Mr. Geetesh Sharma get your history straight: There was no Vietnamese in Ho Chi Minh City 2,000 years ago!

South Indians were the ancient money bags in Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh city (IANS Books)

05-Mar-2010
Source: Madhusree Chatterjee

New Delhi, March 5 (IANS) Vietnam - the bloody stage for a 30-year-war with France and then the US - was once home to a bustling Hindu settlement devoted to Shiva and Vishnu. Ho Chi Minh City, formerly known as Saigon, was the business hub of the South Indian Chettiyar community that set up money-lending businesses.

'The relation between India and Ho Chi Minh city dates back to more than two centuries when the Chettiyars, the trading community from south India, first came to the city to establish their money lending business.

'Subsequently, when they flourished, they entered the retail trade and formed a place for themselves in local society. They were followed by several other trading communities and religious groups from India,' writes veteran journalist, scholar and social activist Geetesh Sharma in his new book, 'Traces of Indian Culture in Vietnam'.

Ties between India and Vietnam date back to more than 2,000 years when Hindu traders from the Bhagalpur region established the ancient Champa kingdom in central Vietnam, Sharma says.

The book, published by Banyan Tree Books Pvt Ltd, the English publishing wing of Rajkamal Publications, was released by ICCR president Karan Singh in the capital Wednesday.

The 77-year-old Kolkata-based writer, who has visited Vietnam 13 times, had been researching the historical ties between the two nations since 1982.

'Vietnam - once a household name in Kolkata made popular by Communist slogans such as 'tomar naam, amar naam, Vietnam' (your name, my name is Vietnam) - captured my imagination in the 1970s when I attended demonstrations against the Vietnam war in the city. I realised that Vietnam shared a lot with India - and Bengal,' the writer told IANS.

'The first lot of people who migrated to Vietnam during the first and fourth century AD were temple artisans and traders from Bihar, Bengal and Orissa. Hindu culture is still alive in Vietnam. Several communities of ethnic Cham people in the country speak a tongue that is a phonetic blend of Devanagari and Sanskrit. I also came upon a local theatre troupe which performs a version of Ramayana,' Sharma said.

The Vietnamese adaptation of Ramayana, 'Ms Sita', is woven around the lives of local prince Po Liem [KI-Media Note: Not Po Liem but Preah Ream!] , a local version of king Rama and his wife Sita.

'The king dies and the crown is passed on to the king's ex-wife's son. Liem and Sita are forced to live in the forest. Demon Riep (Ravana) falls under the spell of Sita's enchanting beauty and forces her to become his wife. Po Liem rescues Sita with the help of General Hanuman,' Sharma said, narrating the story.

But the Vietnamese Ramayana ends with a twist in the tale. Sita refuses to return to the palace with Rama and pledges that she would see him only in death. 'She enters the imperial palace to die in Po Liem's arms'.

Sharma has toured 17 ancient Hindu sites across Vietnam.

'Vietnam has at least 200 Hindu temples. Mysol, a Unesco World Heritage Site, alone had 40 temples before the Vietnam war; but bombings reduced their number to 20. The remaining temples have been restored,' he said.

Sharma also quotes new research to prove that Hindus had settled down along the banks of the Mekong river in southern Vietnam.

'It is an incontrovertible fact that by the time of the establishment of the Hindu Champa kingdom in central Vietnam, a large number of Brahmins, Kshatriyas and traders had settled down in southern parts of Vietnam.

'The Hindu caste hierarchy in Vietnam was free of Shudras. Recent excavations in a large area of the Mekong delta have unearthed relics of Hindu gods and goddesses - mostly Shivalingas and yonis,' he said.

Sharma said the Fu Nan dynasty, the ruling dynasty in the Mekong delta, was established by a Brahmin named Kaundinya from India.

'According to a Chinese version, Kaundinya, who came to Vietnam from India via Cambodia, married a local princess Nagi and founded the dynasty. Shiva commanded supreme obeisance among the Hindus followed by Vishnu and the Buddha. Subsequently, the Buddha replaced Shiva,' Sharma said.

