Vijaya (Cha Ban)

Who holds it

Name

Suryavarmadeva (Prince Sri Vidyanandana)

Title

King of Champa

Since

1190 to 1192 (not pinned)

Confidence

medium

English, French and Chinese Wikipedia (see Suryavarmadeva (Vidyanandana))

Lord in 1200

Suryavarmadeva, probably in person.

What the town holds

• The citadel and the royal shrine tower of Cánh Tiên
• The Con plain and its rice
• The towers of Bánh Ít, Dương Long and Tháp Đôi
• The Gò Sành kilns
• The road up the Con to An Khê and the highland trade
• Thị Nại, the port

How things stand that morning

Held by Suryavarmadeva against Angkor, in a war (from 1198 on in the English Wikipedia) where no battle is dated. The campaign board says the Ly court recognised him in late 1199; we could not check that.

Wealth

Rice of the Con plain, the port dues of Thị Nại and the hill goods that come down the Con.

Military

Citadel, river craft and a fleet; no numbers.

Threats

• A Khmer army by the An Khê road or by sea
• His uncle On Dhanapatigrama
• Panduranga and the south going their own way

Charter

None known for a town. The Cham kings grant lands and exemptions to temples by inscription; no town charter is recorded.

Council

The king, his kin and the great Cham families, the Brahman priests of the temples; not recorded by name for 1200.

Communities

Cham of the plain; Brahman and Buddhist priests; foreign merchants at Thị Nại; Chinese in Cham service (a Fujian man trained Cham cavalry in 1171, Chinese Wikipedia).

Militia

The king's soldiers and the lords' followers; no numbers.

Walls and castle

Earth rampart faced with brick round a rectangle, an inner enclosure and the Cánh Tiên tower (board). Taken once by the Khmer in 1190. We did not find the wall's dimensions in a source we could open.

Trade and crafts

Glazed stoneware at Gò Sành (the excavated wares are mostly of the thirteenth century and later: a kiln at work in 1200 is inference); rice; hill goods; weapons.

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. 1203On Dhanapatigrama and a Khmer army take Vijaya; the king flees by sea (August 1203 in the English Wikipedia).Depends on: The Khmer back the uncle. Stopped by: A Khmer defeat or peace.

Places of note

• Vijaya: Citadel
• Canh Tien tower: Royal shrine tower inside the walls
• Go Sanh kilns: Kiln mounds
• An Khe pass: Step up to the Bahnar plateau

Where the sources disagree

• Board: 'Suryavarmadeva holds it on 1 January 1200 against Angkor, with Vietnamese recognition and no Vietnamese army': the Viet recognition of 1199 is unverified. Board: 'raised at the Khmer court from 1182': unchecked.

Evidence: Walls and tower are archaeological; who sits there in January 1200 is inference.

Primary sources for Champa

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• The Abridged History of Viet, Anonymous (attributed by some to Su Hy Nhan) (about 1377, probably as an abridgement of Le Van Huu's lost history of 1272). The oldest surviving Vietnamese history, a century older than the Complete Annals and in places fuller for the Ly dynasty, which fills its second and third books.
• The Complete Annals of Dai Viet, Ngo Si Lien, drawing on Le Van Huu's Dai Viet su ky (1272) and Phan Phu Tien; continued by Pham Cong Tru and Le Hi (1479; printed 1697 in the standard Chinh Hoa edition). The main narrative source for Dai Viet in 1200, compiled in 1479 from Le Van Huu's lost history of 1272. Read online
• History of Song, chapters 488 and 489: Jiaozhi, Dali, Champa, Zhenla, Pagan, Srivijaya, Java, Brunei, Chola and Tambralinga, Toqto'a (Tuotuo) and the Yuan history office, from the Song court records (1343 to 1345, from Song veritable records and court diaries). The Chinese court's record of its southern neighbours, compiled from Song archives. Read online
• History of the Song, the chapters on Xia and on foreign states, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345). The Song court's accounts of its neighbours, each arranged as an annal of embassies and wars. Read online
• Draft Compilation of the Collected Statutes of the Song, Various; the Song huiyao were compiled by the Song state, the surviving draft reassembled by Xu Song from the Yongle dadian in the nineteenth century (the original Song compilations date from the eleventh to the thirteenth century; the surviving extracts were recovered in 1809 to 1820 and printed in 1936). Dated extracts from the Song government's own statute collections, arranged by office. Read online
• Corpus of the Inscriptions of Campa (EFEO and ISAW), Various (the Cham kings and their officers), edited by Arlo Griffiths, Amandine Lepoutre, William Southworth and Thanh Phan (inscriptions of the 4th to 15th centuries; the online corpus from 2012). The online edition of the Cham inscriptions, with photographs, texts and translations, keyed to the C. numbers. Read online
• The Inscriptions of Cambodia, Various (the Khmer kings and their officers), edited by George Coedes (inscriptions of the 6th to 14th centuries; edited 1937 to 1966). The Khmer empire of 1200 is known almost entirely from the great foundation stelae of Jayavarman VII (reigning from 1181), which Coedes edited: the Ta Prohm stele of 1186 (K. Read online
• The Sanskrit inscriptions of Cambodia and Champa (ISCC), Various (Khmer and Cham kings), edited by Auguste Barth and Abel Bergaigne (inscriptions of the 7th to 12th centuries; edited 1885 to 1893). The founding edition of Khmer and Cham Sanskrit epigraphy, public domain and online, which Coedes's later corpus supersedes but does not replace. Read online

4 more in the sources library for Mainland Southeast Asia.