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Champa

by R.C. Majumdar

Volume I of the "Ancient Indian Colonies in the Far East Series" dealt with the Kingdom of Champa, more "indianized" than Angkor.

Type: e-book

Edition: The Punjab Oriental (Sanskrit) Studies, Lahore, India.

Published: 1927

Author: R.C. Majumdar

Pages: 602

Language : English

ADB Library Catalog ID: e-HISMAJ2

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At a time when British and French colonial powers were locked into fierce competition, in particular in the Middle East, Indian scholar R.C. Majumdar, himself a British subject, did not hesitate to travel to Indochina and to dedicate his monumental study: ​“To The French Savants whose labours have opened a new and glorious chapter Of the ancient history and civilisation of India: this volume is dedicated in token of respect, admiration and gratitude by the author.”

And in effect, Part II of the book consists of the transcription and translation into English of 130 Champa inscriptions that have been previously translated into French from Sanskrit (mostly) and Cham language by French scholars such as Abel Bergaigne, Barth, Louis Finot, or Henri Parmentier. The author, who readily acknowledged his ​“limited knowledge of Sanskrit and French”, notes that ​“regarding the study of Indian literature in Champa, it is evident from the published inscriptions that up to the tenth century A. D. the Classic Indian Sanskrit Literature was thoroughly studied, probably even to the exclusion of the native literature, if there were any. Sanskrit became the language of the learned and the indigenous tongue suffered a cold neglect. Not only were Indian books imported and studied but even new books were written in Sanskrit, and the name of at least one such book and an extract from it has reached us.”

In line with academic works of the time, the book centers on a chronological approach based on Champa dynasties. This allows to follow the fluctuations in the relations between the Cham and the Khmer kingdoms. While King Sambhuvarman was on good terms with the Tang China, sending embassies there in 623, 625 and 628, and was ​“on friendly terms with the Khmer King Mahendra-Varman who sent one of his ministers, Simhadeva as ambassador to the court of Champa”, the new dynasty founded by Jaya Paramesvaravarmadeva Varman at the end of the 10th century retaliated to Annamite and Khmer invasions by inflicting ​“a cruel defeat upon the Cambodgians and took the town of Sambhupura. He destroyed a large number of temples there and distributed the Khmer captives among the temples of Srisanabhadresrvara.”

The author comments at length on the cult of the primordial goddess Yapu-Nagara (or Pu-Nagara, or Baghavati Kautharesvari. In 1256, for instance, ​“Princess Suryadevi, daughter of king Jaya Indravarmadeva, gave a sum of money for making a statue of the goddess, and also gave various ornaments of gold and silver to the goddess and prescribed regulations for the dancing girls [among them were probably Khmer female captives] employed in the service of the goddess”. The powerful goddess seems to have been for the Cham people not only the ​“Sakti” (consort) of Shiva but her equal, an ​“Ardhanari”, ​“i. e. an idol which represents Siva and Durga in the same body, prominence being given to the female part under Tantric ideas.” Incidentally, the last ruler of an independent Cham kingdom was a woman: ​“In 1822, Po Chong, the last king, unable to bear the oppressions of the Annamites, passed over to Cambodia with a colony of exiles, leaving behind princess Po Bia to guard over the so-called ​“Royal treasures of Cham” at Bal Chanar. She died a few years ago, mourned by her faithful subjects who looked upon her as the last emblem of their independence.”

Joining Henri Parmentier in the assumption that ​“the primitive Khmer Art was not only very different from, but also in a decidedly inferior state of development that the primitive Cham Art,” the author states in his introduction that ​“Champa has been selected as the subject of the first volume, partly because it is the remotest colony in the East, and partly because it is less known than Cambodge and Java on which general attention has been focused on account of the famous monuments of Angkor Vat and Boro-budur.” For the author does not embrace the idea of local, native elites embracing Indian religion and culture: according to him, the rulers of ancient Champa (or Cambodia) were actually Indian ​“colonists” who ​“kept up the tradition of their motherland. In ancient India people laid great stress upon the special privileges of wearing particular dresses and using particular conveyances, and these distinctions were granted by the king upon poets and other great personages in recognition of their loyal, faithful services. Traces of these customs still persist in the Native States of India, particularly among the Rajput States.”

