In the previous post, I made the argument that a place in Chinese sources that is referred to as “Sanfoqi” 三佛齊 indicates “Kambuja/Cambodia,” which in turn indicates “Angkor.” However, there is another term that appears in Chinese sources that many people consider to be referring to Cambodia, and that is “Zhenla” 真臘.
I tried to show in the previous post that we have evidence that Zhenla was not Angkor. For instance, Zhenla paid tribute to the Lý Dynasty in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and there is no indication that “Angkor” was a vassal of the Lý Dynasty.
There is other such information that we could cite, but then there is what appears to be a big problem, and that is that a Chinese official by the name of Zhou Daguan visited Angkor in the late thirteenth century and wrote an account of that visit. That account is called the Record of the Customs of Zhenla (Zhenla fengtu ji 真臘風土記).
Everyone agrees that this account describes “Angkor,” so how can I claim that Zhenla was not Angkor?
This can be explained, and the explanation will blow your mind!
Zhou Daguan served the Mongol Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368). While the Mongols had some intense interactions with certain places in Southeast Asia (Champa, Đại Việt, Bagan, and Java), that had very little contact with areas to the west of Champa.
There is only one mention of Sanfoqi in the History of the Yuan.
That record states that in 1280, Sanfoqi and eight other kingdoms were summoned by Sogetu, a Mongol official in charge of the southern coastal region, but that they did not respond (丁丑，唆都請招三佛齊等八國，不從。).
Two years later Sogetu led an attack on Champa, and in 1893 the Mongols attacked Java.
If Sanfoqi referred to “Srivijaya” (based on the island of Sumatra), then it would be odd that it is only mentioned this one time in the History of the Yuan, because given that the Mongols would have been in the neighborhood when they attacked Java, one would think that they might check up on Srivijaya to make sure that it sent tribute. . .
As for Zhenla, it also did not present tribute during the Yuan period. It is only mentioned three times in the History of the Yuan, and each time is in connection with events in Champa.
As such, unlike what we see in the earlier Song and the later Ming dynasty periods, there doesn’t seem to have been a steady flow of information about Sanfoqi and Zhenla that made its way to the Yuan court. Zhou Daguan’s visit to “Zhenla” in 1296-97, therefore, took place in the midst of an “information void.”
That in itself makes it important, but it is important for other reasons as well. Much of the information in Chinese historical sources about places in Southeast Asia is very limited. It either says that a Chinese envoy went to a place or that envoys from a place in Southeast Asia came to present tribute.
We generally don’t get detailed information about the places in Southeast Asia. Zhou Daguan, on the other hand, did provide detailed information, and that enables us to see things from a different perspective.
The introduction to the Zhenla fengtu ji begins as follows:
“The Kingdom of Zhenla, also called Zhanla, calls itself Ganbozhi. Now under the current dynasty, we note that the Western Border Territories Classic refers to this kingdom as Ganpuzhigai. This appears to be close in sound to Ganbozhi” (真臘國或稱占臘其國自稱曰甘孛智今聖朝按西番經名其國曰澉浦只蓋亦甘孛智之近音也).
The Western Border Territories Classic (Xifan jing 西番經) is the name of a book attributed to Zhang Yanghao 張養浩 (1269-1329), a man famous as a poet, and who must have collected information to create this text. As far as I know, it is no longer extant so we don’t know what exactly Zhang Yanghao wrote in that work. However, in compiling his text, Zhou Daguan apparently consulted this work for information about the name of Zhenla.
In the previous post, I talked about how the History of the Ming mentions that the local people refer to Zhenla as Ganbozhi/Kambuja. Now I see that that information was likely taken from Zhou Daguan’s late-thirteenth-century text.
Something strange is going on here. Zhou Daguan was trying to reconcile two types of information: information that he obtained during his trip (that the locals call the place Ganbozhi and that someone else had done so as well), and information that had long been recorded in Chinese sources (that there is a kingdom called Zhenla).
What was going on here and how did it happen?
To understand this issue, let’s first get a sense of what the “general knowledge” for a Chinese official about places like Zhenla and Sanfoqi were.
To do this, let’s take a look at the History of the Song. Although this text was about the earlier Song Dynasty, it was compiled during the period of the Yuan Dynasty, as the succeeding dynasty always wrote the history of the preceding dynasty. We can therefore think of it as containing the kind of general knowledge that might have been available to Zhou Daguan before he took his trip.
