For most people, the ancient city of Angkor is synonymous with Cambodia, but the Angkorean Empire dates only from 802 AD, when King Jayavarman II moved upstream from the Mekong Valley to found a new capital on higher ground near the north-western tip of the Great Lake, the Tonlé Sap. The country, however, was inhabited long before that. Stone Age remains indicate human presence in what we now call Cambodia for tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of years. We cannot say if these people were the distant ancestors of the present-day Khmers, but it does seem that the Khmer–Mon people settled in the area between Burma and the South China Sea some time before the third millennium BC, after migrating from the north. For most of this gulf of unrecorded time, the inhabitants were hunter-gatherers, nomads who roamed the forests and marshlands in search of game and vegetable foods. It is likely also that others practised swidden, or slash-and-burn farming, much as the Khmer Loeu tribes or hill peoples still do today, cutting and burning clearings in the forest and growing crops for a year or so before moving on when the soil is exhausted.
There is archaeological evidence to show that some of these nomads began a more settled, agriculturally based existence around 3000 BC, particularly east of the Mekong near the present-day settlements of Chup and Snuol. At some stage during this process, rudimentary state societies must have replaced the ‘primitive communism’ of these people’s ancestors, which if like the simple societies of the hill peoples today, was based around a collective, non-state way of life. The early sedentary people used copper and bronze tools from at least 1500 BC. One thousand years later, these people—or others like them—lived in fortified settlements, using iron tools, in sophisticated social systems made possible by the creation of a social surplus product based on efficient agriculture and animal husbandry.
It is highly unlikely that there was any single unified state during this period; probably there were numerous petty principalities, ruled over by local chieftains, or pons. It might be tempting to impose the idea of ‘Cambodia’ on to the distant past, but all the evidence indicates that there was no unitary Cambodian state until after the foundation of Angkor at the beginning of the ninth century AD. Moreover, there is no hard evidence to prove that these early inhabitants were Khmers at all—it is not until the seventh century AD that stone inscriptions in the Khmer language began to occur. It is entirely possible that the inhabitants of the early settlements were ancestors of the modern Chams, or of some other people who might have died out or been pushed out by later settlers. After all, by way of comparison, until the fifth century AD, with the onset of the Dark Ages and the Saxon invasions, the inhabitants of what is today England were Romanised Celts, the ancestors not of the modern English but of the Welsh and the Cornish.
Ancient Funan
Whoever they were, by the beginning of the first century AD the inhabitants of Cambodia had achieved a high level of civilisation, influenced by the culture of India. One polity (or perhaps group of polities), known to us as Funan, has left an extensive record of its existence and way of life. The pre-Angkor scholar Michael Vickery has warned against assuming that Funan was a unified state—it is possible that it was a loose alliance of port towns in the lower Mekong delta. However, the existence of large canals suggests a strong state power capable of planning and managing the large numbers of labourers required for such projects. Such workforces would have depended on regular food supplies, produced by efficient agriculture and with an efficient tax collection system. On the other hand, we know that the city-states of Ancient Greece and Renaissance Italy were capable of building public works and large monuments without direction by overarching ‘national’ or supra-national polities, so Vickery is probably right about pre-Angkorean Cambodia.
The Chinese chroniclers claim that the first king of Funan was a man called Fan Shih-Man, but we have no way of telling whether that was his real name, or if indeed he was the first king, or if he ruled over a much greater territory than the other pons or petty chieftains of the time. The name Fan Shih-Man bears no relation to any of the Southeast Asian languages; it is a Chinese corruption of an indigenous name, but the question is, a corruption of what? The American scholar Lawrence Palmer Briggs believed that ‘Fan’ might have been a corruption of the Sanskrit suffix ‘varman’, which means protector, and which was appended to the names of many subsequent kings and petty kings in Cambodia. Michael Vickery argues more plausibly that ‘Fan’ is a corruption of the Khmer–Mon pon, which died out before Angkor.
Again, we have no way of knowing the ethnicity of the inhabitants of Funan, although if Vickery is right in his speculation about the origins of words such as pon, perhaps we might call them proto-Khmers. What language they spoke in everyday life we do not know. Although Funan was a literate, Indianised society, all trace of the books in what the Chinese described as impressive libraries have disappeared in the heat and humidity, and all stone inscriptions from before the seventh century are in Sanskrit. Indeed, we have no way of knowing even what the Funanese called themselves: Funan itself is a Chinese word, and although scholars have suggested it might be a corruption of the Khmer word phnom, this will remain speculation unless further evidence comes to light. On the other hand, Khmer folklore has it that the Cambodian people built a town at Angkor Borei, in the Mekong delta, around the time of Funan. However, folklore cannot put precise dates on places and events and there is no evidence to support the existence of Khmer speakers in the lower delta until the seventh century (although this does not mean that they did not exist).
