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AUGUST, 1877.]
CORRESPONDENCE AND MISCELLANEA.
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But in the mediaval narratives of Western well known over the Archipelago as rovers and seaauthors (e. g. Marco Polo, Friar Odoric, John faring people. This principality was often overrun Marignolli, Rashid-ud-din) the name Champa ap- by the Cochin-Chinese, but maintained itself in plies to that region which is now sometimes called some shape of recalcitrant subjection to the latter Cochin-China Proper, as distinguished from Tong- till about 1820, when the Anamite king conquered king, viz. the protuberant S.E. coast of the penin- it effectually, expelling the Champa prince and sola in question, extending northward to 16° or most of the people of the same race. 17° of latitude, the position of which on the route Name.-The name Champa is Indian, like to China caused its shores to be well known to the adjoining Camboja and countless other those voyaging to that country. This, or nearly names in Indo-China, and was probably borrowed this, was the kingdom called in the oldest Chinese from that of an ancient Hindu state and city which annals Lin-i, and afterwards, till its extinction, stood upon the Ganges, near modern Bhagalpur. Chenching. We hear of Chenching or Champa as Hiwen-Thsang, the famous Chinese ecclesiastical being often at war with its neighbours, Tongking on traveller of the seventh century, makes mention the one side, and Chinla or Camboja on the other, both of the original Gangetic state (which he and as for a time, at the end of the twelfth cen- visited) and of the Indo-Chinese kingdom (which tury, completely conquered by the latter. But it he knew only by hearsay), calling the latter Mahahad recovered independence a century later, for (or “Great") Champat-an indication, perhaps, Kublai Khan (1280-1290) had dealings in war and of its ample dominion, either then subsisting or diplomacy with its king. According to Javanese traditional, an amplitude of dominion which nearly annals, about the middle of the fifteenth century all states of Indo-China have enjoyed in turn. the queen of the principal sovereign of Java was Hindu titles are also distinctly traceable in the & princess of Champa.
corruptions of the old Chinese notices of the The precise historical relation of this ancient names of kings, and even in one mentioned by kingdom to the modern kingdom which we call Marco Polo. Cochin-China is a little difficult to disentangle. Ethnology and Religion. The people are known But this southern kingdom of Chenching or in Camboja as Tsia me, to the Anamites as Loï Champa was conquered in 1471 by the king of Thuận, and Thieng. We do not know whether Tongking or Anam, and has never since revived the former name has been taken from Champa, or For though there was for a long time subsequent the adoption of the Indian name Champa been to the date named, and down to 1802, a separation suggested by the name of the people. They have of Tongking and Southern Cochin-China into two been in great part driven into the mountains, or distinct kingdoms, the latter was not a revival of into the Cambojan and Siamese territory, where Champa, both being ruled by dynasties of Anamite a number of them are settled near the Great Lake. origin. And after the conquest the name of There were also old settlements of them on the Champa seems to have become restricted to the Cambojan const, between latitude 11° and 12o. districts adjoining the south-eastern curve or The people are said to exhibit, even in language, the coast, and eventually to that district immedi- strong Malay affinities, and they have long proately eastward of the Cambojan delta, a somewhat fessed Muhammadanism. The books of their forbarren tract with fine natural harbours, now called mer religion, they say, came from Ceylon, but they by the Cochin-Chinese Binh-Thuên.
were converted to Islâm by no less a person than This continued to be occupied by the people 'Ali himself. The statement in italics is interesting. called Chams or Tsiams, whose dominion we thus For the Tongking people received their Buddhism, presume (as far as we can see light in these such as it is, from China; and this tradition obscure histories) to have first extended over the marks Champs as the extreme flood-mark of that whole peninsula (as Funan); then to have been great tide of Buddhist missions and revival which limited to its eastern and south-eastern shores went forth from Ceylon to the Indo-Chinese re(Chenching); and lastly to have been regions in an early century of our era, and which is stricted to a small tract of those shores modern generally connected with the name of BuddhaCha mp4 or Binh-Thg 4 n).
ghosha. Here a principality of Champa long continued Antiquities. There have been many reports of to subsist, the residence of the prince being at & the existence of monuments of Indian or Buddhist place called Phanri, about 10 miles from the sea, character in the Champa country, and Mr. Craw. and apparently near, if not identical with, the furd saw an image of the Hindu god Ganesa which present Binh-Thuên. The Champas, his subjects, was brought from that country to Singapore by a were, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, M. Diard in 1821. But there is, we believe,
+ Julien, Pélerins Bouddhistes, III. 88.