This is what the History of the Song says about Zhenla:
“Zhenla is also called Zhanla. This kingdom is to the south of Champa. It meets the sea to the east, while to the west, it borders Bagan. To the south, it reaches Jialaxi [Grahi/Chaiya]. The customs of its districts and defense commands are the same as those of Champa, and its land covers for more than 7,000 leagues.” (真臘國亦名占臘，其國在占城之南，東際海，西接蒲甘，南抵加羅希。其縣鎮風俗同占城，地方七千餘里。).
Meanwhile, this is what the History of the Song says about Sanfoqi:
“The kingdom of Sanfoqi is probably of a different type of Southern Savage. It is a neighbor of Champa and is situated between Zhenla and Dupo/Shepo [still not clear where this is, but my guess is somewhere on the Malay Peninsula, probably southern Thailand]. It governs over 15 districts.”
(三佛齊國，蓋南蠻之別種，與占城為隣，居真臘、闍婆之間，所管十五州。)
What we see here first is that Zhenla was reportedly to the south of Champa, and that Sanfoqi was a neighbor of Champa.
What else do we see? Well, we can see that Sanfoqi was somehow different. It seemed to be inhabited by a “different type of Southern Savage” (南蠻之別種). Meanwhile, there was something similar between Zhenla and Champa. It’s not clear to me what customs of districts and defense commands were, but I do know that Chinese officials were very interested in things like how other officials dressed, so this could be saying that government officials in Zhenla and Champa dressed the same.
Is there anything else that we can see here? Yes, there is some information here about the size of these polities. The comment that Sanfoqi governed over 15 districts (所管十五州) is an indication that Sanfoqi was large, or that its power extended far. By “districts” here, Zhou Daguan could be referring more to something like what we would consider “vassal polities.” If we think of Sanfoqi as a “Mandala state,” then this could be a reference to that.
At the same time, the comment that Zhenla covered 7,000 leagues is also significant. It was clearly not a small polity.
Finally, Zhou Daguan notes that an alternate way of writing Zhenla is as Zhanla (占臘). The first character here is the same as the first character in the Chinese name for Champa – Zhancheng (占城). Let’s not go too far in our thinking yet, but just to be clear, both of these words appear to have a “Cham connection.” That said, that might just be a coincidence. But let’s keep going.
Let’s follow Zhou Daguan. He sails past Champa and reaches a place called Zhenpu 真蒲 which he says is the border of “Zhenla.”
This name does not appear in any previous or later text, as far as I know. This is why Zhou Daguan’s text is important because it documented new information.
Later in the text, Zhou Daguan says that “Zhenla” had more than 90 vassal commanderies (or subject commanderies), and the first one he listed was Zhenpu (屬郡九十餘，曰真蒲). At that time, Zhenpu might have been pronounced something like “Tsin-phu.”
This is really important because it shows that in the late thirteenth century there was a polity in the Mekong Delta. I had never heard of that before.
Zhou Daguan mentions some of the other commanderies under the control of “Zhenla.” It is difficult to decipher their names, but I think I might have identified a few (by using historical pronunciations).
屬郡九十餘，曰真蒲 [Tsin-phu]、曰查南 [Tsha-nam, Kampong Chhnang]、曰巴澗、曰莫良、曰八薛 [Batsiat, Pursat? Bassac?]、曰蒲買 [Phumai, Phimai?]、曰雉棍、曰木津波、曰賴敢坑、曰八廝里 [Batsiri, Petchaburi?]。其餘不能悉記。
In any case, what I think is important here is that Zhou Daguan mentions that “Zhenla” had control over various places. This fits with what is said about Sanfoqi in the History of the Song. The numbers of course do not match (15 vs. 90+), but I wouldn’t take these numbers literally. Simply mentioning that Sanfoqi had polities under its authority was a recognition that it was a powerful kingdom.
In other words, what Zhou Daguan said about “Zhenla” was similar to what was said at that time about “Sanfoqi.”
Zhou Daguan also has a section on the uniforms of officials, and that also suggests to me that the comment in the History of the Song about Zhenla and Champa being the same is also a reference to the way government official dressed.
But let’s get back to Zhenpu, a place that is listed first as one of “Zhenla’s” subject commanderies. Where was it? Zhou Daguan mentions it as being on the coast, to the south of Champa, and it is clear that from here one entered one of the arteries of the Mekong to head inland.
Hmmmm. . . That’s exactly where the History of the Song says that Zhenla was located.
