Ancient Indian Colonies in the Far East (Vol. I: Champa; Vol. II: Suvarnadvipa) v1.c7.s13: Chapter XIII
Ancient Indian Colonies in the Far East (Vol. I: Champā; Vol. II: Suvarṇadvīpa) v1.c7.s13
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Chapter XIII
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Having concluded the political history of Champā we may now proceed to give a short sketch of the system of administration prevailing in the kingdom. The materials for this study are very scanty as we have to depend mainly upon the indirect allusions and references contained in the inscriptions. It is not possible to trace the gradual evolution of the political system and we must remain content, for the present at least, with only a general outline of the essential features of administrative system.
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Monarchy was the form of government in Champā from beginning to end. The king administered the whole state with almost absolute authority. The central administration might be broadly divided into three classes, civil, military and religious. At the head of the civil administration were two chief ministers with three grades of officials under them.¹ The Captain of Guards and Senāpati² were the chief military officers, while the religious establishment consisted of a High Priest the Brāhmaṇas, Astrologers, Paṇḍits and Masters of ceremonies.³
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¹ T'oung Pao 1910, p. 194, fn 6.
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² cf. Ins. Nos 26, 35.
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³ cf. Ins. No. 65.
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The ministers naturally occupied a very high position and some inscriptions throw interesting light on their status.⁴ Sometimes the ministers seem to have been chosen from the same family and the post acquired almost a hereditary character.⁵
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⁴ cf. Nos. 32. 39.
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⁵ cf. No. 39.
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The kingdom was divided into three provinces.
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(1) Amarāvatī, the northern part, corresponded to Quang Nam. Here were the two famous capital cities Champāpura and Indrapura. The latter occupied the site of Dong Duong.
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(2) Vijaya, the central portion of the kingdom, corresponded to Binh Dinh. Its chief city, Vijaya, served for sometime as the capital of the whole kingdom. It contained the famous port Śrī Vinaya.
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(3) Pāṇḍuraṅga, the southern part corresponded to the valleys of Phan-ranh and Binh Thuan. Its chief town Virapura, also called Rājapura, once served as the capital of the whole kingdom.
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The region called Kauthāra, corresponding to Khan Hoa, was usually included in this division, but sometimes formed an independent province.
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These provinces were divided into districts, the total number of which, according to a Chinese authority, was thirty-eight in the reign of Harivarman III (1080 A. D.). Each district contained a number of towns and villages which were the lowest territorial units. The population of any of these hardly ever exceeded 700 families, and there were more than hundred which contained three to five hundred families each. The population of the provincial capitals was of course considerably larger. According to the census taken by Li Than Tonh in 1069 there were 2,560 families in Vijaya.
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It would appear that two high functionaries, a “governor” and a “senāpati”, were placed at the head of each provincial administration. Thus king Harivarmadeva appointed his own son Vikrāntavarmā as the governor of Pāṇḍuraṅga, and at the same time deputed Senāpati Paṅr to guard the prince (No. 26). The selection of the heir-apparent as the governor was probably due to the importance of the province. We have already seen how the province frequently rebelled against the central authority and sometimes maintained its independence for a fairly long period (pp. 78 89).
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The provincial governors had under them nearly fifty officials of different grades for general administration and collection of revenue. None of these officials was paid in cash, but got something like a *jāgir* or maintained themselves at the cost of the people under them. The people were bound to provide for these officials, and the system of *corvee* or forced labour was in vogue.
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The principal source of revenue seems to be the land-tax which consisted usually of one-sixth the produce, though sometimes reduced to one-tenth.¹ The kings sometimes made a gift of this royal share to a temple for its maintenance. In addition, the king often exempted the lands belonging to a temple from taxes.²
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¹ cf. Ins. No. 4.
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² cf. Ins. Nos. 33, 36, 37.
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Taxes were also imposed on all industrial products and articles of merchandise. The royal officers boarded the foreign merchant vessel after its arrival at the port and took a fifth of the goods as royal revenue. The king even took a share of the products of the forest, such as timber and animals collected by the toils of the people.
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Justice was administered apparently in accordance with the Hindu principles, for we are told that Jaya Indravarmadeva V "followed the eighteen titles of law prescribed by Manu" (Ins. No. 65). Harivarmadeva IV also did the same (No. 62). King Jaya Indravarmadeva VII is said to have been versed in the Dharmaśāstra, notably the Nāradīya and Bhārgaviya (No. 81).
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We gather a few details from epigraphic records and Chinese texts. Certain crimes were punished by confiscation of goods and loss of personal freedom. Slavery was also a punishment for debts. Crimes were ordinarily punished by flogging. The criminal was stretched on the ground while two men on the right and two on the left alternately struck him as many as 50, 60 or even 100 times according to the gravity of the offence. Theft and robbery were punished by the mutilation of fingers, while adultery involved capital punishment for both the accomplices¹
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¹ It appears that sometimes the adulterers escaped by paying the price of a bull.
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The capital sentence was inflicted in many ways. Ordinarily the condemned person was fastened to a tree; then his neck was pierced through by means of a sharp spear and afterwards his head was cut off. For cold-blooded murder, or murder accompanied by robbery, the criminal was either delivered up to the people who throttled him to death, or trampled under the feet of an elephant. The rebel was tied to a post in a lonely place and was not released till he submitted. Lastly certain crimes were punished by deportation.
