Of the appearance and condition of the Hindus who settled in Java during the seventh and eighth centuries the Arab travellers Sulaimán a.d. 850 and Masúdi a.d. 915 have left the following details. The people near the volcanoes have white skins pierced ears and shaved heads: their religion is both Bráhmanic and Buddhist; their trade is in the costliest articles camphor aloes cloves and sandalwood.[38]
CAMBODIA.
Cambodia.The close connection between Java and Cambodia, the alternate supremacy of Cambodia in Java and of Java in Cambodia, the likelihood of settlers passing from Java to Cambodia explain, to a considerable extent, why the traditions and the buildings of Java and Cambodia should point to a common origin in north-west India. The question remains: Do the people and buildings of Cambodia contain a distinct north Hindu element which worked its way south and east not by sea but by land across the Himálayas and Tibet and down the valley of the Yang-tse-kiang to Yunnan and Angkor. Whether the name Cambodia[39] proves an actual race or historical connection with Kamboja or the Kábul valley is a point
Appendix IV.
Cambodia. on which authorities disagree. Sir H. Yule held that the connection was purely literary and that as in the case of Inthapatha-puri or Indraprastha (Dehli) the later capital of Cambodia and of Ayodhya or Oudh the capital of Assam no connection existed beyond the application to a new settlement of ancient worshipful Indian place-names. The objection to applying this rule to Cambodia is that except to immigrants from the Kábul valley the name is of too distant and also of too scanty a reputation to be chosen in preference to places in the nearer and holier lands of Tirhut and Magadha. For this reason, and because the view is supported by the notable connection between the two styles of architecture, it seems advisable to accept Mr. Fergusson’s decision that the name Cambodia was given to a portion of Cochin-China by immigrants from Kamboja that is from the Kábul valley. Traces remain of more than one migration from India to Indo-China. The earliest is the mythic account of the conversion of Indo-China to Buddhism before the time of Aśoka (b.c. 240). A migration in the first century a.d. of Yavanas or Śakas, from Tamluk or Ratnávate on the Hugli, is in agreement with the large number of Indian place-names recorded by Ptolemy (a.d. 160).[40] Of this migration Hiuen Tsiang’s name Yavana (Yen-mo-na) for Cambodia may be a trace.[41] A Śaka invasion further explains Pausanias’ (a.d. 170) name Sakæa for Cochin-China and his description of the people as Skythians mixed with Indians.[42] During the fifth and sixth centuries a fresh migration seems to have set in. Cambodia was divided into shore and inland and the name Cambose applied to both.[43] Chinese records notice an embassy from the king of Cambodia in a.d. 617.[44] Among the deciphered Cambodian inscriptions a considerable share belong to a Bráhmanic dynasty whose local initial date is in the early years of the seventh century,[45] and one of whose kings Somaśarmman (a.d. 610) is recorded to have held daily Mahábhárata readings in the temples.[46] Of a fresh wave of Buddhists, who seem to have belonged to the northern branch, the earliest deciphered inscription is a.d. 953 (S. 875) that is about 350 years later.[47] Meanwhile, though, so far as information goes, the new capital of Angkor on the north bank of lake Tale Sap about 200 miles up the Mekong river was not founded till a.d. 1078 (S. 1000),[48] the neighbourhood of the holy lake was already sacred and the series of temples of which the Nakhonwat or Nága’s Shrine[49] is one of the latest and finest examples, was begun at least as early as a.d. 825 (S. 750), and
Appendix IV.
