/2011/Nov/engpdf/32-38.pdf|title=Kalinga and Funan : A Study in Ancient Relations – there is considerable disagreement on the homeland of Kaundinya|publisher=Government of Odisha|access-date=13 July 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150713102241/http://odisha.gov.in/e-magazine/Orissareview/2011/Nov/engpdf/32-38.pdf|archive-date=13 July 2015|url-status=dead|df=dmy-all}}</ref> A Chinese document, that underwent 4 alterations<ref>{{cite web |url=http://michaelvickery.org/vickery2003funan.pdf |title= Funan Reviewed : Deconstructing the Ancients In: Bulletin de l'Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient. Tome 90–91, 2003. pp. 101–143. – Altogether there are 4 versions differing among themselves in interesting ways. – The first version... | publisher= Michael Vickery’s Publications |access-date=13 July 2015}}</ref> and a 3rd-century epigraphic inscription of [[Champa]] are the contemporary sources.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://odisha.gov.in/e-magazine/Orissareview/2011/Nov/engpdf/32-38.pdf|title=Kalinga and Funan: A Study in Ancient Relations – This Chinese version of the dynastic origin of Funan has been corroborated by a Sanskrit inscription of Champa belonging to the third century CE.|publisher=Government of Odisha|access-date=13 July 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150713102241/http://odisha.gov.in/e-magazine/Orissareview/2011/Nov/engpdf/32-38.pdf|archive-date=13 July 2015|url-status=dead|df=dmy-all}}</ref> Some scholars consider the story to be simply an [[allegory]] for the diffusion of Indic Hindu and Buddhist beliefs into ancient local cosmology and culture<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.learner.org/courses/worldhistory/support/reading_10_1.pdf |title=Southeast Asian Riverine and Island Empires by Candice Goucher, Charles LeGuin, and Linda Walton – The mythical account of the founding of Funan reflects in symbolic terms the conditions... |publisher=The Annenberg Foundation |access-date=13 July 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160109081448/http://www.learner.org/courses/worldhistory/support/reading_10_1.pdf |archive-date=9 January 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref> whereas some historians dismiss it chronologically.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://michaelvickery.org/vickery2003funan.pdf |title= Funan Reviewed : Deconstructing the Ancients In: Bulletin de l'Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient. Tome 90–91, 2003. pp. 101–143. – there is no evidence that the initial foreign conqueror came from India, neither is it clear that he was a Brahman, and almost certainly his name, as given to the Chinese, was not Kaundinya... | publisher= Michael Vickery’s Publications |access-date=13 July 2015}}</ref>

Chinese annals report that Funan reached its territorial climax in the early 3rd century under the rule of king Fan Shih-man, extending as far south as [[Malaysia]] and as far west as [[Myanmar|Burma]]. A system of [[mercantilism]] in commercial monopolies was established. Exports ranged from forest products to precious metals and commodities such as gold, elephants, ivory, rhinoceros horn, kingfisher feathers, wild spices like cardamom, lacquer, hides and aromatic wood. Under Fan Shih-man Funan maintained a formidable fleet and was administered by an advanced bureaucracy, based on a "tribute-based economy, that produced a surplus which was used to support foreign traders along its coasts and ostensibly to launch expansionist missions to the west and south".<ref name="Stark2006" />

