An ancient Hindu kingdom
The Chams once ruled a Hindu kingdom called Champa whose influence extended through what is now southern Vietnam and Cambodia. This monument was built between the seventh and twelfth centuries CE. (Learn more)
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This damaged brick and stone Cham tower stands overgrown by vegetation in a rural area south of Hai An, Vietnam. Tall arched forms are characteristic of these monuments built by ethnic Chams between the seventh and twelfth century CE.
Maritime trade between India and China led to the spread of Hindu and Buddhist ideas to many parts of coastal Southeast Asia during the first millennium CE. Chams once ruled a Hindu kingdom called Champa whose influence extended through what is now southern Vietnam and Cambodia.
The Champa kingdom competed with the Hindu Khmer kingdom centered in Angkor (now in Cambodia) as well as with the Chinese-influenced people of northern Vietnam. Similar buildings dating from roughly the same time period and Indian influence can be seen in Cambodia as well as in Java and southern Sumatra, Indonesia, where the Hindu-Buddhist kingdom of Srivijaya ruled by 700 CE.
Chams, now relatively small ethnic minorities living in both Vietnam and Cambodia, speak an Austronesian language related to Malay, Indonesian, and Philippines languages. Like most other coastal Malays, they adopted Hindu practices before 1000 CE, but then turned towards Islam when trade and political patterns changed between 1500 and 2000 CE. In Vietnam today, ethnic Chams are divided into separate Hindu and Muslim communities.
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Photographs by Margery Freeman · Text by Lorraine Aragon
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