Tags: Champa, Cham, Indian influences, Indianization, Khmer-Cham, Cham dynasties, epigraphy, inscriptions, Sanskrit, Indian studies, Indian literature, female deities, goddesses, dancers

About the Author

R.C. Majumdar

Dr. Ramesh Chandra (R.C) Majumdar (4 Dec. 1884, Khandarpara, Faridpur, Bengal [now in Bangladesh] — 11 Feb.1980, Kolkata, West Bengal, India) was an Indian historian and professor whose 1918 book Corporate Life in Ancient India drew new perspective on ancient India. Dubbed ​“the Doyen of Bengali historians,” he was one of the first Indian scholars who extensively explored India’s role in the political and cultural development of South-East Asia, writing on Hindu kingdoms in South-east Asia and Hindu colonies in the Far East.

A noted historian and academic, ​‘Acharyia’ Majumdar served as the Vice-President of the ​‘International Commission for a History of the Scientific and Cultural Development of Mankind’, wtith the course History of Mankind : Cultural and Scientific Development being taught at Calcutta University, Rabindra Bharati University and Jadavpur University, and published the 11 vols. History and Culture of the Indian People. Vice-Chancellor of Dacca University (1936−1942), he was the first principal of the College of Indology, Banaras Hindu University [BHU], in 1950. Other academic positions included Visiting Professor of Indian History at the Universities of Chicago and Pennsylvania, Honorary Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, president of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta, Honorary Member of Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona. He also served as president of the Indian History Congress and the All India Oriental Conference.

Modern Hindu nationalists have claimed — and sometimes instrumentalized — his legacy. The fact is the historian challenged Nehru’s policy regarding the Hindu-Muslim bipolarity of India, refuting the commonly held view that the Hindus and Muslims lived in harmony before the advent of the British rule and that the Hindu-Muslim tension was the outcome of the British policy to divide and rule. These two communities, the author holds, lived as ​“two separate communities with distinct cultures and different mental, and moral characteristics.”

As a free-spirited researcher, Majumdar published in 1957 an exhaustive and highly controversial history of the Freedom Movement in a three volume series titled the History of Freedom Movement of India, challenging prevalent notion on various topics like Hindu Muslim relationship, Swadeshi Movement, Gandhi’s role, and militant nationalism. 

While sticking to his convictions and his strong feelings towards the specificity of Bengal, he explored the Indian influences in Southeast Asia, publishing Champa, Ancient Indian Colonies in the Far East, Vol.I, Lahore, 1927, studies on Burma (Myanmar) and Java, and Kambuja Desa or An Ancient Hindu Colony In Cambodia. In the late 1920s, he had led research on Southeast Asia at the British Museum of London, the Kern Institute of Leiden and Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris. 

For an assessment of R.C. Majumdar’s contribution to Indian historiography, read The Pursuits of the Past: A problematic passage to the national soul”, Open The Magazine, 13 Aug. 2021.

