History of Southeast Asia
Episode 8, The Five Hundred Years War
This episode covers Vietnam from 939 to 1471. During this time two nations existed in the territory of present-day Vietnam (three if you count the Khmers ruling the Mekong delta). Those nations were the Vietnamese state, currently called Dai Viet, and the Indianized state of Champa. The Vietnamese and Chams fought on and off for most of this period, hence the episode name. Who won? Listen to find out!
(Note: A remastered edition of this episode was uploaded on February 1, 2017, to replace nearly three minutes of content that somehow had been cut out of the original.)
The main artifacts left to us by the Chams are Hindu temples made of bricks. Of these, the one in best shape is Po Klong Garai, built around 1300 by Jaya Sinhavarman III, near Phan Rang in southern Vietnam. Here it is.
And here is a map of the area covered by this episode, around the year 1200. The Vietnamese kingdom is colored yellow, and Champa is colored green. Most of Champa’s cities are marked with two names: the original Sanskrit name in red, and the modern Vietnamese name in parentheses. To the left of both, in light blue, is the Khmer Empire, the nation featured in Episode 7.
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