REGIONAL GEOGRAPHIC INFLUENCE ON TWO KHMER POLITIES

This paper examines the effects of Cambodian geography in two Khmer polities: Funan, an empire that occupied the southeastern portions of modern-day Cambodia and Vietnam during the early centuries A.D., and Democratic Kampuchea, a Cambodian state that existed from April 17, 1975, until the Vietnamese invasion of December 25, 1978. The terms "Cambodia" and the alternative English transliteration "Kampuchea" refer to the modern Southeast Asian state located between Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam, while "Khmer" is used to denote the language, culture, and nation of the people who are ruled by that state.

The territory of modern Cambodia can be thought of as a shallow saucer with a broken rim on the lower right or southeast side. ' The Cardamom mountains along Cambodia's southwestern coast form a barrier with the ocean while the Dangrek mountains along Cambodia's northern border separate the country from the Khorat plateau of Thailand. Highlands are located in Cambodia's extreme northeast. Most of Cambodia's interior is flat. The Mekong river, which enters Cambodia from the north, traverses an alluvial plain in Cambodia's southeast before entering Vietnam to eventually empty into the South China Sea.

GEOGRAPHY AND MYTH OF FUNAN

Funan is the name applied by Chinese writers to the first historically documented Khmer polity. Funan consisted of a network of commercial centers that stretched from the Malay peninsula in the west to the Mekong delta in the east during the first to the seventh centuries A.D.2 Funan's existence is known primarily from Chinese accounts written from the third to the sixth centuries A.D. and from archeological studies. Archeologists have located brick walls, pottery, and precious metal artifacts in several locations in southeastern Cambodia and in southern Vietnam. These discoveries, along with a large canal network that is believed to have linked the ancient settlement of Angkor Borei with more coastal settlement sites,3 indicate a high degree of political organization. The archeological evidence of Funan's scope is supported by Chinese texts that describe Funan as a maritime empire with settlements containing houses raised on stilts. According to these texts, the people of Funan cultivated rice and sent missions to China with tribute of gold, silver, ivory, and exotic animals.4 Buddhist artifacts were also exchanged between Funan and the Liang dynasty of southern China.5

The Chinese texts also recount the mythological origins of Funan as the land of the Khmer people. The earliest known account of this myth was recorded by the Chinese official Rang Tai, who traveled to Funan in the middle of the third century A.D. A tenth-century history of Kang Tai's journey states that he learned that the original sovereign of Funan was a woman named Liu-ye. A man named Hun-tian - a Chinese transcription of the name Kaundinya - from the land of Mo-fu dreamt that a god gave him a bow and asked him to take to the sea. The next day, Hun-tian discovered a bow in a temple devoted to the god, and he boarded a ship that sailed to Funan. Liu-ye attempted to attack and plunder Hun-tian's ship, but "Hun-tian raised his bow and shot an arrow which pierced through the queen's boat from one side to the other. The queen was overtaken by fear and submitted to him." Hun-tian then ruled over the country of Funan.6 A similar account is contained in the History of the Chin, compiled in the first half of the seventh century A.D.7

The Chinese texts that refer to the Khmer foundation myth are generally regarded as chronologically accurate, but they concentrate on China's diplomatic and commercial relations, making them a discontinuous and biased historical record;8 however, Chinese accounts of the myth do contain references to names found on stone inscriptions dated prior to 1000 A.D. An inscription dated 657 A.D. at the Champa site of Mi Son in Vietnam describes a warrior named Kaundinya starting a dynasty with Soma, the daughter of the king of the naga serpent gods.9 The Baksei Chamkrong inscription outside of Angkor Thom, dated 947 A.D., describes a dynastic line originating from "from Sri-Kaundinya and the daughter of Soma."10

Similar versions of the same myth also appear in modern Cambodian folklore. One version states that a man named Preah Thaong arrived by ship at an island marked by a giant thlok, a tree that is native to Cambodia. On the island Preah Thaong discovered the subterranean home of the nagas, where he met the king's daughter, NeangNeak, whom he married with her father's blessing. The couple returned to the land of men, and the naga king drained waters surrounding the island, bestowing the name of Kampuca Thipdei upon the new realm, a title that in Sanskrit means "king of Kambuja" (kambujadhipati). ' ' Preah Thaong's wife was impregnated by the god Indra, and she gave birth to a son named Ket Mala who assumed the throne and established a dynasty. In some variants of the story, Preah Thaong encountered the naga princess on the shore of the ocean.