Unearthing Cham links with Indonesia
Dr. Pierre-Yves Manguin is a member of the Ecole francaise d'Extreme Orient (EFEO) and teaches at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris. He has lived and worked in Indonesia for extended periods, and his research focuses on the history and archaeology of the coastal states and trade networks of Southeast Asia, in Indonesia for example, about the Sriwijaya Kingdom in South Sumatra and the Tarumanagara in West Java.
Manguin spoke to contributor Kunang Helmi regarding the current exhibition on Champa sculpture in Paris and some of the ties this culture shared with ancient Indonesian civilizations.
Question: It was most interesting to find out that many Cham converted to Islam. What do you know about the Muslim Cham in connection with ancient Indonesia?
Answer: We know that links with Muslim Cham communities played an important role in the Islamization of Java in the 15th century. The Putri Campa tomb in Trowulan keeps alive the memory of such links. Relations with insular Southeast Asia were, however, not always peaceful, and historical sources have records of 9th and 10th century expeditions by Malay or Javanese fleets that destroyed local temples and cult images.
Can we still find Muslim Cham in other countries besides Vietnam today?
The vast majority of Muslim Cham live in Cambodia, where they emigrated starting with the progressive destruction of the Champa kingdom at the hands of the Vietnamese. Many of these, in turn, emigrated during the Khmer Rouge period to Peninsular Malaysia (particularly to Kelantan), where they have formed a thriving and deeply religious community.
What about the destruction of material relics of their civilization in 20th-century Vietnam?
As you mentioned destruction by bombs, I would like to point out that destruction by American bombs were actually most prominent at My Son, as well as at Dong Duong.
Another point that was puzzling in the catalog was the mention that red-brick constructions were primarily a Cham invention, What do you know about this fact pertaining to Indonesia?
Brick monuments are quite common in other parts of Southeast Asia, the more so in regions where suitable stones are not as readily available as in Java or Cambodia.
In Indonesia, for example, all temples at the large 6th- to 10th-century sites of Batutjaya and Cibuaya in West Java -- both Buddhist and Hindu monuments -- were made of bricks, as were most of those built in Sriwijayan times in Sumatra. Even in Central Java, many temples,-- most of them now vanished -- used bricks as building material.