Chenla or Zhenla (; , ) is the Chinese designation for the vassal of the kingdom of Funan preceding the Khmer Empire that existed from around the late 6th to the early 9th century in Indochina. This period of Cambodian history is known by historians as the Pre-Angkor period.
The name was still used in the 13th century by the Chinese envoy Zhou Daguan, author of The Customs of Cambodia. It appears on the Mao Kun map. However, modern historiography applies the name exclusively to the period from the late 6th to the early 9th century. It is doubted whether Chenla ever existed as a unitary kingdom, or if this is a misconception by Chinese chroniclers. Most modern historians assert that "Chenla" was in fact just a series of loose and temporary confederations of principalities in the pre-Angkor period.
Etymology "Chenla" or "Zhenla" was the name given in Chinese accounts of an entity that sent tributes to Chinese emperors. The word "Chenla" or "Zhenla" and likewise Funan are unknown in the Old Khmer language. Folk etymology attempts to link Chenla (真臘) to a translation of its Chinese name as "Pure Beeswax", which was one of its regional commodities mentioned in Chinese annals. Zhenla has been reconstructed as Tsienliäp in Tang dynasty pronunciation, which is close in sound to the name of a Cambodian city. That city's name, however, is centuries later than the first use of Zhenla, and Michael Vickery argued that the original meanings of both names are unknown.
Writing in 2016, Nicolas Revire held that no convincing reconstruction of Zhenla in Sanskrit or in the vernacular had yet been offered, and cited Michel Antelme's study of 2010 as the most recent attempt. He drew a contrast with Dvāravatī, a name attested in Sanskrit inscriptions found on the ground it denotes. Zhenla is known only from Chinese texts. Geoff Wade has proposed that the Hokkien reading of Zhenla corresponds almost exactly to the Khmer tonle.
Similar explanation however may apply to a later variant form Zhanla (占臘); according to author Peter Harris: "It very likely means 'Defeated Chams' since Zhan is the word in Chinese for Cham." He also noted the explanation given in Mingshi: "During the qingyuan reign period (1195–1200) of the Song dynasty, Cambodia wiped out Champa and took over its land. Because of this, the country changed its name to Zhanla. But during the Yuan dynasty it went on being called Zhenla."
Chen La may have been known through several other names such as Wen Dan (文單 reconstructed as Muntal, maybe mandala) or according to Tatsuo Hoshino Po-Lou, Wen Dan being its capital.
Following Hindu god king (devaraja) tradition the king chose the Sanskrit name of a patron deity or an avatar, followed by the suffix –varman, meaning 'protected by', obeying the code of conduct Manusmṛti, the Laws of Manu for the Kshatriya warrior caste.
Sources and historiography
Epigraphic sources At the end of the sixth century, Bhavavarman and Citrasena (royal title: Mahendravarman) attacked Funan together and subdued it around 627–649. Inscriptions record him setting up Śiva-liṅgas and the bull as symbols of his conquest across the territory. By 2016 four further inscriptions of his had been found in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia and numbered K. 1338 to K. 1341, bringing the known total to twenty. Chaowanee Lekkla's survey of the material found outside Cambodia lists twenty-four Sanskrit and Khmer inscriptions from southern Laos and from northeastern, eastern and central Thailand. Eighteen name Citrasena, seven Bhavavarman I, three Īśānavarman, two Bhavavarman II and one Jayavarman I, and the stones are dated in that survey by the reigns of the kings they name. Measured from Sambor Prei Kuk, the find-spots run from 240 km at Champasak to 600 km at Ban Wang Phai near Si Thep, most of them on the Mekong or its tributaries; the sites in Sa Kaeo and at Phaniat, also called Mueang Kawai, in Chanthaburi province are reached overland. Two of the Phaniat stones, K. 502 and K. 503, are assigned to Īśānavarman's reign, and K. 503 carries the name Candhrapura, which Patcharaporn Ngernkerd and colleagues read as the polity at that town. Four of the twenty-four have no secure provenance. Excavation at four of the sites has recovered associated material, including a brick shrine base and a well with four bricks inscribed with the Pallava letters la, ja, pa and ya at Don Khum Ngoen in Roi Et province, and a moated site holding a stone Nandi and a liṅga at Wat Si Mueang Aem in Khon Kaen province.
Chinese sources Most of the Chinese records of Chenla, including that of Chenla conquering Funan, have been contested since the 1970s as they are generally based on single remarks in the Chinese annals. The History of the Chinese Sui dynasty contains entries of a state called Chenla, a vassal of the Kingdom of Funan, which had sent an embassy to China in 616 or 617, yet under its ruler, Citrasena Mahendravarman, conquered Funan after Chenla had gained independence.
Modern historiography Late 20th century scholars "began cautiously to move away from the established historiographical framework" which had been laid out mainly by George Cœdès, who relies on external sources, specifically the Chinese annals, for its reconstruction. Michael Vickery suggests that ancient authors allocated the name "Chenla" to numerous small principalities and bundled them up as one singular entity in order to classify a larger number of people under the same characteristics, omitting distinctions between individual states. This approach explains why there was a noticeable increase in stone inscriptions during the seventh century. Multiple independent territories would produce their own recordings and written regulations, whereas in one polity only a tiny elite would be allowed access to such tasks. Lekkla draws a comparable distinction from the archaeology, separating the states that followed Zhenla's Śaiva practice from independent ones that combined Hindu and Theravāda forms. She puts Dong Mueang Toei in Yasothon province, whose inscription names the town Śaṅkhapura, in the second group: it was contemporary with Sambor Prei Kuk, about 400 km away by the Chi, worked its own iron, and on her reading the evidence is not sufficient to place it within Zhenla's political influence. She treats Si Thep in the Pa Sak valley the same way. The Ban Wang Phai inscription names Bhavavarman but records nothing of him, and Buddhist remains at the town outnumber Hindu ones.