(Madhusree Chatterjee can be contacted at madhu.c@ians.in)

Researchers Look Closer at Ancient Angkor

By Sothearith Im, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
22 June 2009

Ancient Khmer art and culture have characteristics distinct from India, though some eas appear to have been borrowed from the tradition, a Canadian archeologist told guests in Washington last week.

Speaking to a small conference at the Freer-Sackler Art Gallery, Mitch Henderickson, director of the Industries of Angkor Project and researcher at the University of Sydney, said he found no evidence after seven years of research indicating that temples or architectural structures like Angkor Wat had been built in India.

“In the past it was interpreted as a direct diffusion of Indians and Indian ideals into Cambodia,” he said. “It has only been, say, in the last 10 years that we have truly understood how Brahman and Buddhist ideals have been brought into Cambodia and whether the actual Brahman or monks were giving the ideas.”

Some architecture and arts were now thought “uniquely Khmer,” he said, “because there are no temples in India that are built in the same way. They don’t follow the idea of building a ‘baray’ with a ‘mebon’ in the center, which is the representation of Mount Meru in the Sea of Milk [epic]. There’s nothing like that i​n India. So, the idea is that now we realize that Cambodia took the ideas that they wanted and modified them to suit the purpose and goals of the rulers and kings.”

Henderickson said Angkor was the biggest industrial site in the world at that time. His findings show that the Khmers had infrastructure spanning their empire.

Roads started from modern northern Cambodia and reached northern Thailand and southern Laos, spreading south to present-day Kampong Thom province. Every road was accompanied by ponds and rest-houses to facilitate people’s travel and transportation.

Irrigation systems were established as water sources for agriculture.

Evidence now pointed away from such structures being built by King Jayavarman VII, he said, and now indicated they were done by King Suryavarman I.

An ancient text he had studied “doesn’t say [Jayavarman VII] built roads, it doesn’t say he built bridges, and it doesn’t say he built the ponds, but we have all the evidence in the landscape,” Henderickson said. “And we also know that the Khmers were expanding across this territory 200 years before Jayavarman VII. So, it is more realistic to think that the road system that we see today is the product of Suryavaraman I, and possibly an earlier king.”

Cambodia is much loved for its ancient architecture and culture, but much remains unknown. Tourism is the second-highest outside earner for the country, after garment manufacturing.

The remnants of the Khmer empire continue to draw tourists from abroad, while capturing the imagination of local visitors, but the country continues to lose its heritage to looters and grave robbers.

There are two kinds of looting, said Dougald O’Reilly, a colleague of Henderickson who also attended last week’s talk, said: temple looting and looting of ancient cemeteries.

“The second one is mostly driven by people poverty,” said O’Reilly, who is also an archeologist and is the director of Heritage Watch, a non-profit group that seeks to protect Cambodia’s artifacts.

“The international market is a driving force, so people who are poor, they need to make money, and they are encouraged to loot by people who are middlemen in this trade,” O’Reilly said. “So, often we have Cambodian and Thai people asking villagers if they have antiquities, etc.”

People who feel guilty looting temples may not feel the same way about ancient cemeteries, he said.

Heritage Watch has a variety of programs, such as publishing comics and children’s books, a Heritage Friendly Tourism Campaign that encourages tourists to buy products from businesses that are “heritage friendly.”

The organization hopes to educate local people to understand the importance of Cambodia’s cultural past, which attracts tourists—and income.

“Cambodia really represents the best of the best in heritage,” he said. “So, people come there for heritage, but at the same time it has been chipped away and destroyed at rather alarming rate. If Cambodia wants to build a sustainable and a long term tourism industry, it’s crucial that they preserve and protect not only the monuments but also the ancient sites.”

Scientists need these sites to understand how Angkor came to be, and what happened to it, he said. “But if these heritages are lost, we can’t answer these questions.”