Chenla

The name and the sources

Chenla, or Zhenla, is the name the Chinese histories give to a state that sent embassies from the early seventh century and that, they say, conquered Funan. The name's meaning is unknown. The Chinese accounts are supplemented by about two hundred inscriptions in Sanskrit and Old Khmer, which record the foundations of temples, gifts of land and slaves to gods, and the titles of kings and officials. The Khmer inscriptions are the earliest surviving texts in a Southeast Asian language.

The kings

The first kings known from inscriptions, Bhavavarman I and his brother Mahendravarman, who is also called Chitrasena, ruled in the later sixth century in the region of the middle Mekong. They campaigned south and are generally credited with the defeat of Funan. An early centre was near Wat Phu in southern Laos, where a mountain whose peak resembles a linga was sacred to Shiva.

Mahendravarman's son Ishanavarman I, who ruled in the early seventh century, founded the city of Ishanapura, identified with the site of Sambor Prei Kuk in central Cambodia, which has the oldest surviving group of Khmer brick temples. The Chinese record his embassies and describe a city of twenty thousand households. Jayavarman I, in the later seventh century, ruled over a large territory, but after his death the inscriptions become scarce.

Land Chenla and Water Chenla

Chinese histories say that in the early eighth century Chenla split into two parts: Land Chenla to the north and Water Chenla in the Mekong delta and along the coast. Inscriptions of the eighth century show several rulers and petty kingdoms. Late in the century, Javanese raids are recorded, and the Sailendra kings of Java may have exercised some overlordship.

Religion and the question of unity

The kings of Chenla worshipped Shiva above all, often in the form of a linga, as well as Vishnu and the combined god Harihara, and Buddhist images and inscriptions show that Buddhism was also present. Kingship drew on Indian models, with Sanskrit titles and court ritual, while the inscriptions show local Khmer social structures and deities beneath.

George Coedès treated Chenla as a single kingdom succeeding Funan. Later historians, especially Michael Vickery, have argued that the Chinese name covered a shifting set of Khmer polities that the inscriptions show competing with one another, and that "Chenla" is better used for a period than for a state. In 802 Jayavarman II, returning, according to later inscriptions, from Java, proclaimed himself universal ruler on the Kulen hills, beginning the Angkor period.