01Kaundinya and the naga princess
Two Chinese envoys, Kang Tai and Zhu Ying, came to Funan in the 3rd century and wrote down what they were told. A man named Kaundinya came over the sea from the west, met the local queen Liuye, married her and founded the royal line. Khmer tradition remembers the same katha as Kaundinya and the naga princess Soma, and Khmer kings for a thousand years traced their descent to that union.
The Liang Shu, a Chinese history of the 6th century, adds a second Kaundinya, a Brahmin who arrived in the early 5th century and reordered the court on Indian lines.
02Oc Eo, the port
In 1944 the French archaeologist Louis Malleret dug at Oc Eo in the Mekong delta and found a city laid out with canals, workshops for beads and gold, Indian-style seals with Brahmi letters, and a Roman gold medallion of Antoninus Pius dated 152 CE. Ships from the Bay of Bengal and from China met here. Statues of Vishnu found in the delta, tall and four-armed, are among the oldest Hindu images in Southeast Asia.
03The last kings
Kaundinya Jayavarman sent an embassy to the Chinese court in 484 and died in 514. A Sanskrit inscription of his son Gunavarman records a shrine to Vishnu’s footprint, and his other son Rudravarman left the Ta Prohm of Bati inscription. After Rudravarman the power of Funan passed to its northern vassal, Chenla, which absorbed it in the 6th century. Two monks of Funan, Mandrasena and Sanghapala, were then translating Buddhist texts at the Liang court in China.
The rulers
- 1Kaundinya IMarried the local queen; Chinese name Hun Tianfounder, date unknown
- 2Fan ShimanBuilt a fleet and extended Funan’s ruleearly 3rd century
- 3Kaundinya IIBrahmin from India, per the Liang Shuearly 5th century
- 4Kaundinya JayavarmanEmbassy to China, 484died 514
- 5RudravarmanLast known king of Funan514–c. 545
What they left
- Oc Eo, the excavated port city in the Mekong delta
- Some of the earliest Vishnu images in Southeast Asia
- The Kaundinya–Soma katha, claimed by every later Khmer dynasty