Champa & Kinh

Intro

vietnam champa 1100
vietnam champa 1100

Chinese influence

  • “Muong/ monglong and Kinh (ethnic Vietnamese) separation happened when the proto-Vietnamese became heavily Sinicised, beginning from the 111 BC invasion by Chinese Emperor Wu of Han, while the Muong, living in the mountains, developed independently. … The Muong and the Tai have had a mutual influence on each other’s culture.”
  • “An official successfully revolted against Chinese rule in central Vietnam, and Lâm Ấp was founded in AD 192. "
  • The Kinh continued to be influenced culturally by Chinese, despite being geographically, linguistically and genetically Southeast Asian.

Genetics

  • “While Northern Vietnam Kinh people assimilated Han Chinese immigrants into their population, have a sinicized culture and carry the patrilineal Han Chinese O-M7 haplogroup, 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.”
  • " Analysis of Vietnamese Kinh people’s genetics show that within the last 800 years there was mixture between a Malay like southern Asian and a Chinese ancestral component that happens to fit the time period in which Kinh expanded south from their Red river delta homeland in Nam tiến which also matches the event 700 years ago when the Cham population suffered massive losses.”

Hindu expression

  • “Champa principalities underwent the process of Indianization since the early common era as a result of centuries of socio-economic interaction adopted and introduced cultural and institutional elements of pre-Islamic India.”
  • “Hinduism was established as Champa began to create Sanskrit stone inscriptions and erect red brick Hindu temples. The first king acknowledged in the inscriptions is Bhadravarman, who reigned from AD 380 to AD 413. At Mỹ Sơn, King Bhadravarman established a linga called Bhadresvara. Rudravarman of Champa founded a new dynasty in 529 CE and was succeeded by his son, Shambhuvarman. He reconstructed the temple of Bhadravarman and renamed it to Shambhu-bhadreshvara. 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.”
  • “It is acknowledged that the historical record is not equally rich for each of the regions in every historical period. For example, in the 10th century AD, the record is richest for Indrapura; in the 12th century AD, it is richest for Vijaya; following the 15th century AD, it is richest for Panduranga.”
  • “Before the conquest of Champa by the Đại Việt emperor Trần Thánh Tông in 1471, the dominant religion of the Cham people was Hinduism, and the culture was heavily influenced by that of India. The Hinduism of Champa was overwhelmingly Shaiva 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 liṅgam, and the kośa.”

Khmer relations

  • “In 1177, the Cham and their allies launched an attack from the lake Tonlé Sap and managed to sack the Khmer capital. In 1181, however, they were defeated by the Khmer King Jayavarman VII.”
  • “Despite the frequent wars between Champa and Cambodia, the two countries also traded and cultural influences moved in both directions. Royal families of the two countries intermarried frequently.”

Srivijaya relations

  • “Champa also had close trade and cultural relations with the powerful maritime empire of Srivijaya and later with the Majapahit of the Malay Archipelago. … Aceh confirms that a very strong Champan cultural influence existed in Indonesia; this is indicated by the use of the Chamic language Acehnese as the main language in the coastal regions of Aceh.”
  • “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 Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Java). In AD 767, the Tonkin coast was raided by a Javanese fleet (Daba) and Kunlun pirates … "

Islamification

  • “From the 8th century onward trade and shipping of India came to be increasingly controlled by Muslims from such regions as Gujarat. Islamic ideas became a part of the vast tide of exchange, treading the same path as Hinduism and Buddhism centuries before. … Ad-Dimashqi writes in 1325, “the country of Champa… is inhabited by Muslims and idolaters. The Muslim religion came there during the time of Caliph Uthman… and Ali, many Muslims who were expelled by the Umayyads and by Hajjaj, fled there”.”
  • " it was not until 17th century that Islam began to attract large numbers of Chams, when some members of the Cham royalty converted to Islam. "
  • “Indonesian 15th century records indicate the influence of Princess Daravati, a Cham, converted to Islam,[38] and influenced her husband, Kertawijaya, Majapahit’s seventh ruler to convert the Majapahit royal family to Islam. … In the 15th to 17th century, Muslim Cham maintained a cordial relationship with the Aceh Sultanate through dynastic marriage.”
  • History here.
  • “Physical evidence of Cham culture in Vietnam is disappearing. In Binh Thuan Province and elsewhere, Cham temple sites and ancient tombs have been overrun by paddies, dragonfruit plantations, and shrimp farms. In Quang Ngai Province, temple sites have been damaged or destroyed by gravel quarrying. The Vietnamese continue to build Buddhist temples atop the ruins of Cham religious sites and to use bricks from Cham citadels to build their houses. Hill tribes relocated from the far north of Vietnam now live in Champa’s last capital, Song Luy, brought down during Minh Mang’s purge. "