Cambodia. Nakhonwat itself seems to have been completed and was being embellished in a.d. 950 (S. 875).[50] During the ninth and tenth centuries by conquest and otherwise considerable interchange took place between Java and Cambodia.[51] As many of the inscriptions are written in two Indian characters a northern and a southern[52] two migrations by sea seem to have taken place one from the Orissa and Masulipatam coasts and the other, with the same legend of the prince of Rúm land, from the ports of Sindh and Gujarát.[53] The question remains how far there is trace of such a distinct migration as would explain the close resemblance noted by Fergusson between the architecture of Kashmir and Cambodia as well as the northern element which Fergusson recognises in the religion and art of Cambodia.[54] The people by whom this Panjáb and Kashmir influence may have been introduced from the north are the people who still call themselves Khmers to whose skill as builders the magnificence of Cambodian temples lakes and bridges is apparently due.[55] Of these people, who, by the beginning of the eleventh century had already given their name to the whole of Cambodia, Alberuni (a.d. 1031) says: The Kumairs are whitish of short stature and Turk-like build. They follow the religion of the Hindus and have the practice of piercing their ears.[56] It will be noticed that so far as information is available the apparent holiness of the neighbourhood of Angkor had lasted for at least 250 years before a.d. 1078 when it was chosen as a capital. This point is in agreement with Mr. Fergusson’s view that the details of Nakhonwat and other temples of that series show that the builders came neither by sea nor down the Ganges valley but by way of Kashmir and the back of the Himálayas.[57] Though the evidence is incomplete and to some extent speculative the following considerations suggest a route and a medium through which the Roman and Greek elements in the early (a.d. 100–500) architecture of the Kábul valley and Pesháwar may have been carried inland to Cambodia. It may perhaps be accepted that the Ephthalites or White Húṇas and a share of the Kedarites, that is of the later Little Yuechi from Gandhára the Pesháwar country, retreated to Kashmir before the father of Śrí Harsha (a.d. 590–606) and afterwards (a.d. 606–642) before Śrí Harsha himself.[58] Further it seems fair to assume that from
Appendix IV.
Cambodia. Kashmir they moved into Tibet and were the western Turks by whose aid in the second half of the seventh century Srongbtsan or Srongdzan-gambo (a.d. 640–698), the founder of Tibetan power and civilization, overran the Tarim valley and western China.[59] During the first years of the eighth century (a.d. 703) a revolt in Nepal and the country of the Bráhmans was crushed by Srongdzan’s successor Donsrong,[60] and the supremacy of Tibet was so firmly established in Bengal that, for over 200 years, the Bay of Bengal was known as the sea of Tibet.[61] In a.d. 709 a Chinese advance across the Pamirs is said to have been checked by the great Arab soldier Kotieba the comrade of Muhammad Kasim of Sindh.[62] But according to Chinese records this reverse was wiped out in a.d. 713 by the defeat of the joint Arab and Tibet armies.[63] In the following years, aided by disorders in China, Tibet conquered east to Hosi on the upper Hoangho and in a.d. 729 ceased to acknowledge the overlordship of China. Though about a.d. 750 he was for a time crippled by China’s allies the Shado Turks the chief of Tibet spread his power so far down the Yangtsekiang valley that in a.d. 787 the emperor of China, the king of Yunnan to the east of Burma, certain Indian chiefs, and the Arabs joined in a treaty against Tibet. As under the great Thisrong (a.d. 803–845) and his successor Thi-tsong-ti (a.d. 878–901) the power of Tibet increased it seems probable that during the ninth century they overran and settled in Yunnan.[64] That among the Tibetans who passed south-east into Yunnan were Kedarites and White Húṇas is supported by the fact that about a.d. 1290, according both to Marco Polo and to Rashid-ud-din, the common name of Yunnan was Kárájang whose capital was Yachi and whose people spoke a special language.[65] The name Kárájang was Mongol meaning Black People and was used to distinguish the mass of the inhabitants from certain fair tribes who were known as Chaganjang or Whites. That the ruler of Kárájang was of Hindu origin is shown by his title Mahara or Mahárája. That the Hindu element came from the Kábul valley is shown by its Hindu name of Kandhár that is Gandhára or Pesháwar, a name still in use as Gandálarit (Gandhára-rashtra) the Burmese for Yunnan.[66] The strange confusion which Rashid-ud-din makes between the surroundings of Yunnan and of Pesháwar is perhaps due to the fact that in his time the connection between the two places was still known and admitted.[67] A further trace
Appendix IV.
