Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c45.3

c45.3

A portion of the Indo-China Peninsula, where the inhabitants appear to have made at an early date contact with India, is that now known as Annam. Originally, however, this eastern seaboard of the peninsula was occupied by the Chams, a race of Austronesian extraction, who derived their name from Champa, by which the country was known to India. First coming into notice towards the beginning of the Christian era the kingdom of the Chams remained in power until it was overrun by the Chinese Annamites in the 14th century, who thus shared with the Indo-Khmer dynasties of Cambodia the domination of the entire region now known as Siam and French Indo-China. In the architectural remains of the Chams there are definite evidences that their civilization was fundamentally Brahmanical, although in the tenth century there was a short interval when Buddhism was favoured. The principal groups of buildings are at Mi-Son, a Hindu "temple-city," and at Dong-Duong, a Buddhist site, both seventy-five miles south of Hue, the present capital of Annam Much further south is a large collection of remains at Po Nagar, near the seaport of Nha Trang, and there is also a group near Kwi Nhon known historically as the "Towers of Gold, Silver, and Copper." All these structures indicate by their architectural treatment that the building art of the Chams was an independent regional movement, but obviously of Indian ancestry.