What we do know of Funan comes from three sources: Chinese dynastic chronicles, Sanskrit stone inscriptions and the archaeological record. The earliest account of the kingdom is contained in the ‘Chinshu’, or the history of the Chin Dynasty, from 265–419 AD. Its reliability is a matter of debate, given that the writers often wrote hundreds of years after the events they were describing and on the basis of hearsay and second-hand reports. Nevertheless, the chronicles do give us some tantalising details of a long-gone civilisation. They tell us that the common people originally went naked, even in the streets of their towns, and that they were ‘ugly, black and fuzzy haired’—a common (and unfair) criticism by the ethnocentric Chinese, who valued light skin colouring and spurned the ‘barbarians’ of the tropical lands. Puzzlingly, the Funanese are also described as being peaceful yet warlike, honest yet cunning. Probably, like human beings in general, they were a mixture of traits, although the discrepancies perhaps point to multiple authors, poor editing or muddled data available to the writers.
The Funanese, unlike the later Khmers, appear to have been keen seafarers, trading with India and China and sending tribute to the Chinese emperors. If Funan were a unitary state its capital is not known, with conflicting claims made by modern writers for Vyadhapura, Angkor Borei, Banteay Prei Nokor and even Prey Veng, all situated in the Mekong delta or reasonably close to it. Another Funanese centre, the port town of Oc Eo in what is today called the Camau peninsula, was excavated by the French archaeologist Louis Malleret before World War II.
Oc Eo was laid out geometrically, which suggests that it was planned—again by a strong state power, however geographically limited the extent of its authority might have been. The ruins of some brick buildings remain; stone is rarely found in the alluvium of the delta and the wooden or bamboo houses of the common people have long since disappeared. The brick buildings were probably temples and/or mausoleums, but they are of a simple design and do not appear to have housed bas-reliefs (stone friezes) as in the later temples of Angkor. One intriguing building at Oc Eo was a square brick structure, called ‘Edifice A’ by Malleret. He speculated that perhaps it was a ‘tower of silence’ similar to the raised platforms on which the Parsees of India to this day leave out their dead for consumption by vultures. Other writers have disputed this, noting Chinese accounts that the Funanese dead were cast into the delta waters and presumably eaten by the crocodiles.
As elsewhere in Cambodia, further exploration of archaeological sites was interrupted by the subsequent decades of war, domestic upheaval and international isolation. It is likely that what we know of Funan will be greatly enhanced by the current work of the Lower Mekong Archaeological Project (LOMAP), coordinated by the University of Hawaii.
Water was a significant element of life for the Funanese. Rainfall averages 2540 millimetres per year in the delta, and immense quantities of water pour through the network of distributaries of the Mekong. Although some writers concluded that the canals of Funan were the model for the presumed ‘hydraulic city’ of Angkor, based on irrigation, in fact Funan had too much water, rather than seasonally too little like its illustrious successor. In order to farm the low-lying, swampy delta lands, excess water had to be drained off into the Mekong’s distributaries and provision made to prevent flooding. Essentially, the canals were for drainage. It is possible, too, that they served also as communication routes, linking Oc Eo with Angkor Borei and other centres for trade purposes. Oc Eo itself seems to have been, like Venice, built on canals, which the Chinese tell us were swarming with crocodiles.
The Chinese have left us fascinating details of the customs of the people. Like the modern Khmers, the Funanese lived in simple houses made of wood or bamboo, with palm thatch roofs and elevated on stilts. Their staple foods were, as today, rice and fish, the latter being plentiful in the streams and marshes. They also cultivated and ate fruits such as oranges and pomegranates, and grew sugar cane, perhaps fermenting the juice for alcoholic drinks. The French scholar Paul Pelliot tells us that they shaved their heads to mourn the dead, that at some stage they adopted loincloths to cover their nakedness, perhaps on the orders of their ruler, and that they watched cock and hog fights for diversion. The Funanese also had advanced metallurgical technology. They used bronze and iron tools and were capable of designing and smelting intricate bronze ornaments, some of which have survived and are housed in museums. Slavery was an integral part of what must have been a highly stratified society. Justice was rudimentary, but a legal code probably existed and like that of India (and that of Angkor and post-Angkorean Cambodia) included trial by ordeal. Innocence might be decided if a suspect was not eaten after being thrown to the ubiquitous crocodiles.
Although there is no evidence to suggest, as some writers have done, that the civilisations of the region were built by waves of immigrants from India, Indian cultural influences were crucial in shaping societies such as Funan. Indian traders arrived in the region in at least the first century AD and Funan became linked to a system of trade routes stretching as far away as Persia and Europe to the west and China to the north. According to the Chinese chronicles, the Funanese also had a powerful navy, which suggests that they themselves ventured onto the seas to trade. Excavations of Funanese sites have unearthed Roman coins, although it is unlikely that any Funanese sailors travelled as far as Europe and the coins probably changed hands many times across the continents and oceans before they arrived in Funan.