Historians maintain contradicting ideas about Funan's political status and integrity.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://web.isanet.org/Web/Conferences/GSCIS%20Singapore%202015/Archive/23e81aa1-2e38-42a5-86f5-d95c45e4d9ce.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://web.isanet.org/Web/Conferences/GSCIS%20Singapore%202015/Archive/23e81aa1-2e38-42a5-86f5-d95c45e4d9ce.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |title= Thinking Through Srivijaya: Polycentric Networks in Traditional Southeast Asia By Rosita Dellios and R. James Ferguson – Yet Funan, like Srivijaya, was not a straightforward country/state or "guo" in the Western or Chinese sense. Funan has been shown to be "a conglomerate of chiefdoms but not a state" | publisher= Bond University Australia |access-date=13 July 2015}}</ref> [[Miriam T. Stark]] calls it simply Funan: [The]"notion of Fu Nan as an early "state"...has been built largely by historians using documentary and historical evidence" and Michael Vickery remarks: "Nevertheless, it is...unlikely that the several ports constituted a unified state, much less an 'empire'".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://michaelvickery.org/vickery2003funan.pdf |title= Funan Reviewed : Deconstructing the Ancients In: Bulletin de l'Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient. Tome 90–91, 2003. pp. 101–143. – What was Funan? Nevertheless, it is a priori unlikely that... | publisher= Michael Vickery |access-date=13 July 2015}}</ref> Other sources though, imply imperial status: "Vassal kingdoms spread to southern Vietnam in the east and to the Malay peninsula in the west"<ref>{{cite web |url=http://aero-comlab.stanford.edu/jameson/world_history/A_Short_History_of_South_East_Asia1.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://aero-comlab.stanford.edu/jameson/world_history/A_Short_History_of_South_East_Asia1.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |title= A Short History of South East Asia Chapter 1. Early Movements of PeopIes, Indian Influence – The First States on the Mainland Cambodia (Funan) – Vassal kingdoms spread to southern Vietnam in the east and to the Malay peninsula in the west | publisher= Stanford University |access-date=13 July 2015}}</ref> and "Here we will look at two empires of this period...Funan and Srivijaya".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.learner.org/courses/worldhistory/support/reading_10_1.pdf |title=Southeast Asian Riverine and Island Empires by Candice Goucher, Charles LeGuin, and Linda Walton – Here we will look at two empires |publisher=The Annenberg Foundation |access-date=13 July 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160109081448/http://www.learner.org/courses/worldhistory/support/reading_10_1.pdf |archive-date=9 January 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The question of how Funan came to an end is in the face of almost universal scholarly conflict impossible to pin down. [[Chenla]] is the name of Funan's successor in Chinese annals, first appearing in 616/617 CE

{{blockquote|...the fall of Funan was not the result of the shifting of maritime trade route from the Malay Peninsula route to the Strait of Malacca starting from the 5th century CE; rather, it suggests that the conquest of Funan by Zhenla was the exact reason for the shifting of maritime trade route in the 7th century CE....<ref>{{cite web |url=http://factsanddetails.com/asian/cat62/sub406/entry-2814.html |title= ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA: FUNAN, SRIVIJAYA AND THE MON | publisher= Facts and Details |access-date=July 13, 2015}}</ref>

"As Funan was indeed in decline caused by shifts in Southeast Asian maritime trade routes, rulers had to seek new sources of wealth inland."<ref>{{cite web |title= "What and Where was Chenla?" George Coedes | publisher= Michael Vickery }}</ref>

"By the end of the fifth century, international trade through southeast Asia was almost entirely directed through the Strait of Malacca. Funan, from the point of view of this trade, had outlived its usefulness."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.learner.org/courses/worldhistory/support/reading_10_1.pdf |title=Southeast Asian Riverine and Island Empires by Candice Goucher, Charles LeGuin, and Linda Walton - By the end of the fifth century, international trade through |publisher=The Annenberg Foundation |access-date=13 July 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160109081448/http://www.learner.org/courses/worldhistory/support/reading_10_1.pdf |archive-date=9 January 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

"Nothing in the epigraphical record authorizes such interpretations; and the inscriptions which retrospectively bridge the so- called Funan-Chenla transition do not indicate a political break at all."
<ref>{{cite web |title= What and Where was Chenla? | publisher= Michael Vickery }}</ref>}}

The archaeological approach to and interpretation of the entire early historic period is considered to be a decisive supplement for future research.<ref>{{cite journal |title= The Transition to History in the Mekong by Miriam T. Stark - There is another untapped role for archaeological approaches to the early historic period... | journal= International Journal of Historical Archaeology |doi=10.1023/A:1027368225043 |volume=2 | issue= 3 |pages=175–203|year = 1998|last1 = Stark|first1 = Miriam T.| s2cid= 17588289 }}</ref> The "Lower Mekong Archaeological Project" focuses on the development of political complexity in this region during the early historic period. LOMAP survey results of 2003 to 2005, for example, have helped to determine that "...the region's importance continued unabated throughout the pre-Angkorian period...and that at least three [surveyed areas] bear Angkorian-period dates and suggest the continued importance of the delta."<ref name="Stark2006" />