Champa: Territories and Networks of a Southeast Asian Kingdom, edited by Arlo Griffiths, Andrew Hardy, and Geoff Wade, is a fresh contribution to Champa studies, a significant field in Southeast Asian studies, albeit one that does not benefit from the teleological attentions of modern state power. The groundbreaking scholars from the early days of the French School of the Far East—including Etienne Aymonier, Georges Maspero, George Coedés, and Jean BoisselierFootnote 1—made up a first generation of scholarship. This first generation viewed Champa as a singular kingdom, inhabited by the Cham people and composed of multiple principalities, that endured a long but steady decline resulting from Vietnamese conquest, culminating in its destruction by the Lê dynasty in 1471. By the 1960s, a new generation of scholars had emerged, including members of the Cham community, best exemplified by Po Dharma's Le Panduranga.Footnote 2 Po Dharma argued that Champa was a polyethnic federation of negara states, the last of which (Pāṇḍuraṅga) was conquered for the last time in the 1830s. However, incredible advances in archaeological research have vastly improved our understanding of Champa in recent decades. Hence, the present volume represents an exceptional summary of contemporary research.
The book is divided into three parts—“Territories,” “Kingdom,” and “Regional Networks”—reflecting the efforts of scholars from Russia, China, Japan, Vietnam, Italy, and India, along with England, Canada, France, and the United States. Curiously, although many Cham scholars have made contributions to the field in recent years, none is represented in the collection—a conspicuous absence for scholars concerned about the democratization of scholarly production. That said, the contributions of Japanese and Vietnamese scholars to the understanding of Champa archaeology in part one cannot be underemphasized.
Much of the evidence in the first part of this book revises our understanding of the settlement patterns of Champa. The authors focus on Quảng Nam, Quảng Ngãi, Bình Định, and Phú Yên Provinces and the Thu Bồn, Trà Khúc, Côn, and Đà Rằng River valleys. Lâm Thị Mỹ Dung argues for continuity between the oldest layer of Gò Cấm pottery and Sa Huỳnh pottery (p. 30) while establishing a chronology of early history: (1) transition to history (first century BCE to first century CE); (2) state formation (second century to third/fourth century) of predecessor polities, such as Lín Yì; and (3) a transition to Champa (p. 33).
Yamagata Mariko, Nguyễn Kim Dung, and Bùi Chí Hoàng show the riverine centers were interconnected, while also connected to India and China (pp. 47–62). Federico Barocco, Nguyễn Tiến Đông, and Andrew Hardy show that the Thu Bồn and Đà Rằng sites followed similar settlement patterns, although the Thu Bồn records are more complex, comprising at least seventy locations (pp. 63–79). Armandine Lepoutre shows that there was a sixth upland negara center located at Ayun Pa, Gia Lai Province, from the twelfth through the fifteenth century, called Madhyamagrāma (pp. 81–97), substantially refining the way the field thinks about the sociopolitical space of the uplands.
Although a weakness of the field is the lack of archaeological studies completed in Ninh Thuận and Bình Thuận Provinces, the editors insightfully cover this area by including an incredible study of “Cham Law” by Thérèse Guyot-Becker. Guyot-Becker's arguments about the complexity of categories of bonded labor (halun) are convincing, although the discussion of the nature of baol as potentially soldiers and potentially citizens/laity lacks consideration of other categories of soldiers and the common term baol bhap that appears in other sources, meaning “free folk.” Finally, Andrew Hardy and Nguyễn Tiến Đông use linguistic evidence to argue in favor inclusion of Austroasiatic Hrê, or proto-Hrê, as a lowland community in Champa. Their work diversifies previous scholarly understandings of Champa as predominantly composed of Cham lowland and Sanskrit-speaking elites, along with Austronesian Chamic and Austroasiatic uplanders.
In part two, the essays argue fiercely in favor of historical periods in which Champa was a unified kingdom, as the authors push back against the previous “five negara model” (Indrapura, Amarāvatī, Vijaya, Kauṭhāra, and Pāṇḍuraṅga) and Michael Vickery's claim that “there was never a unified Champa.”Footnote 3 Yet, the essays in this part struggle to reconcile their vision of unity with the simple historical fact that there were times when Champa was not unified, such as before the pacifications of Pāṇḍuraṅga in the ninth and eleventh centuries. Nonetheless, Anton Zakharov (pp. 147–57) argues against Lín Yì being considered part of Champa, partly based on an assumption that if dha Chinese sources and epigraphic sources refer to the same place, we must be able to equate the phonemes of named figures. This assumption, however, fails to take into account the possibility of a ruler going by one name in one social context and a different name in another. Zakharov's argument also relies on a vision of a firmly unified sixth- to eighth-century polity, in accordance with some epigraphic evidence but in contestation with archaeological evidence, which suggests a more complex layering of settlements and authority.
Analysis by Mara Landoni of Mỹ Sơn and its Annex (pp. 159–77) argues, much more convincingly, by contrast, that the construction of Mỹ Sơn (twelfth century) was a political act as well as a religious one. Then, essays by John Whitmore (pp. 179–91), Arlo Griffiths (pp. 193–219), and Andrew Hardy (pp. 221–52) complicate the previous narrative of a persistent decline of Champa. In particular, Griffiths mounts an impressive analysis of evidence from epigraphy and sculptures to show there was a period of fifteenth century fluorescence and growth of a unified Champa polity.
Part three considers the broad networks of Champa. Geoff Wade (pp. 255–85) wields his nearly unparalleled expertise in the Ming Shi Lu’s records of Southeast Asia, demonstrating that Champa's ports had a vast series of regional and transregional trade connections. Then, Marc Brunelle complicates the regional connections of the Chamic language family, positing that linguistic links to the Hainan language of Utsat suggest that migration from Champa took place later than previously thought (after 1471, instead of in the tenth century), while links with Acehnese suggest an earlier divergence (before Chamic languages even reached the mainland, instead of 1471 and after) (pp. 287–302). However, neither argument firmly disproves the possibility of earlier migrations to Hainan or later migrations from Champa to Aceh—just that the periods in which the language communities were formed are quite different than previously thought.
Stephen Murray suggests that Dvaravatī and Champa art was composed by a single school from the seventh through tenth centuries (pp. 303–21), while a phenomenal study by William Southworth and Trần Kỳ Phương considers the connections of artistic networks and trade routes between Cambodia and Champa (pp. 333–42). Finally, Pierre Baptiste (pp. 343–53) and Parul Pandya Dhar (pp. 355–73) provide lively discussions of pieces from the Buddhist monastery at Đồng Dương, connecting the Hindu-Buddhist world to broader comparative frameworks, especially in the case of Dhar's discussion of Rāvaṇanugraha as a motif and metaphor in both India and Champa.
As I have begun to highlight here, there are gaps in the coverage of the present volume. For instance, Kyoto-style archaeological studies could be applied to Champa studies, especially in Pāṇḍuraṅga regions (Ninh Thuận, Bình Thuận, and Biên Hòa Provinces). Further, Malay world connections, Islamic networks, and the period from the sixteenth to seventeenth century all remain underexamined. Nonetheless, the editors have assembled an innovative collection of fresh research, which is a necessary read for anyone with an interest that touches upon precolonial Southeast Asia. For scholars seeking inclusion of chapters in graduate and upper-division undergraduate seminar courses on subjects including history, religious studies, legal studies, archaeology, architecture, art history, and linguistics, the volume offers incredible opportunities to diversify the readings of any syllabus.
