Funan

Funan (Chinese: 扶南; pinyin: Fúnán, also Chinese: 夫南; Vietnamese: Phù Nam; Khmer: ហ៊្វូណន, romanized: Hvunân, Khmer pronunciation: [fuːnɑːn]; Sanskrit: व्याधपूर, romanized: Vyādhapūra) was a loose network of ancient Indianized states (Mandala) located in Mainland Southeast Asia, covering parts of present-day Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam, that existed from the 1st to 7th century AD. The name is found in Chinese historical texts describing the kingdom which indicate it to be an endonym the people of Funan gave to their polity, and it is perhaps a Chinese transcription of pnom, “mountain”. Funan is generally considered as the first known kingdom in Southeast Asia. It was located to the southwest of Linyi (the Chinese designation for the historical region of Champa in present-day Central and Southern Vietnam).

Like the name of the kingdom, the ethno-linguistic nature of the people is the subject of much discussion among specialists. The leading hypotheses are that the Funanese were mostly Mon–Khmer, or that they were mostly Austronesian, or that they constituted a multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic society. The available evidence is inconclusive on this issue. Michael Vickery has said that, even though identification of the language of Funan is not possible, the evidence suggests that the population was Khmer. However, several studies demonstrates that inhabitants of Funan probably spoke Malayo-Polynesian languages, as in neighboring Champa. The results of archaeology at Óc Eo have demonstrated "no true discontinuity between Óc Eo and pre-Angkorian levels", indicating ancient Mon-khmer region may have gone as far back as the 4th century BCE. Though regarded by Chinese authors as a single unified polity, some modern scholars suspect that Funan may have been a collection of city-states that sometimes were at war with one another and at other times constituted a political unity. From archaeological evidence, which includes Roman, Chinese, and Indian goods excavated at the ancient mercantile centre of Óc Eo in southern Vietnam, it is known that Funan must have been a powerful trading state. Excavations at Angkor Borei in southern Cambodia have likewise delivered evidence of an important settlement. Since Óc Eo was linked to a port on the coast and to Angkor Borei by a system of canals, it is possible that all of these locations together constituted the heartland of Funan.