Funan I

  General Description   ’Funan’ is the name the Chinese gave to the polity (or cluster of polities) that, between the 3rd and the 7th centuries CE, ruled over much of the southern portion of mainland Southeast Asia ‒ including territory that is today southern Vietnam, Thailand, and Myanmar, as well as all of Cambodia. ^[1] Most likely, what we now know as Funan emerged from Iron Age settlements around the Mekong Delta and the banks of the Mekong river. ^[2] The best known of these settlements is the archaeological site of Oc Èo ‒ hence the name ’culture of Oc Èo’ to describe mainland Southeast Asian culture at this time. ^[3]
Because it is difficult to pinpoint precisely when Funan was founded, here we use 225 CE as our start date. According to written records, this was the year in which the first Funanese embassy visited the Southern Chinese kingdom of Wu. ^[4] We selected 539 CE as our end date, corresponding to the year King Rudravarman offered the gift of a live rhinoceros to the emperor at Beijing. This is the last time a Funanese ruler is mentioned in any existing records, and indeed it seems that Funan entered a period of gradual decline around this time, until it was supplanted by the Northern Cambodian state of Chenla or Zhenla in the 7th century. ^[5] Chenla is the older spelling, the modern romanization of the Chinese character is Zhenla. ^[6]
Funan was rather prosperous, due to its privileged position at the crossroads of important trade routes that linked with India and China. Sources suggest that it reached its peak either in the mid-3rd century (when it extended its influence into Malaysia) ^[7] or between the end of the 5th and the beginning of the 6th century (when it was ruled by King Kaundinya Jayavarman and reached its maximum territorial extent, as well as the zenith of its political and economic power). ^[8]
Population and political organization
It is not entirely clear whether Funan was a unitary state, as suggested by Chinese records, or a cluster of competing centres, or indeed the most powerful out of many such polities. ^[9] The highest political authority was probably something like a Mon-Khmer poñ, that is, a settlement chief. There may have been a loose hierarchy of poñ, possibly based on wealth and political influence, with the wealthiest and most powerful poñ viewed as ’kings’ by the Chinese. ^[10]
No population estimates for Funan could be found in the literature, as work continues to locate and study settlements from this period. However, it is worth noting that the site of Oc Èo may have covered 450 hectares, with a possible population of many thousands of people. ^[11]

[1]: (West 2009, 222) Barbara West. 2009. Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania. New York: Facts on File.

[2]: (O’Reilly 2007, 91, 97) Dougald J. W. O’Reilly. 2007. Early Civilizations of Southeast Asia. Lanham: AltaMira Press.

[3]: (Ooi 2004, 6-7) Keat Gin Ooi. 2004. ’Introduction’, in Southeast Asia: A Historical Encyclopedia, from Angkor Wat to East Timor, edited by Ooi Keat Gin, 1-109. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC Clio.

[4]: (Pelliot 1903, 303) Paul Pelliot. 1903. ’Le Fou-Nan’. Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 3: 248-303.

[5]: (Tully 2005, 13) John Tully. 2005. A Short History of Cambodia: From Empire to Survival. Crows Nest, New South Wales: Allen & Unwin.

[6]: (Miksic, John. Personal Communication to Jill Levine, Dan Hoyer, and Peter Turchin. April 2020. Email)

[7]: (Gin 2004, 11) Ooi Keat Gin. 2004. ’Introduction’, in Southeast Asia: A Historical Encyclopedia, from Angkor Wat to East Timor, edited by Ooi Keat Gin, 1-109. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC Clio.

[8]: (West 2009, 223-24) Barbara West. 2009. Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania. New York: Facts on File.

[9]: (Mabbett and Chandler 1995, 73) Ian Mabbett and David Chandler. 1995. The Khmers. Oxford: Blackwell.

[10]: (Vickery 1998, 19-20) Michael Vickery. 1998. Society, Economics, and Politics in pre-Angkor Cambodia: The 7th-8th Centuries. Chicago: Centre for East Asian Cultural Studies.

[11]: (Coe 2003, 65) Michael Coe. 2003. Angkor and the Khmer Civilization. London: Thames & Hudson.