Khatib Sumat jihAd

The Chams were led by a Islamic clergyman from Cambodia named Katip (Khatib) Sumat, who had spent many years studying Islam in Kelantan. Apparently, upon hearing that Champa was under attack by the Nguyen army, Katip Sumat immediately returned. Arriving in Binh Thuan in 1833, he was accompanied by a large force of Malays and Chams from Kelantan. Katip Sumat led the Chams in a series of guerrilla attacks against the Nguyen army. Apart from fighting for the survival of Champa, Katip Sumat invoked the Islamic bond in rallying Malay and Cham support for the cause. In some ways this turned the Cham struggle against the Vietnamese into a form of religious war. 39 The Katip Sumat-led resistance, however, was defeated by the Nguyen army.

Katip Sumat’s Malay contingent did not consist only of volunteers. It is believed that they were sent by Sultan Muhamad I of Kelantan (1800-1837), who raised an army to accompany Katip Sumat to Champa. According to Po Dharma, the underlying factors were the Sultan’s acknowledgement that he and the ruler of Champa shared the same lineage (descendants of Po Rome) and of the need to preserve Islamic unity. 40

The defeat of Katip Sumat and other Malay-Cham resistance against the Vietnamese in 1835 marked the end of Champa as an independent or autonomous political entity. However, resistance up to that time demonstrates that the Malay-Cham relationship was very old and based first on their common Malay identity and, increasingly since the sixteenth century, on their common adherence to the Islamic faith. Malay-Cham relations continued after 1835 as well, mainly culturally and religiously.

Rollback

  • De-islamicization - Chinese muslim army in struggle with Dai viet, later annihilation [IMG].

Kinh domination

  • “In the Cham–Vietnamese War (AD 1471), Champa suffered serious defeats at the hands of the Vietnamese, in which 120,000 people were either captured or killed. .. Champa was reduced to the principalities of Panduranga and Kauthara (Nha Trang) at the beginning of the 17th century. Kauthara was annexed by the Vietnamese in 1653. The last remaining principality of Champa, Panduranga, survived until 1832.”

Dai Viet invasion of Mekong Delta

“In the 17th century a weakened Khmer state left the Mekong Delta poorly administered after repeated warfare with Siam. Concurrently Vietnamese refugees fleeing the Trịnh–Nguyễn War in Vietnam migrated into the area. In 1623 Cambodian king Chey Chettha II (1618–1628) officially sanctioned the Vietnamese immigrants to operate a custom house at Prey Nokor, then a small fishing village. The settlement steadily grew soon becoming a major regional port, attracting even more settlers. In 1698 the Nguyễn Lords of Huế commissioned Nguyễn Hữu Cảnh, a Vietnamese noble to organize the territory along Vietnamese administrative lines, thus by de facto detaching it from the Kingdom of Cambodia and incorporating it into Vietnam. With the loss of the port of Prey Nokor, then renamed Sài Gòn, Cambodia’s control of the area grew increasingly tenuous while increasing waves of Vietnamese settlers to the Delta isolated the Khmer of the Mekong Delta from the Cambodian kingdom. By 1757 the Vietnamese had absorbed the provinces of Psar Dèk (renamed Sa Đéc in Vietnamese) on the Mekong itself, and Moat Chrouk (Vietnamized to Châu Đốc) on the Bassac River.”

Suppression of Cham

  • “Minh Mạng enacted assimilation policies upon the Khmer such as forcing them to adopt Sino-Vietnamese surnames, culture, and clothing. Minh Mang sinicized ethnic minorities including the Cambodians, in line with Confucianism as he diffused Vietnamese culture with China’s Han civilization using the term Han people 漢人 for the Vietnamese.”
  • “In 1832, Emperor Minh Mang set out to crush the last vestiges of Cham autonomy and stamp out the culture, burning Cham villages and farmland and destroying ancient temples. Many Cham fled to Cambodia, where their descendants number in the hundreds of thousands today.”
  • “Cham Hindus were fed beef and Cham Muslims were fed pork under coercion by Vietnamese invaders after the Vietnamese invasion of the last part of independent Champa in 1832.”

Current state

See vietnam article for current state and later history.