Brett Davis - AsiaLIFE Magazine

In Pursuit of Panduranga
New discoveries suggest the kingdom
of Champa’s architectural origins may
in fact be buried in its final refuge:
modern-day Binh Thuan Province.
Adam Bray hits the road to find the
origins of this much misunderstood
civilization and the birthplace of
classical Cham architecture. Photos
by Adam Bray and Fred Wissink.
Photo by Fred Wissink
Looking up inside Thap Po Dam Tower
New discoveries suggest not
only that Panduranga may
have developed independently
during the earliest days of
Champa, but that it may in fact
be the earliest seed of Cham
culture in Vietnam.
I drove north from Phan Thiet
early in the morning toward the
mountains. Last year a villager
told me about some ancient
Cham temple ruins submerged
at the back of a reservoir in
the foothills of the Central Highlands.
“It’s only visible for the
last month of dry season” he
said. “The rest of the year it’s
under water.”
He told me the name of the
nearest village, but it didn’t appear
on any maps. I decided to
just head north and ask people
along the way. “Do you know
if there are any old collapsed
Cham towers in the area?” I
would ask the rice farmers in
Vietnamese.
Over and over again I received
the same answer, “There
are no Cham temples out here.
You must go to Phan Rang.
That’s where Cham people
come from.” It was both a bizarre
and frustrating response,
considering there is an obvious
Cham tower in Phan Thiet—Po
Shanu—and there are Cham
residents living throughout this
area. I’ve long marveled at how
little knowledge or interest the
villagers have in a kingdom
that once laid claim to the
whole area. But then, scholars
and archaeologists hadn’t paid
much attention to Binh Thuan
Province either because until
last year there were only two
documented Cham temples
found here. Binh Thuan, known
as southern Panduranga by
the Cham, was considered the
place where the Cham sought
refuge after the kingdom was
overthrown in the 15th century.
Inexplicably, however, the province’s
two documented templetowers
have long been regarded
as the oldest known Cham ruins
in Vietnam.
Just before sunset, with a few
tips from the farmers, I finally
arrived at the correct village and
turned my motorbike north between
the mountains and down
a dusty trail. I was delighted
to find an elderly Cham man
standing by a shack at the end
of the road. I explained my mission
and to my great surprise he
knew exactly what ruins I was
looking for. He led me across a
rocky floodplain to the edge of
a river leading to the reservoir.
Ancient red bricks, encrusted
in clam shells, lay strewn about
two temple foundations.
“About 15 years ago the
one-armed man came,” said the
old man. “He had a group of six
men that dug here. They took
away cartloads of statues, iron
implements, steles with writing
and even some gold.” I cringed.
This wasn’t the first time I’d
heard of “the one-armed man.”
Villagers at other ruin sites
told me how this gold shop
owner vandalized and robbed
archaeological sites all over the
province.
Champa: A Jumbled History
Under Contention
The Cham are a semi-matriarchal
ethnic group whose oncegreat
kingdom encompassed all
of Central Vietnam and at times
portions of Laos and Cambodia.
Their kingdom, known as
Champa, was a contemporary
rival to Angkor, China and the
Vietnamese.
Georges Maspero’s The
Champa Kingdom: The History
of an Extinct Vietnamese Culture
(1928) was long considered the
definitive version of the history
of the Champa Kingdom. He
proposed that the single, united
Champa kingdom began in the
4th century, at that time known
as Linyi by the Chinese, and
was slowly driven southward
through five principalities by
the Vietnamese. Beginning in Indrapura
(near modern Danang),
they retreated to Amaravati
(Quang Nam Province), the
Vijaya (26 km from Qui Nhon),
then Kauthara (Nha Trang),
finally seeking refuge in Panduranga
(Binh Thuan and Ninh
Thuan provinces).
Within Maspero’s history is a
poorly-explained account of the
abandonment of Indrapura and
the holy city of My Son during
the 8th and 9th centuries and
the subsequent relocation to
Panduranga and Kauthara by
Champa’s rulers. All of the earliest
known Cham temples are
located in Panduranga and date
from this period. The surviving
temples at My Son were all built
after Maspero believed the capital
shifted back to Indrapura,
a century later. There are older
rudiments attributed mostly to
the Linyi period in My Son but
they are not vestiges of classical
Cham temple-towers.
However, Michael Vickery’s
2005 working paper “Champa
Revised” throws that all out
the window. Vickery asserts
that Champa was a loosely affiliated
group of perhaps three
autonomous principalities,
each developing independently
and in parallel, with their own
respective ruling elite. Vickery
argues that Maspero’s assertion
that Champa evolved from
Linyi is pure “historical fiction”
and points out that much of his
history is based on unfounded
assumption, misunderstandings,
myth and all-too heavy
reliance on skewed ancient Chi-
Thap Po Dam Tower
nese and Vietnamese histories.
He seems to imply a much later
emergence of Cham—perhaps
in the 7th or 8th century. Vickery
maintains that the shifting
pre-eminence (and subsequent
decline a century later) of Panduranga
in the 8th century (and
again in the 11th century) is due
to changes in trade routes and
not migrations of royal families
and capital cities.
I agree with Vickery. Newlydiscovered
temple ruins here in
Binh Thuan Province suggest a
continual prominence of Panduranga
as an active religious
realm from the earliest days of
Champa. I’ve located clusters
of temple ruins in the north of
the province, which point to the
possibility of a holy city. Likewise,
the little-known ancient
Cham citadel wall surrounding
the town of Song Luy in central
Binh Thuan is incontrovertible
evidence of an impressive
military or royal presence in
Panduranga.
Even more exciting however,
are the recently disclosed
discoveries of more than a
dozen Sa Huynh sites by the
government. The Sa Huynh
culture (known chiefly for its
use of burial-cremation jars and
intricate jewellery) is one of
the earliest known civilizations
in Vietnam, dating back up to
3,000 years. It’s largely believed
that the Sa Huynh are ancestors
of the Cham.
All of these exciting new
discoveries suggest not only
that Panduranga may have
developed independently dur-
34 asialife HCMC asialife HCMC 35