Rcmajumdar
R.C. Majumdar

Selected Publications

  1. Corporate Life in Ancient India, Calcutta: Surendra Nath Sen, 1918; Calcutta: The University of Calcutta, 1922, 492 p.
  2. The Kushan Chronology, Vol I‑Part 1, 1920; repub. 2018. ASIN B0BKZMYHXQ
  3. The early history of Bengal, London : Oxfod University Press for the University of Dacca, 1925.
  4. Ancient Indian Colonies in The Far East (Part 1): Champa, Lahore: The Sanskrit Book Depot (Books Relating to Ancient India series. n 16), 1927; reprint as Champa : history and culture of an Indian colonial kingdom in the Far East, 2nd-16th century A.D., Delhi: Gyan Publishing House, 1985, 2008. 
  5. Outline of Ancient India History and Civilisation, Calcutta: self-pub., 1927, 535 p.
  6. The Arab Invasion of India, Journal of Indian History X‑1, 1930; reprint Dacca University Supplement, 1931, 61 p.
  7. “La paléographie des inscriptions du Champa,” Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient (BEFEO) 32, 1932 32 pp. 127 – 139.
  8. “IV. Les rois Šailendra de Suvarnadvîpa,“BEFEO 33, 1933, pp. 121 – 141.
  9. Ancient Indian Colonies in The Far East (Vol II Part I): Suvarnadvipa (Cultural History); (Vol II Part I): Suvarnadvipa (Political History), Calcutta: Modern Publishing Syndicate/​Dacca: Asoke Humar Majumdar Ramna, 1938 – 1939; reprint as Suvarnadvipa: Ancient Indian Colonies in the Far East, 1986, Delhi: Gyan Publishing House, 1986, 1004 p. ISBN10: 8121200407/ASIN 8121200407. [in Bengali: সুদূর প্রাচ্যে হিন্দু উপনিবেশ [Hindu Colonies in the Far East].]
  10. Kambuja Desa or An Ancient Hindu Colony in Cambodia, Madras, 1944; reprint as The History of Kambujadesa, New Delhi, Cosmo Publications, ASIN B006B7PU4C.
  11. [editor with H. C. Raychaudhuri & Kalikinkar Datta] An Advanced History of India Part I : Ancient India, Madras: MacMillan India Ltd., 1946; 4d ed. 1978. [in Bangali: ভারতবর্ষের সংক্ষিপ্ত ইতিহাস [A Short History of India].]
  12. The Vakataka – Gupta Age Circa 200 – 550 A.D., Banaras: Motilal Banarsi Dass, 1946, 512 p; repub. 1996.ISBN 81−208−0026−5.
  13. Maharaja Rajballabh: A Critical Study based On Contemporary Records, Cambridge University Press, 1947, 104 p.
  14. A Concise History Of Science In India Medicine, Vikas Publication House, 1950, 93 p. 
  15. [editor] The Age of Imperial Kanauj, Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1951.
  16. History and Culture of the Indian People: The Vedic Age, Bombay: Bharathiya Vidya Bhavan, 1951, 572 p.
  17. The Growth of Scientific Spirit in Ancient India, Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay (K.L.M.), 1952. [in Bengali: প্রাচীন ভারতে বিজ্ঞান চর্চা [The Practice of Science Practice in Ancient India].]
  18. Inscriptions of Kambuja, 1953.
  19. [with Satyamayananda Swami] Eminent Indian Women: From the Vedic Age to the Present, Almora : Advaita Ashrama, 1953, 187 p.; repub. Kindle edition 2005. [in Bengali: ভারতীয় নারী [Great Indian Women].]
  20. Ancient Indian Colonisation in South-East Asia, The Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad Honorary Lecture 1953 – 1954, Baroda College, 1955. 
  21. Bibliography of Indological Studies in 1953, Oxford University Press, 1958, 54 p.
  22. জীবনের স্মৃতিদীপে [In Memory of Life], General Publishers, 1959, 260 p. (LANG: Bengali)
  23. [foreword to] Roma Niyogi, The History of the Gahadavala Dynasty, Oriental Books Agency, 1959. 
  24. The Classical Accounts of India, Calcutta: Firma K.L.M., 1960, 512p.
  25. Ideas of History in Sanskrit Literature, Oxford University Press, 1961.
  26. Nationalist Historians, Oxford University Press. 1961.
  27. History of the freedom movement in India Vol. I, Calcutta: Firma K.L.M., 1962; 4th ed. 1971.
  28. History of the freedom movement in India Vol. II, Calcutta: Firma K.L.M., 1963; 4th ed. 1971.
  29. The History of Bengal, Vol. 1: Hindu Period, Lohanipur N. V. Publications, 1963.
  30. The Sepoy Mutiny and the Revolt of 1857, Calcutta: Firma K.L.M., 1964.
