Zhān Bó

Zhān Bó Kingdom
Early – late 7th century
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.
Capital
GovernmentKingdom
Historical eraPost-classical era
• Split from Chenla
650s
• First tribute to China
657 CE
• Formation of Yamanadvipa
Late 7th century
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Chenla
Yamanadvipa
Today part of

Zhān Bó (Chinese: 瞻博) in Mandarin Chinese or Dzim Bohk in Cantonese, also known as the Inland Champa,[1]: 32, 37  was a medieval kingdom in the central Isan region of Thailand mentioning in the New Book of Tang.[1]: 29, 34, 43  Zhān Bó, together with other four kingdoms, including Pó Àn (婆岸), Qiān Zhī Fú (千支弗), Shě Bá Ruò (舍跋若), and Mó Là (摩臘), sent their first tribute to the Chinese court around 656–661 during the reign of Emperor Gaozong of Tang.[2][3] These five kingdoms confederated politically and economically with Zhān Bó as the head,[1]: 42  and they differed from the coastal region dominated by Dvaravati, characterized by the presence of Bai sema.[1]: 30  Zhān Bó was formerly designated as one of the seventeen tributary states of Piao — also called Zhū Bō (朱波) — which has been identified with Pyu city-states in modern Myanmar, and situated geographically between two prominent kingdoms to whom Zhān Pó pledged loyalty.[1]: 34 

In the early 7th century, Zhān and Bó were probably two individual kingdoms, as stated in the Cefu Yuangui, that in 657, "Zhān guo Bó guo", meaning "Zhān country Bó country", sent a tribute to China.[1]: 47–8  It was regarded as a single entity in the latter mission, indicating the unification of the ruling families into one monarchy.[1]: 44  During this period, there are a record of a Chinese Buddhist monk Chéng Wù (乗悟) died in Zhān Bó on his way back to Jiaozhou (交州), after residing in He Ling (訶陵) and other places farther south.[1]: 67 

Following the fall of the Dvaravati culture in the 11th century, Zhān Bó, as well as other principalities in the Mun–Chi Basins, possibly formed alliances with Angkor,[4]: 93  as indicated by the archaeological evidence that several artifacts and structures found in its capital, Champasri, are more Angkorian than those of the Mon Dvaravati.[1]: 46  The tie with former trans-Mekong confederated city-states in the Menam Basin ended, especially with Qiān Zhī Fú at Si Thep,[4]: 93  who, together with other Tai principalities in the upper Menam Valleys, moved south and absorbed the declining Dvaravati.

Location

Location of Yamanadvipa, which matches that of Zhān Bó

In the New Book of Tang, Zhān Bó is said to be located south of the river of Jiang Jishe, which is the Chinese name for the River Ganges in India, and was home to many wild elephants,[3] making Paul Pelliot assume that a series of kingdoms, including Gē Luó Shě Fēn, Xiū Luó Fēn, Gān Bì, and Zhān Bó, mentioned in the Southeast Asia section of the annual, were instead in the Indian subcontinent, ignoring other possible details. However, since the term Zhān 瞻 was usually used to refer to Champa, and the Lao version of Ramayana that compares the Mekong to the Ganges, a Japanese historian Tatsuo Hoshino proposes that the river Jiang Jishe was potentially the Mekong and those aforementioned polities were undoubtedly in Southeast Asia, as said in the annual.[1]: 29 

Tatsuo Hoshino places the capital of Zhān Bó at Champasri, a large circular moated Dvaravati settlement in Maha Sarakham province of Thailand, where the state's ancient name, that is, Champa, has thus been preserved to the present day.[1]: 46 

Since the term Java, which is derived from the legacy of the first Angkorian king Jayavarman II, was re-interpreted to mean "the Chams" by Michael Vickery,[5]: 56  an ancient kingdom Yamanadvipa or Yavanadvipa, mentioned in the Xuanzang journey in the 7th century and was said to be located to the west of Mo-ho-chan-po (Mahacampa), which is the same as Lin-i,[6]: 128–9  was possibly the inland Cham's kingdom of Zhān Bó, whose location matches that of Yavanadvipa.

