Brett Davis - AsiaLIFE Magazine

Po Shanu Tower
The Brick Builders
Po Adam-Hung
Last Cham Kings Crown
Hindus believed that their deities resided on Mount
Meru, in the centre of the universe. Champa, like other
Hinduized cultures, built their temples as mini replicas of
this abode. Eastward-facing Cham temples were usually
built on mounds or hilltops overlooking moving water.
Much like earlier Funan temples, but unlike Angkor
monuments, Cham towers were constructed entirely of
red bricks. Mortar isn’t visible on the outside of a Cham
temple. This gave rise to stories by the Vietnamese that
the bricks were only air-dried before set in place, and then
covered with a resin before the entire tower was baked
in situ by a giant bonfire. In reality, a loose mortar can be
found between inner brick layers. Further, ancient kilns
where the bricks were baked prior to temple construction
have been found outside Phan Thiet.
The remaining artefacts have been
ravaged so aggressively in the last
20 years that there will soon be
nothing left worth saving if they
are not immediately placed under
protection.
With several temple ruin sites
recently discovered—ranking
among the oldest—it seems that
Binh Thuan Province may have
been the birthplace of classical
Cham architecture, likely influenced
by the neighbouring and
elder Funan Empire.
Unfortunately the remaining
artefacts have been ravaged so
aggressively in the last 20 years,
by both professional temple
robbers and local farmers, that
there will soon be nothing left
worth saving if they are not
immediately placed under
protection.
Cham temples often served as
tombs for the kings of Champa,
and the Cham were notorious
for hiding gold and jewellery
under tower foundations,
as offerings to the god-kings
buried there. This has always
made them a target of choice
for robbers, who also carry off
valuable statuary, lingas (phallic
representations of Shiva)
and steles bearing the written
history of the king to which the
temple was devoted. Tomb raiders
(and farmers demolishing
temple ruins to clear land for
crops) may have done nearly as
much damage to the sum total
of Champa’s relics in the last 20
years as all of America’s bombs
at My Son.
At the moment, no one is paying
attention. “We don’t really
care about the collapsed Cham
ruins far in the countryside”
an assistant at the Ministry of
Tourism told me. “The country
just restores and protects the
big beautiful temples near the
highway—the ones that tourist
like and are easy to access.”
ing the earliest days of Champa,
but that it may in fact be the
earliest seed of Cham culture in
Vietnam.
Panduranga Revisited
Until recently, the only known
Cham towers in Binh Thuan
Province were Po Shanu in Phan
Thiet, and little-known Po Dam
near Phan Ri. Po Shanu is the
oldest known Cham tower, yet
it’s often overlooked in age-style
comparisons between towers
because it inconveniently looks
as much like a pre-Angkorian
Khmer temple of the Funan
Kingdom as a Cham temple. Po
Dam, only thought to be a little
older, is similar in style to Tha
Hoa Lai in Phan Rang. Interestingly,
Hoa Lai has long been
disowned by the Cham, who
claim it is a Khmer (Angkorian
or Funan-era) temple.
Last summer Phan Thiet’s
provincial museum made a
small announcement about
a 9th century temple ruin
discovered in the far north of
the province, on the road to
Dalat. As usual the nearest
stated village didn’t appear on
any map, so I set out with my
friend Hung to find it, again
by asking locals. In the process
of my search I would accidentally
find two undocumented
temples. Then after finding
the government’s temple, I
located the fourth, “Reservoir
Tower” described previously.
Strangely, only two of these
four temple sites are in view of
running water, and none are on
pronounced hilltops. If the locations
were forested at the time
of construction, no view of the
countryside would have been
afforded. This is very unusual
for Cham temples anywhere in
Vietnam, except for the holy city
of My Son.
The first temple that I found
I named Po Adam-Hung in jest.
The main tower shaft, with tall,
smooth walls, penetrated down
into the centre of a mound. It
seems as though the temple roof
collapsed outward and formed
the mound around it. Beside it
is a smaller building, still apparently
intact but buried in the
mound. Along it is a trench and
another wall, as though forming
a hallway.
The second undocumented
temple site, which I tentatively
named “The Farmer’s Tower”
(it sits in the middle of cropland),
is about a 15-minute drive
away. It consists of multiple
structures, all entirely collapsed
but one. Three outer walls remain,
hidden by trees and vines.
Bricks and an undecorated lintel
lay strewn upon the ground.
The third set of ruins, announced
and excavated by the
government, is all but collapsed,
save the foundation, and questionably
dated by authorities
as 9th-century. This temple is
about 20 minutes drive north
from the others, at the foot of
the mountains.
These ruins, together with Po
Shanu and yet another badly
degraded ruin on the edge of
Phan Thiet, all lay within Binh
Thuan’s central Quao River
Delta. I don’t believe that it
is a coincidence that these,
Champa’s oldest known towers,
are in such close proximity to
the elder Funan ruins in Cat
Tien National Park. I believe
that Binh Thuan’s ruins may
represent a transition between
the Funan and Cham architectural
styles, and that there are
probably many other vestiges
here with transitional styles that
are yet to be discovered.
In addition to these seven
towers, sources have confirmed
the existence of at least 10 more
ancient Cham temple sites in the
province, as well as numerous
shrines and the ancient Cham
citadel of Song Luy. Among
these are the newly discovered
temple sites in the districts of
Muong Man and Binh Tan,
which display remarkable
similarities in size, complexity
and sophistication to principal
temples in the holy city My
Son. All of these temples are
loosely dated from the 8th to 9th
centuries.
Champa’s History at a Precipice
From these discoveries, I
conclude that Panduranga was
much more actively settled
in the early days of Champa
than previously thought. "The
riparian Cham cities of Phan
Thiet and Phan Ri both have
Cham and Sa Huynh relics in
the vicinity that suggests they
may be among the oldest and
longest-continuously inhabited
cities in Vietnam (2,500 years)."
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Asia Life August 2010.indd 1 23/08/2010 05:02:15
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