Chin Lin

Chin Lin/Kim Lin
(金鄰/金邻国)
(จินหลิน/กิมหลิน)
9 CE–c. 8th century CE
Proposed locations of ancient kingdoms in Menam and Mekong Valleys in the 7th century based on the details provided in the Chinese leishu, Cefu Yuangui, and others.
Proposed locations of ancient kingdoms in Menam and Mekong Valleys in the 7th century based on the details provided in the Chinese leishu, Cefu Yuangui, and others.
CapitalMueang Uthong?
Religion
Historical era9 CE – 8th century CE
• Established
9 CE
• Disestablished
c. 8th century CE
Preceded by		Succeeded by
Mon city-states
Dvaravati
Kamalanka
She Ba Ruo
Duō Miè
Today part of

Chin Lin or Kim Lin (Chinese: 金鄰/金邻; Thai: จินหลิน/กิมหลิน; lit. 'golden/wealthy neighbor') was an ancient political entity in modern lower central Thailand. It appears in Chinese records between 9 CE and the 3rd century,[1]: 27  while epigraphic evidence from the same area indicates that a line seated at the same centre persisted into the 7th and 8th centuries.[2]

In the 3rd century CE, after defeating Tun Sun to control the trans-Kra Isthmus trade route and encircle Chin Lin,[1]: 20, 25 [3]: 258  king Fan Man of Funan attempted to seize Chin Lin,[1]: 20  but failed due to his illness.[4]: 258 [3]: 269 

The city "Balangka, an inland town" (บลังกา), mentioned in the Geographike Hyphegesis of Ptolemy in the 2nd century, has been assumed by Thai scholars to have been Mueang Uthong, the center of Chin Lin.[5]: 94 [6]: 39, 98  However, some identified Balangka with the ancient Nakhon Pathom.

Location

The location of Chin Lin remains unclear. It was first mentioned around 9 – 22 CE during the late Western Han period, a Chinese emperor Wang Mang sent an embassy to visit Chin-lin. Later in the 3rd century, Chin Lin was again mentioned in the account of Funan king Fan Shih-man's conquests in the Chinese text Liáng Shū, which states that Chin Lin was located 3,000 li north of the kingdoms of Ta-k'un (Ch'ü-tu-k'un) and Chü-li (Chiu-chih),[3]: 258  speculated to be Kou-chih of Kole polis in present-day near Kuantan of Malaysia.[1]: 26–27  Earlier Chinese compilations give a different bearing and a different figure. The Yiwu Zhi states that Jinlin, also written Jinchen, lay rather more than 2,000 li from Funan, while the Waiguo Zhuan places it the same distance to the west of Funan; neither reckons the distance from the isthmian polities.[7]: 46  The Funan Ji of Zhu Zhi adds that the country of Linyang (林陽) lay 2,000 li from Jinchen and could be reached only overland, by horse, there being no route by water—an observation that has been read as placing Jinchen inland rather than on the coast—and that its people were wholly Buddhist.[7]: 39  The same work notes a monsoon regime in which rain began in the fourth month and ceased in the sixth, with few clear days between.[7]: 46  Palmer Briggs proposes that Chin-lin and its southern neighbor, Tun Sun, was the Mon countries. The boundary between this two entities was ill-defined, but probably not far above the present-Mergui-Tanintharyi Region.[3]: 259 

Description

The Chinese notices are brief but consistent on the country's resources. The Yiwu Zhi records that the land held deposits of silver, and that its people were much given to hunting elephants, riding them when there was need and taking only the tusks once the animals died.[7]: 46  The name itself, which may be rendered "golden neighbour", has been connected with this reputation for metals, although the sources do not make the link explicit.

Rulers

The copper plate dating from the 6th–mid 7th centuries found at U Thong mentions King Harshavarman (หรรษวรมัน), who was assumed by Jean Boisselier to be one of the kings of Dvaravati, while George Cœdès considered the plate was brought from the Angkor, and the name mentioned might be the Khmer king as well.[2] Nonetheless, the timeframes appear disconnected, as King Harshavarman I of Khmer ruled from 910 to 923, two centuries after the date of the inscription,[8][9] and Harshavarman I's grandfather was Indravarman I,[10][11][12] not Isanavarman as the inscription mentioned.[2] Michael Vickery instead proposed that the Harshavarman of the plate belonged to a line descending from Isanavarman I of Chenla (r. 616–637), parallel to Prakāśadharma, another of that king's grandsons, who acceded to the Cham throne at Mỹ Sơn in 658.[13]: 51–2  On this reading the connection was formed by the marriage of a princess of Chenla to a prince of Dvaravati, an alliance also preserved in a local fable of the Chao Phraya valley, with Harshavarman the offspring of that union and subsequently ruler at U Thong.[13]: 51–3  This places him in the later 7th century rather than the mid-6th.