And that same text says that Zhenla extended for, or covered, 7,000 leagues. That suggests that Zhenla must have extended inland from the coast.
And the History of the Song also pointed out similarities in customs between Zhenla and Champa.
And Zhenla was sometimes written as Zhanla, which seems to indicate some connection. . .
I’m not sure, but one thing I’ve always wondered about is why there are so many places in Cambodia that begin with the Chamic/Malay term “Kampong” (meaning “village” or “settlement”) [Update: Billy tells me that kampong is not from Chamic languages. I need to check this, but yea, this part of the argument is the most speculative as it is not based on speculative evidence, so. . .]. I’ve never heard a convincing answer (Malay traders, etc.), and everything I’ve heard would attribute those names to some later period than the one we’re talking about here.
However, what I’m starting to think is that the area from the coast inland along the Mekong and spreading out into its branches may have very well been Zhenla and that this means that this region was perhaps originally Chamic, and that perhaps Khmer moved eastward with the fall of Angkor in 1421 (Oh my! That will get some people very excited!!).
Seeing things this way would explain a few unexplained issues (in addition to the “kampong” question).
The New History of the Tang mentions at one point 2 “Zhenla’s”: a “Water Zhenla” and a “Land Zhenla.” This has long confounded scholars. It could very well be though that Water Zhenla was in the area that I’m referring to around the Mekong Delta, whereas Land Zhenla was a reference to the Champasak area of southern Laos and northern Cambodia where we know there was an early kingdom.
The passage in that text says that the ruler of Water Zhenla lived in something that would have sounded at that time like “Pura Debeit [?].” I can’t decipher the second part but the first part is clearly Indic.
[水真臘 ，地八百里，王居婆羅提拔城。陸真臘或曰文單，曰婆鏤，地七百里，王號「笡屈」。]
Additionally, it makes it clearer why Zhenla would be presenting tribute to the Lý Dynasty in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. In the previous post I was imagining Zhenla to be more inland, but that would mean that envoys from Zhenla would have had to travel overland to Đại Việt, and I doubt they did that (Why bother if Đại Việt was so far away!).
However, if Zhenla was on the coast or had easy access to the coast, then it makes more sense that it would be able to send tribute up the coast.
Finally, I’ve always been bothered by the fact that the Mekong Delta is a kind of “blank space” in history (particularly from say 500-1500 AD). Ok, so Funan was there for a while, but then it faded away. The Chamic world (as we’ve known it before this post) doesn’t seem to have reached down that far. The main world of Angkor was further to the west, and most people (myself included before today) have pictured Zhenla as being somewhere in say northern Cambodia or southern Laos.
So we have this period of several centuries when there is “nothing” in the Mekong Delta when there is all this exciting stuff happening all around it. That doesn’t make sense, and seeing Zhenla as a Chamic polity that extended from the coast into the Mekong Delta (and perhaps its capital was inland somewhere) fills that historical gap, because there is a Zhenla that presents tribute all through that period, and it does so alongside “Sanfoqi.”
Let us now return to the opening line of Zhou Daguan’s introduction: “The Kingdom of Zhenla, also called Zhanla, calls itself Ganbozhi.”
I suspect that Zhenpu 真蒲, the place that Zhou Daguan said was the edge of “Zhenla” as well as a vassal commandery of “Zhenla” was in fact the actual historical “Zhenla” that had long been presenting tribute to Chinese dynasties.
In traveling inland all of the ways to Angkor, Zhou Daguan passed through the Cham polity of Zhenla and entered the center of the Khmer empire, or what he recognized was called “Ganbozhi” (Kambuja) by the local people.
However, in those days there were of course no road signs saying “You are now leaving Zhenla” or “Welcome to Angkor.” What is more, there was not necessarily a clear concept of kingdom names either (most rulers thought of places simply as belonging to their family). Zhenla, after all, was a term that the Chinese had coined centuries earlier and which was probably only used in tributary documents and was probably only known by the people who drafted and read those documents (who for all we know could have been Chinese intermediaries).
Further, the space Zhou Daguan passed through was a typical “Mandala” polity where he moved through vassal states, each of which had its own autonomy and separate identity, and he ended up in the center that claimed suzerainty over the places he had just passed through.
So where did Zhou Daguan go? Did he go to “Zhenla,” the polity that he entered after passing by Champa? Yes, he did that.
