ABSTRACT
In the first century AD, a kingdom was founded in the lower valley of the Mekong is known by the Chinese name of Fu-nan probably a transcription of the word bnam, common to most of the Mon-Khmer dialects, meaning 'mountain'. Fu-nan dominated the Indochinese peninsula for five centuries, and its prestige lived on long after its fall. The pre-Angkor kings of Cambodia adopted its dynastic legends, and those who reigned at Angkor traced their ancestry to the supreme rulers of Vyadhapura. The history of Champa is so closely bound up with the expansion of Viet-nam towards the south, that for clarity's sake it has seemed better, in subsequent chapters, to treat the history of Champa after the seventh century along with that of Viet-nam. The important point is that although Indian cultural influence was brought by the Chams as far as that frontier, it never succeeded in crossing it.
