Cultural and Trade Interaction between Champa and India: A Historical Analysis

Abstract

In the history of humankind, maritime economic and trade connections always play an important role in development. The sea trade routes contributed part towards the development of cultures, diplomatic ties, and cooperation between nations. In Asia, the Champa maritime space used to be very significant for the connection of Southeast Asia with the markets in Northeast Asia and Southwest Asia. As a group of islands in Central Vietnam, the Cham Islands (Vietnamese: Cù Lao Chàm) kept an extremely significant position in the Southeast Asian coastal trade route. At the same time, it had a close linkage with other sea routes running across Insular Southeast Asia. Over many centuries, the Cham Islands were known as an outport of the port town by the estuary of the great kingdom of Champa, which was an extremely important trade port of the maritime polity of Champa. Using an interdisciplinary and multifaceted approach, the paper focuses on analysing the role and position of the Cham Islands in the East Asian trade and transportation networks, highlighting the regional and inter-regional linkage, describing the characteristics of the Cham Islands as an outport, an island port, and a multi- functional port, and interpreting changes in the role and functions of the Cham Islands during the maritime history of the kingdom of Champa and the period under the reign of the Nguyen lords in Đàng Trong (lit. Inner land, the region in Central to South Vietnam, which was later enlarged to become Cochinchina) from the 16th to the 18th century.