Indian influence was above all religious and cultural, but this would have had political ramifications, too. The Funanese adopted Sanskrit in the same way that European societies later used Latin for liturgical and intellectual purposes. Chinese visitors in the third century AD saw large libraries, with extensive collections of Sanskrit books. None of these have survived the insects and humidity, but it is probable that they resembled the religious books still in use in 19th century Cambodia, which were made of palm leaves stitched or glued together. Perhaps too, like the books the Chinese traveller Zhou Daguan later observed at Angkor, the pages were dyed black and written on (or scratched) with a sharp stylus. The Indians most certainly brought the Hindu religion, with the worship of Siva, Brahma and Vishnu and the Hindu world view, with the idea of Mount Meru as the centre of the world, surrounded by oceans, to be replicated in the erection of temples on hilltops, with water around the perimeters of the sites. There are also examples of early Buddhist art in Cambodia from this period. It is likely that in those days, as is the case with Buddhism in Cambodia today, Indian religion was blended with earlier folk religions and superstitions.
The decline of Funan
According to the Chinese accounts, the last king of Funan was called Rudravarman and he was chiefly distinguished in their eyes because he offered the gift of a live rhinoceros to the Emperor at Beijing in 539 AD. After this, the historical record becomes somewhat blurred. For many years, it was believed that Funan declined or disappeared because it was threatened by the rise of another, more powerful state called Chenla or Zhenla to the north. Again, Chenla, like Funan, is a Chinese corruption of an indigenous word, but we do not know what. There is a Chinese account of seventh century Cambodia, but it was written by Ma Touan-Lin in the 13th century, many hundreds of years after the events it describes. Although it contains many details, one is inclined to be sceptical given that the author believed Funan was an island. (It is, however, possible that Ma Touan-Lin believed this because one or more of the Funanese towns might have been built on islands in the delta.) Chinese sources also mention a King Bhavavarman, who lived during the late sixth century, and whom the scholar George Coedès believed might have been descended from Funanese royalty and married into a Khmer family from further inland.
Some authors even claimed that there were two Chenlas—one dubbed Chenla-of-the-Land, and the other Chenla-of-the-Water. This is possibly an echo of the confusion of a time in which the Cambodian lands were divided into a number of principalities. There is not even agreement about where Chenla might have been, or hard evidence to back up claim and counterclaim. Some accounts place Chenla in the Champassak region of what is today southern Laos. However, Michael Vickery points out that the inscriptions left by the chieftains of the adjoining Dangrek region make no reference to Chenla, and that it is most likely that Chenla existed within the boundaries of the modern Cambodian state, somewhere between the Great Lake to the west and Kampot, Takeo or Kompong Speu to the east, and within the Mekong Valley. The question is whether Chenla was a unified state, or whether Cambodia was divided into a number of principalities in the sixth, seventh and eighth centuries; probably the latter is the case. As Vickery points out, there was an ‘explosion’ of Khmer epigraphy from the seventh century, with the earliest recorded Khmer stone inscription dating from 612 AD at Angkor Borei. None of this refers to what the Chinese called Chenla. Probably, the decline of Funan was relative, with power devolving to a multiplicity of petty kingdoms along the Mekong.
What is at least clear is that the people who lived in the lower Mekong Valley and delta in this period were the ancestors of the modern Khmers, speaking an archaic form of the Cambodian language. The last years of the pre-Angkorean period appear to have been a dark era for the Khmers. It is probable that the Javanese invaded Cambodia during the eighth century and enforced vassal status on to the Khmer kings. A travelling Arab merchant, Suleyman, has recorded how a disgruntled Cambodian monarch, perhaps King Mahipativarman, expressed the wish to have the head of Saliendra, the Sultan of Zabag (Java), handed to him on a platter. Saliendra heard of this, and resolved to punish his unruly vassal. He dispatched troops, who put the Khmers to flight, decapitated the unhappy Khmer king and placed his head on a platter for Saliendra.
Jayavarman II moves his capital to the
Great Lake region
Out of adversity, however, came triumph. In the last years of the eighth century, a restless Khmer king, Jayavarman II, resolved to move his capital from the lower Mekong to what is today the Siem Reap region north of the Great Lake. Vickery believes it likely that Jayavarman II came from eastern Cambodia, close to the Cham lands. In all probability, when he reached adulthood he would have been one petty Khmer kinglet among many. Yet he was to achieve extraordinary things. He was to reign for 48 years, to unite and pacify the multifarious statelets of the Khmer lands and to throw off the Javanese yoke.
Curiously, given his pivotal importance in Cambodian history, we know relatively little of Jayavarman II’s reign. The surviving stone inscriptions don’t reveal much and the Chinese chronicles are silent. Yet in 802 AD, according to the inscriptions, this man was to found the Angkorean Empire and establish a line of devarajas, or god-kings, that was to last for over 600 years and establish a mighty civilisation that could rival any of the other states of antiquity. His reign marks a sharp punctuation in the relative equilibrium of Khmer politics and society.