The Chams

Evidence of the Past

Owing to an increase in the amount of high-quality archaeological exploration that is increasingly becoming possible in Southeast Asia, we are able to obtain additional forms of information to supplement our knowledge of the peoples and societies of the region. Previously, we had been obliged to rely mainly upon Chinese documentation of visits and tribute missions, together with some locally produced chronicles that dealt principally with the lives and works of kings and princes, together with what limited exploration had taken place - at least for the periods before European visitors began to interact with the area extensively and provide detailed and systematic reports of what they had found.

Cham Society

One beneficiary of this increase in archaeological activity has been greater awareness of the Chams. The Chams created a civilization that flourished on the coastal areas of what we now know as Vietnam in the centuries leading up to the C8th CE. Champa settlements were scattered along the riverine plains adjoining the sea and it seems most likely, given the rugged uplands that quickly rise from the inland parts of Vietnam, that most forms of communications and control between them and their neighbours would have been based on the sea. There is certainly evidence to show that some Cham princes were able to mobilize large fleets and deploy significantly sized military forces, based around a coprs of war elephants. In common with neighbours such as the Dvaravati and Chenla civilizations, the Chams identified temporal power with religious authority - in other words, a prince was granted power as a result of the mandate of heaven and therefore had to be revered as holy while protecting the religious needs of the people. The power of the princes was therefore manifested in the creation of religious sites and the accumulation of valuable sacred items at those sites. It is recorded that after a successful Chinese military campaign against the Chams, some 48,000 kg of gold was removed from temples in the form of religious offerings that were then converted into ingots.

Trade from the west to the Chinese court passed by sea around the cities of the Chams and it appears that they both participated in and preyed upon traders. During this period, the Chinese maintained commanderies - military outposts - in northern Vietnam and at some positions along the middle Miekong that have not yet been definitively identified. These commanderies existed to represent Chinese interests and to act as symbols of Chinese force. They also designated the extent of Chinese aims as no military campaigns beyond their limits were determinedly aimed at enlarging Chinese territory. When Cham raiding reached a point at which Chinese leaders resolved to act against them, therefore, the commanderies acted as staging posts at which armies from further north could orient themselves before inflicting punitive campaigns in the south. It is campaigns such as these that appear to have destroyed Cham power.

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