Ancient Indian Colonization in South-East Asia c7.36

c7.36

This imaginary picture, based on actual happenings in later times, is corroborated by the local traditions current in different Hindu colonies about their founders. The earliest recorded tradition of this nature describes the foundation of the Hindu political authority in Cochin-China and South Cambodia. There was a kingdom in this locality, called Fu-nan by the Chinese. Once a follower of orthodox Brāhmanical faith, directed by God in a dream, came to this kingdom in a trading vessel. The female ruler of this place came to plunder the vessel, but being overawed by the military skill and prowess, submitted to the new-comer, who married her and ruled the country. This story was recorded by the Chinese in the middle of the third century A.D. and must have been current long before that. It is echoed in an epigraphic record, dated 657 A.D., in reference to the foundation of Bhavapura, the capital of Kambuja. We are told that the Brāhmaṇa Kauṇḍinya married Somā, the daughter of the Nāga king, and from this union sprang the royal family. The Chinese form of the name of the hero, *viz.* Huen-tien, is an exact reproduction of Kauṇḍinya, and both the stories are obviously different versions of the same, though one refers to Fu-nan and the other to Kambuja. A somewhat modified tradition about Kambuja ascribes its foundation to a son of king of Indraprastha who was banished by his father. He occupied the country by defeating the local ruler and then married the daughter of a Nāga ruler who extended the boundaries of his kingdom. Similarly the foundation of Ligor in Malay Peninsula is ascribed by tradition to a descendant of Aśoka who fled from Magadha, embarked a vessel at Dantapura, and was wrecked on the coast of the Malay Peninsula. Finally, we have a story preserved in the chronicles of Java that the island was first colonised by a prince of Hastināpura who sailed from Gujarat.