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It appears that "the Divine Judgment" was resorted to in certain extraordinary cases. If a man were devoured by a tiger or a crocodile his family complained about it to the king. The king ordered the High Priest to invoke the divine judgment. The latter offered prayers and conjurations at the very place where the man met his death, and it was believed that the tiger and crocodile would be obliged thereby to return to the same place to take punishments. If the complaint appeared to be false, the priest, in order to ascertain the truth, asked the man to go to the riverside. If he were guilty of telling lies he would be devoured by a crocodile. If he were innocent the crocodile would take to flight.²
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² This account of administration of justice is based upon T'oung Pao 1910 pp 202-203 Maspero laments the absence of any legal code of ancient Champa, but fails to note the reference to Manu Samhita and its adoption by the kings as legal code.
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In view of the constant wars in which the kingdom was involved the military organisation was a thing of the highest importance. A large regular army was maintained by the state. At the time of Fan Wen the army was nearly forty to fifty thousand strong. It must have been considerably increased in later times. At the time of Che Bong Nga, the royal guard alone numbered 5000 The armament of the soldiers consisted of a shield, javelin, halberd, bow and crossbow The arrows were not feathered but their tips were poisoned. The soldiers marched with their standards at the sound of drums and conchshells. They were arranged into groups of five who were responsible for one another. If any one of them fled, the other four were liable to death.
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According to Maspero the Cham army consisted merely of infantry and elephants till 1171 A D. when they learnt the use of cavalry from the Chinese. This is not, however, quite correct. What the Chams learnt from the Chinese in 1171 was the art of throwing arrows from the back of horses, a somewhat difficult operation inasmuch as both hands of the rider had to be kept free. But cavalry was a part of their army long before that. This is proved by the following vivid description of a battle-field contained in an inscription dated 909 A. D. "Which (the battle-field) is grey with the dust raised by the swift-moving sharp hoofs of horses galloping high; whose surface has been dyed red with drops of blood, like Aśoka flowers, shed by means of various weapons; and in the four regions of which the sounds of war-drums were drowned by the roars of gigantic beautiful elephants" (Ins. No. 39, v. 17).
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The elephants formed an important part of the army and we have already seen how the Chinese army was perplexed by this new element in warfare which was no doubt introduced by the Indian colonists. The number of war elephants maintained in Champā was nearly one thousand. Odoric de Pordenone says that at the time of his visit to Champā (c. 1323 A. D.) the king had 14,000 tame elephants.¹
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¹ Marco Polo. Edited by Yule—Vol. II p. 352.
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The navy consisted of large turret-ships as well as light junks. The total number of vessels was fairly large and we have several references to squadrons of more than 100 vessels supporting the movement of an army on land.
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The king often entrusted his brothers or other members of the royal family with the chief command of the army. The generals had the title of Mahāsenāpati and Senāpati, and there were several grades of officers under them. They all took an oath to the king to fight for him till their death. Their pay consisted of subsidies in kind, and they were exempt from taxation. The ordinary soldiers received two bushels of rice per month and three to five dresses for winter and summer.
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The Chams had a fair knowledge of the art of fortification. They protected their towns by brick walls flanked by watchtowers made of stone. These citadels and a stronghold named Kiu-sou specially fortified for the purpose served as the depot for their war materials. A detailed account of the fortification of Kiu-sou has been given above (p-26). Lastly the Chams constructed entrenched camps by means of palisades and turrets. They painted the outer gates of their citadels with the ashes of an animal. They believed that these were thereby made impregnable.
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While the Chams assiduously cultivated the arts of war, they did not neglect the arts of peace. The kings maintained diplomatic relations with neighbouring countries. Constant embassies to the courts of China and Annam have already been referred to in the preceding pages. The Nhan-Bieu Inscription (No.43) records the career of a nobleman named Rājadvārah who was twice despatched by the king to Yavadvīpa on a diplomatic mission. The Bāng-An Ins. (No 42) refers to a multitude of royal ambassadors coming to Champā from different countries The Hoa Que Ins. (No 39) relates, among other qualifications of the minister Ājñā Jayendrapati, that "by hard exertion he was able to understand thoroughly the meaning of messages sent by kings from different countries." All these references, taken together, leave no doubt that the kingdom of Champā maintained extensive diplomatic relations with her neighbouring countries.
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The art of diplomacy, as practised in India, was fairly understood. The neighbouring states were classified as friends, enemies or neutrals, and the relation with these powers was guided by the four expedients of *sāma* (conciliation), *dāna* (gifts), *bheda* (discord) and *daṇḍa* (chastisement) (Nos. 9 and 62). Sometimes *daṇḍa* is replaced by *upapradāna* (bribery) (No. 65). What is more important still is the reference to "*ṣāḍguṇya*" which is undoubtedly identical with the "*ṣāḍguṇya*" of Kauṭilya, meaning the sixfold measures of royal policy.¹ Kāmandakīya Nitisāra, a treatise on politics based upon Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra, deals extensively with the four expedients and the sixfold measures of royal policy. It is possible that political science was studied in Champā from books of this kind.² It is to be remembered, however, that Manusaṃhitā, which we know from other sources to have been used in Champā, also deals with both these topics, viz. the four expedients and the sixfold measures of royal policy, but its discussion on these subjects is neither full nor accurate, the author having evidently borrowed his materials from books on political science which he did not clearly understand. But howsoever that may be, there is no doubt that the statesmen in Champā were thoroughly imbued with the ideas of Indian Political Science and it formed the basis of polity in that kingdom.
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¹ Kautiliya-Arthasastra Bk. VII ch I
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² Dr. R. Mitra pointed out in the Introduction to his edition of Kamandakiya Nitisara that the book was imported into Bali island by its Hindu inhabitants as early as the fourth century A.D.
Cites (3)
- Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra — Kauṭilya, Sanskrit
- Inscription No. 9 — Prakrit
- Inscription No. 32 — Prakrit