History of India, c. 150 A.D. to 350 A.D.: Naga–Vakataka Imperial Period c24.3

c24.3

The State of Champā (Annam), according to Chinese authorities, was founded in 137 A.D.¹ Champā seems to have been mentioned under the name Aṅgadvīpa by the Vāyu Purāṇa [ch. 48]. The name Champā was adopted by sanskritizing the ethnic name of the local population Cham. The Kauṇḍinyas who founded the State were, as pointed out above, the Kauṇḍinyas brought from Northern India to the South by the Sātavāhanas. The Sātavāhanas were a naval power: they marked their coins with the figure of a ship, they were always anxious to keep the maritime provinces of the West-Coast and the East-Coast under them. The Kauṇḍinyas were intimately connected with the Chuṭu Sātakarṇis by ties of relationship. It may be assumed that their migration to Annam and foundation of a kingdom, which defied the Chinese empire and established its independence, must have been politically connected with the Sātavāhanas. Kin-lien, which seems to be the Chinese rendering of Kauṇḍinya, successfully attacked the southernmost districts of the Chinese empire, and in 138 A.D. the Emperor contracted peace with him under which Chinese territory was evacuated by him. The Sanskrit inscription of Vō-caṇh (now in the Hanoi Museum) lends confirmation to the Chinese data. It is in Sanskrit and resembles the script of Rudradāman. One of the descendants of Śrīmāra (whose name is lost in the inscription) records that in the Assembly he publicly declared that whatever moveables and immoveables he had given (visrishta) to his brothers and sons, etc., were to be respected as their personal properties after his death. The script of the inscription is of the Second or Third Century A.D. It seems that this king was not very far removed from Māra, the founder. The original Brahmin caste (Brahma-Kshatriya) and the family name Kauṇḍinya are given in two later inscriptions of the dynasty in which dates in the Śaka era are given: chaturshu varshaśateshu Śakānām vyatiteshu¹ and 579 respectively.² The employment of Sanskrit points to a contemporary revival of Sanskrit in the Mother-Country of the Kauṇḍinyas.