Or did Zhou Daguan go to the place where he ended up, that the locals called Ganbozhi (and that I’ve shown in earlier posts is the same as Sanfoqi/Samfhutshiaj), and that claimed to control the place where he originally crossed “the border”?Yes, he did that too.
As I said above, from the opening passage of his introduction, I think Zhou Daguan was confused. He said that he went to Zhenla, but for some reason, the locals called it Ganbozhi. In this post, I think we can see various reasons why Zhou Daguan would have been confused, but thankfully that confused man left us with information that can enable us to free ourselves from some of our own confusion about the past.
I come away from his text seeing Zhenla as a Chamic polity that extended from the coast of the Mekong delta inland. This was a perfect location to obtain products to send to China as tribute, and prior to the Yuan period, Zhenla had regularly done this.
However, Zhenla had a powerful neighbor to its west and fierce competitors to its north. It fought regularly with its Chamic cousins, and eventually became a vassal of the Angkorian empire.
Ultimately though it “disappeared” from history. It sent tribute to the Chinese court a few times in the fifteenth century, and then we basically don’t hear from Zhenla anymore. Nor by that time do we hear from Sanfoqi anymore either.
This makes sense though. With the fall of Angkor (Sanfoqi), members of the Khmer royal family moved eastward into the area of Zhenla, as probably did many of their subjects. Later, the Viet would push southward into Chamic lands as well where they would eventually encounter the Khmer. That encounter would take place where Zhenla had once stood.
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“Finally, I’ve always been bothered by the fact that the Mekong Delta is a kind of “blank space” in history (particularly from say 500-1500 AD). Ok, so Funan was there for a while, but then it faded away. The Cham world (as we’ve known it before this post) doesn’t seem to have reached down that far. The main world of Angkor was further to the west, and most people (myself included before today) have pictured Zhenla as being somewhere in say northern Cambodia or southern Laos”
Hmm, except for all those Khmer/Sanskrit inscriptions in this region? The oldest dated Khmer inscription is from the Mekong Delta (Angkor Borei – 611 CE). Archaeological evidence is quite dense in this area.
Recommended reading:
Lustig, Eileen
2011 Using Inscription Data to Investigate Power in Angkor’s Empire. Aseanie 27:35-66.
Lustig, E., D. Evans, and N. Richards
2007 Words across Space and Time: An Analysis of Lexical Items in Khmer Inscriptions, Sixth–Fourteenth Centuries CE. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 38(01):1-26.
Thank you for pointing these articles out. I have already read the 2007 one before, and I just skimmed through the 2011 one, but will read it more closely later.
I think it’s great that this kind of research is getting done, but I have to admit though that I find these pieces to be very frustrating for me as an historian. All of the information presented is at a generalized macro level, and readers are given no way (as far as I can tell) to “dig down” into the data. One of the great benefits of a “digital humanities” approach is that it can enable us to see broad outlines that we normally would not be able to see when we have our eyes stuck on a stone inscription. But that “grand view” is particularly helpful when it enables people to then focus in on details (to “dig down” into the data). These studies, however, do not enable us to do this. Yes, we can see dots on the ground where inscriptions are, but which inscriptions are down there? I want to be able to “dig down” and look at the exact inscriptions that they say are represented by those dots, but these articles do not provide the information to do that. I find that really frustrating because the inscriptions all have numbers (or at least a lot of them do), and if we could see which inscription correlates with which dot in these visuals, then the humanities-types among us would really be able to benefit from this scholarship. At the moment, however, this scholarship is too generalized for an historian like me to really be able to benefit from. I hope that the “data” behind this research will be made available someday so that historians like me can follow up on this macro level rendering and do the work that historians do. That would be great!!!
Thank you for writing fantastic posts recently. I, as a “commoner”, always thought Zhenla encompasses Angkor, “your old Zhenla” (Land Zhenla) and Mekong Delta. Now when two of those three are settled, I wonder what the brief history of Land Zhenla is. I assume that was a Angkorian or Cham polity and then conquered by Angkor and Ailao. Also, why is the name of Zhenla? Why was it casted for both Land Zhenla and Mekong Delta? Last but not least, why couldn’t Champa extend its power to Mekong Delta before Angkor did? I mean, they are both Cham.
Isn’t this what Michael Vickery argued in ‘Funan Reviewed’? If I remember correctly he argued for “Funan-Chenla continuity”…
https://www.persee.fr/doc/befeo_0336-1519_2003_num_90_1_3609