Before historians had begun to analyse and use epigraphic sources in great numbers, all available evidence supported the idea that the center of the Chenla principality must be located at Mount Phu Kao - Lingaparvata (the mountain of the linga) in Champasak Province, Laos once belonging to the Khmer civilization. The local Vat Phou stele mentions the name of King Devanika (Fan Chen-ch'eng), king of kings - yet researchers do not relate the monarch to the "Dangrek Chieftains".
That Funan and Chenla are "vague concepts" not applying to a tribe, a nation or a people is at odds with the Cambodian legends of origin. Folklore follows an unflinching narrative like that of a single ruler such as King Devanika - the reconsecrated maharajadhiraja (king of kings) of Mount Phu Kao where "the people that lived in the region along with the people who came with Devanika, became the forerunners of the prosperous Khmer people".
History Origins
According to the foundation myth recorded in the Baksei Chamkrong inscription, dated AD 947, "the origin of the kings of Cambodia goes back to the union of the hermit Kambu Swayambhuva, an eponymic ancestor of the Kambujas, with the celestial nymph Mera, who was given to him by Śiva." The king Srutavarman, the first monarch of Chenla, was born of this couple, who was followed by his son, king Sreshthavarman. This king gave his name to Sreshthapura, believed to be Vat Phou.
Early history The origins of Chenla's aristocracy, whom author Michael Vickery called the "Dângrêk Chieftains", are obscure. These were local principalities north and south of the Dângrêk Mountains, who left behind the oldest known stone epigraphs in the region, bearing genealogical records that suggest increasing political dominance. The first known princes are mentioned in some early inscriptions. The Sanskrit inscription of Vãl Kantél, Stung Treng province names a ruler Vīravarman, who as his name suggests (his father's name was Sārvabhauma) had adopted the idea of divine kingship and deployed the concept of Harihara, a Hindu "god that embodied multiple conceptions of power". His successors continued this tradition, thus conveying the idea of a correlation between political and religious authority.
Like its superior Funan, Chenla occupied a strategic position where the maritime trade routes of the Indosphere and the East Asian cultural sphere converged, resulting in prolonged socio-economic and cultural influence and the adoption of the epigraphic system of the south Indian Pallava dynasty and Chalukya dynasty.Some Aspects of Asian History and Culture by Upendra Thakur p.2 Originally one of the regional centers of Funan with an unknown degree of sovereignty, Chenla was recognized by a foreign power as a separate political entity at the end of the sixth century, Bhavavarman I its independent ruler. Considerable scholarly discord prevails regarding the exact geographic origin, the extent, dynamic and chronology of territorial expansion and in particular, the religious and political center of Chenla and whether or not it consisted of a unified people under a single leader.
The New Book of Tang asserts that shortly after 706, the country was split into Land Chenla and . The names signify a northern and a southern half, which may conveniently be referred to as Upper (northern) and Lower (southern) Chenla. By the late 8th century Water Chenla had become dependent on the thalassocratic Shailendra dynasty on Java and the Srivijaya city-state on Sumatra. The last of Water Chenla's kings seems to have been killed and the polity incorporated into the Javanese monarchy around the year 790. Land Chenla maintained its integrity under Jayavarman II, who proclaimed the Khmer Empire in 802.
Land and Water Chenla
The Tang histories mentioned that after the end of the reign of shénlóng (神龍) (i.e. after 6 February 707) Zhēnlà came to be divided into two realms, Lùzhēnlà (陸真臘) ("Land Chenla", also called Wèndān (文單) or Pólòu (婆鏤)) and Shuīzhēnlà (水真臘) (""), and returned to the anarchic state that had existed before it was unified under the kings of Funan and the first kings of Chenla. On the other hand, Water Chenla was associated with the Mekong Delta and had access to the river and its benefits, but this advantage had its downfalls as it made Water Chenla more susceptible to attacks.
Late in the 8th century AD, it faced war from Javanese pirates that ultimately took over the Mekong Delta and then later took over Chenla. However author Michael Vickery asserts that these categories of Water and Land Chenla created by the Chinese are misleading and meaningless because the best evidence shows that until 802 AD, there was no single, great state in the land of ancient Cambodia, but a number of smaller ones. In his later work Vickery read the eighth century as a period of consolidation for Chenla, following a seventh century of many small semi-independent units under local rulers, or poñ. Revire sets that reading against Pierre Dupont's study of 1943, which treated the same period as the breaking apart of Chenla into its Land and Water halves.
Both parts sent tribute to China in 717, and Land Chenla continued to do so for most of the century: a prince of Wendan with twenty-six accompanying officers was received at the Tang court in 753, an embassy including eleven trained elephants arrived in 771, and the last recorded mission was in 798.