Rise and Fall of Champa

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia’s Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle pp. 134, 147: Nusantarians, protected by their seas and ships, were relatively safe on their islands from more populous mainland powers. But it is remarkable that their mainland foothold – the Cham territory – on the southern coastal border with China lasted as long as it did: from settlement, probably from Borneo, around 1000 BCE to Champa’s final extinction by Vietnam in 1832. Champa was the political successor to the Sa Huynh culture but came under Indian cultural influence while retaining its Austronesian language and living by its seafaring traditions. At its greatest extent Cham territory ran from Vishnupura, near modern Dong Hoi, to Phan Thiet, just north of the Mekong delta. The importance of this narrow strip between the sea and the mountains lay not in its resources but in its position. Journeys from Guangzhou to Siam, Sumatra, Java, Borneo and beyond could be…