  31. [editor] History and culture of the Indian people : the Maratha Supremacy, Bombay: Bharathiya Vidya Bhavan,1964.
  32. [editor] History and Culture of the Indian People: The Age of Imperial Unity, Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1966.
  33. History and culture of the Indian people (Vol. 5) :The Struggle for Empire, Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1966, 2d ed.
  34. History and culture of the Indian people (Vol. 6) : The Delhi Sultanate, Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1967.
  35. Expansion of Aryan Culture in Eastern India: Being the Pandita-Raja Atombapu Sharma memorial lectures delivered at Imphal, Manipur State, on November 15 and 16, 1966, Atombapu Research Center, 1968, 52 p.
  36. ഭാരതബൃഹചരിത്രം [Bharatabrihacharitram], Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Language Institute, 1970; 1971; 2011. [LANG Malayalam].
  37. [editor] History and Culture of the Indian People: Classical Age, Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1969, 2nd ed. 1970.
  38. [ed. with Sarkar, Himansu Bhusan] R.C. Majumdar Felicitation Volume, Calcutta : Firma K.L.M., 1970.
  39. [editor] The British Paramountcy and Indian Renaissance, Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1970.
  40. Historiography in Modern India, New York: Asia Publishing House, 1970.
  41. বাংলা দেশের ইতিহাস (আধুনিক যুগ) [History of Bengal: Modern History], 1971, 660 p. ASIN B0DM1L57HK. (LANG: Bengali)
  42. The History and Culture of the Indian People: Volume 11: Struggle for Freedom, 1971, Bombay: Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, 1971; repub. 2003: ASIN B005F9E9MQ.
  43. Penal Settlements in The Adamans, Government of India Publications Division, 1975, 339 p. ASIN B0DT2X4ZK7.
  44. The revolutionary movement in Bengal and the role of Surya Sen, University of Calcutta, 1928, 27 p. 
  45. India and South-East Asia, I.S.P.Q.S. History and Archaeology Series Vol. 6, 1979, ISBN 81−7018−046−5.
  46. The History of Ancient Lakshadweep, Calcutta, 1979.
  47. History of the Freedom movement in India in 3 vols, Calcutta, 1994. ISBN 81−7102−099−2.
  48. Outline of the History of Kalinga, Asian Educational Services, 1996, 32 p. ISBN10 8120611942/ ASIN 8120611942.
  49. [with Pran Nath Chopra] Main Currents of Indian History, New Delhi: Sterling, 1998. ISBN 81 – 207-1654‑X.
  50. [ed. with Mohammad Habib, Ramesh Chandra Sharma, Anil Chandra Banerjee & Kalikinkar Datta] A Comprehensive History of India, Vol. IV Part 2, Delhi: Manohar Publishers and Distributors, 2008, 978 p. ISBN10: 8173045615/ ASIN 8173045615.
  51. ‎Ancient India, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publications, new edition, 2010, 558 p. ISBN13: ‎ 978 – 8120804364.
  52. বাংলা দেশের ইতিহাস: প্রথম খন্ড [History of the country of Bengal: Volume I], General Printers, 2010, 276 p. ASIN B0DLT946BF (LANG: Bengali).
  53. The History and Culture of the Indian People (Complete Set of XI volumes), Mumbai: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 2010. ASIN‏ ‎B00NNX2F04.
  54. Readings in Political History of India, essays by R.C. Majumdar ed. by S.P. Gupta, B.R. Publishing Corp., 2013, 279 p. ASIN B0DMFS8RB4.
  55. Swami Vivekananda: A Historical Review, Advaita Ashrama, 196 p. ASIN B01H1747N0. Kindle edition: 2016. 
  56. বাংলাদেশের ইতিহাস ‑২য় খণ্ড [History of Ancient Bengal, Vol. II], 2017, 463 p. ISBN10: 9848830685/ASIN 9848830685 (LANG: Bengali).
  57. Vidyasagar, Parul Prakashini, 2020. ASIN B08GCT8Q8L. (LANG: Bengali)
  58. Glimpses of Bengal in the Nineteenth Century, Street Press, 2021, 130 p. ISBN10: 1014416191/ ASIN 1014416191.





  59. বিবেকানন্দ ও সুভাষচন্দ্র (Vivekananda and Subhash Chandra)

    Sharan, Mahesh Kumar, Studies in Sanskrit inscriptions of ancient Cambodia, on the basis of first three volumes of Dr. R. C. Majumdar’s edition, Delhi: Abhinav Pub., 1974.

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