[325] Although there is no reason why these pictures of the future life should not be Brahmanic as well as Buddhist, I do not remember having seen them in any purely Brahmanic temple.
[326] After spending some time at Angkor Wat I find it hard to believe the theory that it was a palace. The King of Camboja was doubtless regarded as a living God, but so is the Grand Lama, and it does not appear that the Potala where he lives is anything but a large residential building containing halls and chapels much like the Vatican. But at Angkor Wat everything leads up to a central shrine. It is quite probable however that the deity of this shrine was a deified king, identified with Vishṇu after his death. This would account for the remarks of Chou Ta-kuan who seems to have regarded it as a tomb.
[327] See especially the inscription of Bassac. Kern, Annales de l'Extrème Orient, t. III. 1880, p. 65.
[328] Pali books are common in monasteries. For the literature of Laos see Finot, B.E.F.E.O. 1917, No. 5.
CHAPTER XXXIX
CHAMPA[329]
1
The kingdom of Champa, though a considerable power from about the third century until the end of the fifteenth, has attracted less attention than Camboja or Java. Its name is a thing of the past and known only to students: its monuments are inferior in size and artistic merit to those of the other Hindu kingdoms in the Far East and perhaps its chief interest is that it furnishes the oldest Sanskrit inscription yet known from these regions.
Champa occupied the south-eastern corner of Asia beyond the Malay Peninsula, if the word corner can be properly applied to such rounded outlines. Its extent varied at different epochs, but it may be roughly defined in the language of modern geography as the southern portion of Annam, comprising the provinces of Quãng-nam in the north and Bînh-Thuan in the south with the intervening country. It was divided into three provinces, which respectively became the seat of empire at different periods. They were (i) in the north Amarâvatî (the modern Quãng-nam) with the towns of Indrapura and Sinhapura; (ii) in the middle Vijaya (the modern Bing-Dinh) with the town of Vijaya and the port of Śrî-Vinaya; (iii) in the south Pâṇḍurânga or Panran (the modern provinces of Phanrang and Binh-Thuan) with the town of Vîrapura or Râjapura. A section of Pâṇḍurânga called Kauthâra (the modern Kanh hoa) was a separate province at certain times. Like the modern Annam, Champa appears to have been mainly a littoral kingdom and not to have extended far into the mountains of the interior.