RulerReignNotes/Contemporary events
Rulers before the early 7th century remain unknown.
Unknown[2]Early 7th c.
  • Father of the following, seated at U Thong.[13]: 51–3 
  • Linked by marriage to the house of Isanavarman I of Chenla (r. 616–637), who is named in the copper plate.[2][13]: 51–2 
Harshavarman[2]Late 7th c.
Due to the rise of the Sri Vijaya maritime trade route, Nakhon Pathom of Kamalanka became more prosperous,[6]: 39–40  and the political center of the region was then shifted to this new polity in the 6th–7th century.[14][15]: 55  The period is considered the beginning of the Dvaravati civilization.
Rulers after Harshavarman remain unknown.
Maratha?[16]: 12 [17]: 97 8th c.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Paul Wheatley (1956). "Tun-Sun (頓 遜)". The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1/2). Cambridge University Press: 17–30. JSTOR 25222785. Archived from the original on 26 April 2024.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "จารึกแผ่นทองแดง" (PDF). finearts.go.th (in Thai). Retrieved 8 November 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  3. 1 2 3 4 Lawrence Palmer Briggs (1950). "The Khmer Empire and the Malay Peninsula". The Far Eastern Quarterly. 9 (3). Duke University Press: 256–305. doi:10.2307/2049556. JSTOR 2049556. Archived from the original on 26 April 2024.
  4. ↑ Gustaaf Schlegel (1899). "Geographical Notes. VII. Tun-Sun 頓遜 or Tian-Sun 典遜 Tĕnasserim or Tānah-Sāri". T'oung Pao. 10 (1). Brill Publishers: 33–38. JSTOR 4525378. Archived from the original on 26 April 2024.
  5. ↑ Fine Arts Department. โบราณวิทยาเรื่องเมืองอู่ทอง [Archaeology of U Thong City] (PDF) (in Thai). Bangkok. p. 232. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2024-11-10.
  6. 1 2 Saritpong Khunsong (November 2015). ทวารวดี: ประตูสู่การค้าบนเส้นทางสายไหมทางทะเล [Dvaravati: The Gateway to Trade on the Maritime Silk Road] (in Thai). Paper Met Co., Ltd. ISBN 978-974-641-577-4.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Supakarn Siripaisal; Phiphu Butsabok (September 2018). การแปลและศึกษาเอกสารจีนโบราณเกี่ยวกับไทยในบริบทของเส้นทางสายไหม [The Translation into Thai and Study of Ancient Chinese Records Relating to Thailand in Connection with the Maritime Silk Road] (PDF) (Report) (in Thai). Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre. Retrieved 25 August 2026.
  8. ↑ "Book Review: Voices from S-21" Archived 2008-10-12 at the Wayback Machine. The American Historical Review (October 2002).
  9. ↑ SBS French program[link removed]. Special Broadcasting Service (December 10, 2007).
  10. ↑ Bhattacharya, Kamaleswar (2009). A Selection of Sanskrit Inscriptions from Cambodia. In collaboration with Karl-Heinz Golzio. Center for Khmer Studies.
  11. ↑ Some Aspects of Asian History and Culture by Upendra Thakur. Page 37.
  12. ↑ Saveros, Pou (2002). Nouvelles inscriptions du Cambodge (in French). Vol. Tome II et III. Paris: EFEO. ISBN 2-85539-617-4.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 Lavy, Paul A.; Clarke, Wesley (2015). "Integrating the Phong Tuek Viṣṇu: The Archaeology and Art History of a Forgotten Image". Journal of the Siam Society. 103.
  14. ↑ Phanomkorn Navasela (1 May 2018). "นครปฐมเมืองท่าแห่งสหพันธรัฐทวารวดี" [Nakhon Pathom, the port city of the Dvaravati Federation]. Lek-Prapri Viriyahphat Foundation (in Thai). Retrieved 15 July 2025.
  15. ↑ Stephen A. Murphy (2011). "The Buddhist boundary markers of northeast Thailand and central Laos, 7th-12th Centuries CE: towards an understanding of the archaeological, religious and artistic landscapes of the Khorat Plateau" (PDF). doi:10.25501/SOAS.00012204.
  16. ↑ Walailak Songsiri (2025). "ในดินแดนแห่งเจนลีฟู นครรัฐที่ไม่ได้อยู่ในอำนาจทางการเมืองของพระเจ้าชัยวรมันที่ ๗ สู่ปัญหาทางประวัตศาสตร์ที่หาทางออกไม่เจอของสังคมไทย" [In the land of Chen Li Fu, a city-state that was not under the political power of King Jayavarman VII, to the historical problems that cannot be solved for Thai society.]. Lek-Prapai Viriyahpant Foundation (in Thai). Retrieved 14 July 2025.
  17. ↑ Piyanan Chobsilpakob; Pratchaya Rungsangthong (2024). "จารึกสมัยทวารวดีในดินแดนฝั่งตะวันตกของประเทศไทย" [Dvaravati inscriptions in the western part of Thailand] (PDF). Fine Arts Department of Thailand (in Thai). pp. 95–100. Retrieved 15 July 2025.
This page is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.