Bhavavarman I

Bhavavarman I
ភវវរ្ម័នទី១
King of Chenla
Reign580-598[1]
PredecessorKambujarajalakshmi
SuccessorMahendravarman
BornBhavapura
Died600
Bhavapura, Chenla
ConsortKambujarajalakshmi
IssueBhavavarman II
Names
Bhavavarman
HouseChenla
DynastyVarman
FatherVeeravarman (current scholarship)
Prathivindravarman (older reading, disputed — see context)
ReligionHinduism

Bhavavarman I (Khmer: ភវវរ្ម័នទី១; Chinese: 撥婆跋摩; pinyin: Bópóbámó) was a king of Chenla, which would later become the Khmer Empire.

Biography

Though the full dates of his reign are uncertain, Coedès placed it at around the year 550, while Sharan's later epigraphic study dates it more specifically to 580–598.[2] From his reading of the Ta Prohm Stèle, George Coedès understood a princess named Kambujarajalakshmi to have been Bhavavarman's queen, and that it was through her that he inherited the royal lineage. Coedès thought he was also very likely the grandson of the king of Funan, a neighboring and more powerful Cambodian kingdom.[3]: 66–67  However subsequent research by the epigraphist Claude Jacques revealed that Kambuja-raja-lakshmi was the queen of another king, Harshavarman I, who reigned in 910–923 AD, long after the Funan period and so she could not have passed on the royal lineage to Bhavavarman.

According to Coedès, the main accomplishment of Bhavavarman's reign was the expansion of Kamboja into the Mekong river valley, attacking both Funan.[3]: 68  The reasons for these attacks are not clear, but most likely revolve around the accession of Rudravarman to the throne of Funan; Rudravarman killed the legitimate heir to the throne, and Bhavavarman may have seen himself as a rightful member of that lineage. It is not clear, however, if he wanted to claim the throne of Funan for himself, or to simply see Rudravarman unseated so that the next legitimate heir could take it.

Bhavavarman's own parentage is disputed. An older reconstruction, following Michael Vickery, holds that his biological father was Prathivindravarman and that Vīravarman was only his stepfather, having married his widowed mother — under which Bhavavarman and his successor Mahendravarman would be maternal half-brothers rather than full brothers.[4][5] This reconstruction rests in part on identifying Bhavavarman with the king named in the Ban Wang Phai inscription (K.978), found near Si Thep, Thailand, whose text describes its subject as the son of Prathivindravarman. Palaeographic redating of that inscription's script to after 627 CE by Kangwon Katchima, supported by Anurak Depimai, falls after Bhavavarman I's own reign on either dating above, making the identification unlikely; Depimai reads the inscription's king as probably a local Si Thep ruler unrelated to either Bhavavarman I or Bhavavarman II.[6]: 39–42  On this reading the Wat Ban Khwao inscription, which names Vīravarman directly as father of both Bhavavarman and Mahendravarman, stands without needing a stepfather arrangement, making the two full brothers.[6]: 38, 41  He was succeeded by Mahendravarman, born Chitrasena, who took that reign name at his accession.[3]: 68–69 [7]: 294 

Chinese records of the time indicate that Chitrasena was responsible for the conquest of Funan. The Chinese records also indicate that, around this time, the king of Funan was replaced, and that the new king was a 'wicked king' who did not support Buddhism. Bhavavarman belonged to the traditional Shaivite religion of Kamboja.[3]: 65, 67–68 

References

  1. ↑ Sharan, Mahesh Kumar (2003). Studies In Sanskrit Inscriptions Of Ancient Cambodia. Abhinav Publications. p. 33. ISBN 978-81-7017-006-8.
  2. ↑ Sharan, Mahesh Kumar (2003). Studies In Sanskrit Inscriptions Of Ancient Cambodia. Abhinav Publications. p. 33. ISBN 978-81-7017-006-8.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Coedès, George (1968). Walter F. Vella (ed.). The Indianized States of Southeast Asia. trans.Susan Brown Cowing. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-0368-1.
  4. ↑ Michael Vickery. (2003). Funan Reviewed: Deconstructing the Ancients. Bulletin de l'École Française d'Extrême-Orient, 90/91, 101–143. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43732647
  5. ↑ Charles Higham (2004). Encyclopedia of Ancient Asian Civilizations (PDF). ISBN 9780816046409. Retrieved 14 March 2023.
  6. 1 2 Depimai, Anurak (2025). "Ban Wang Phai Inscription: The Historical Context of The Relationship Between Si Thep Dvaravati and Chenla". Damrong Journal of the Faculty of Archaeology Silpakorn University (in Thai). 24 (2). doi:10.14456/drj.2025.12. Archived from the original on 9 March 2026.
  7. ↑ Higham, C., 2014, Early Mainland Southeast Asia, Bangkok: River Books Co., Ltd., ISBN 9786167339443
  • George Coedès, "The Making of South-east Asia." London: Cox & Wyman Ltd, 1962.
  • George Coedès, "La Stèle de Ta-Prohm", Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient (BEFEO), Hanoi, VI, 1906, pp. 44–81.
  • Claude Jacques, “'Funan', 'Zhenla'. The reality concealed by these Chinese views of Indochina”, in R. B. Smith and W. Watson (eds.), Early South East Asia: Essays in Archaeology, History, and Historical Geography, New York, Oxford University Press, 1979, pp. 371–9, p. 373.
  • Ha Van Tan, "Óc Eo: Endogenous and Exogenous Elements", Viet Nam Social Sciences, 1-2 (7-8), 1986, pp. 91–101, pp. 91–92.
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