Études du Corpus des inscriptions du Campā. V. The Short Foundation Inscriptions of Prakāśadharman-Vikrāntavarman, King of Campā

Abstract

The string of territories called Campā, lying in what is today Vietnam, has yielded about two hundred and fifty inscriptions spanning over ten centuries, from ca. 400 well into the fifteenth century ce. These inscriptions have not yet drawn much attention from the point of view of the shared religious history of South and Southeast Asia. In the present contribution, we focus on a group of seven short Sanskrit inscriptions issued by a king named Prakāśadharman-Vikrāntavarman who ruled in the seventh century. A careful reading of these texts, in parallel with related Sanskrit texts from South Asia, reveals something of the intellectual and religious cosmopolis of which the poets behind these inscriptions were a part, suggesting for instance that tantric Śaiva scriptures had reached Campā by the late seventh century.