Cambodia. of stranger whites like the Chaganjang of Yunnan occurs south-east in the Anin or Honli whose name suggests the Húṇas and whose fondness for silver ornaments at once distinguishes them from their neighbours and connects them with India.[68] Even though these traces may be accepted as confirming a possible migration of Húṇas and Kedaras to Yunnan and Anin a considerable gap remains between Anin and Angkor. Three local Cambodian considerations go some way to fill this gap. The first is that unlike the Siamese and Cochin Chinese the Khmers are a strong well made race with very little trace of the Mongoloid, with a language devoid of the intonations of other Indo-Chinese dialects, and with the hair worn cropped except the top-knot. The second point is that the Khmers claim a northern origin; and the third that important architectural remains similar to Nakhonwat are found within Siam limits about sixty miles north of Angkor.[69] One further point has to be considered: How far is an origin from White Húṇas and Kedáras in agreement with the Nága phase of Cambodian worship. Hiuen Tsiang’s details of the Tarim Oxus and Swát valleys contain nothing so remarkable as the apparent increase of Dragon worship. In those countries dragons are rarely mentioned by Fa Hian in a.d. 400: dragons seem to have had somewhat more importance in the eyes of Sung-Yun in a.d. 520; and to Hiuen Tsiang, the champion of the Maháyána or Broadway, dragons are everywhere explaining all misfortunes earthquakes storms and diseases. Buddhism may be the state religion but the secret of luck lies in pleasing the Dragon.[70]
Appendix IV.
Cambodia. This apparent increased importance of dragon or Nága worship in north-west India during the fifth and sixth centuries may have been due partly to the decline of the earlier Buddhism partly to the genial wonder-loving temper of Hiuen Tsiang. Still so marked an increase makes it probable that with some of the great fifth and sixth century conquerors of Baktria Kábul and the Panjáb, of whom a trace may remain in the snake-worshipping
Appendix IV.
Cambodia. Nágas and Takkas of the Kamaon and Garhwal hills, the Dragon was the chief object of worship. Temple remains show that the seventh and eighth century rulers of Kashmir, with a knowledge of classic architecture probably brought from beyond the Indus, were Nága worshippers.[72] The fact that the ninth century revision of religion in Tibet came mainly from Kashmir and that among the eighteen chief gods of the reformed faith the great Serpent had a place favours the view that through Tibet passed the scheme and the classic details of the Kashmir Nága temples which in greater wealth and splendour are repeated in the Nakhonwat of Angkor in Cambodia.[73] It is true that the dedication of the great temple to Nága worship before the Siamese priests filled it with statues of Buddha is questioned both by Lieut. Garnier and by Sir H. Yule.[74] In spite of this objection and though some of the series have been Buddhist from the first, it is difficult to refuse acceptance to Mr. Fergusson’s conclusions that in the great Nákhon, all traces of Buddhism are additions. The local conditions and the worshipful Tale Sap lake favour this conclusion. What holier dragon site can be imagined than the great lake Tale Sap, 100 miles by 30, joined to the river Mekong by a huge natural channel which of itself empties the lake in the dry season and refills it during the rains giving a water harvest of fish as well as a land harvest of grain. What more typical work of the dragon as guardian water lord. Again not far off between Angkor and Yunnán was the head-quarters of the dragon as the unsquared fiend. In Carrajan ten days west of the city of Yachi Marco Polo (a.d. 1290) found a land of snakes and great serpents ten paces in length with very great heads, eyes bigger than a loaf of bread, mouths garnished with pointed teeth able to swallow a man whole, two fore-legs with claws for feet and bodies equal in bulk to a great cask. He adds: ‘These serpents devour the cubs of lions and bears without the sire and dam being able to prevent it. Indeed if they catch the big ones they devour them too: no one can make any resistance. Every man and beast stands in fear and trembling of them.’ Even in these fiend dragons was the sacramental guardian element. The gall from their inside healed the bite of a mad dog, delivered a woman in hard labour, and cured itch or it might be worse. Moreover, he concludes, the flesh of these serpents is excellent eating and toothsome.[75]
[1] Sir Stamford Raffles’ Java, II. 83. From Java Hindus passed to near Banjar Massin in Borneo probably the most eastern of Hindu settlements (Jour. R. A. Soc. IV. 185). Temples of superior workmanship with Hindu figures also occur at Waahoo 400 miles from the coast. Dalton’s Diaks of Borneo Jour. Asiatique (N. S.) VII. 153. An instance may be quoted from the extreme west of Hindu influence. In 1873 an Indian architect was found building a palace at Gondar in Abyssinia. Keith Johnson’s Africa, 269. [↑]
[2] Raffles’ Java, II. 65–85. Compare Lassen’s Indische Alterthumskunde, II. 10, 40; IV. 460. [↑]
[3] Raffles’ Java, II. 87. [↑]
[4] Compare Tod’s Annals of Rájasthán (Third Reprint), I. 87. The thirty-nine Chohán successions, working back from about a.d. 1200 with an average reign of eighteen years, lead to a.d. 498. [↑]