People

Zhān Bó was probably ruled by Cham people or influenced by Champa,[1]: 37  a group of polities called by the Chinese Zhān Pó (瞻婆) during the 7th–8th centuries. In Cantonese, Zhān Bó 瞻博 pronounces as Zim1 Bok3 and the character Zhān 瞻 was usually used to refer to Champa;[1]: 67  thus, Zhān Bó is identified as the "Inland Champa" by Tatsuo Hoshino and Paul Pelliot.[1]: 32, 37  Another kingdom, called Keoi Lau Mì — also known as South Línyì[1]: 37  — of the Kuy people,[7] which was placed in the conjoining area of the present-day Thailand–Laos–Cambodia border, probably had strong ties with the Cham as well.[1]: 37 

Also, the Tai-speaking people — evidenced to have resided in the northern Champa in the present-day Nghệ An and Thanh Hóa as well as the Northwest provinces of modern Vietnam — likely commenced their migration to the central Mekong Valleys around the 5th–6th centuries and successfully captured Muang Sua in 698. This relocation continued via the trans-Mekong trade network, which existed until the 10th century, and they then spread throughout the Isan region around the 8th century.[1]: 38, 49–50  The linguistic evidence to support the presence of the Tai or early Daic in the central Isan region is that, in the toponym "wén dān" 文單, the character wén 文 can also be transliterated as man4 in Cantonese, which is widely used by Daic dialects to refer to the village across the area in Yunnan and northern Myanmar.[1]: 39  Meanwhile, another character dān 單 can be pronounced sin6, sin4, sim4, or sham,[1]: 68  which possibly means the proto-Siamese people.[1]: 39  Another kingdom, Cān Bàn (参半) to the northwest, was also an early Tai city-state, as the character 参 is pronounced sam1, potentially linking to the Siamese, and 半 bun3 seems to correspond to the variants of the Sanskrit term "pūra", meaning town or city.[1]: 39, 68  Moreover, the system of two chief centers — Kantharawichai (Nei Cheng)–Fa Daet Song Yang (Wei Cheng) of Wen Dan and Champasri (Zhān)–Muang Bua (Bó) of Zhān Bó — which usually used by the latter Tai kingdoms, such as Sukhothai–Si Satchanalai of the Sukhothai Kingdom, Xieng Dong–Xieng Thong of the Lan Xang Kingdom, Wiang Chieng Mai–Wiang Kum Kam of the Lan Na Kingdom, and Ayodhya–Lopburi of the Ayutthaya Kingdom, further substantiates the presence of the Tais in the Isan region during the specified period.[1]: 44 

In addition, around the 7th–8th century, the Tai also presented in the district of Wen Yang (文陽) in Changzhou prefecture (長州 or 裳州) of the Tang Dynasty in modern Sakhon Nakhon, Nakhon Phanom, Bueng Kan provinces of Thailand, and Khammouane province of modern Laos.[1]: 49–51  The Wen Yang district is identified as the present-day Thakhek in Laos.[1]: 50 

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Hoshino, T (2002). "Wen Dan and its neighbors: the central Mekong Valley in the seventh and eighth centuries.". In M. Ngaosrivathana; K. Breazeale (eds.). Breaking New Ground in Lao History: Essays on the Seventh to Twentieth Centuries. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books. pp. 25–72.
  2. ^ "《钦定续通志卷六百三十七》". 中国哲学书电子化计划 (in Chinese). Retrieved 15 August 2025.
  3. ^ a b "唐書卷二百二十二下　　列傳第一百四十七下　南蠻下" [Book of Tang, Volume 222, Part 2, Biographies, Volume 147, Part 2 Southern Barbarians, Part 2]. toyoshi.lit.nagoya-u.ac.jp (in Chinese). Retrieved 15 August 2025.
  4. ^ a b Hiram Woodward (2023). "Dvaravati, Si Thep, and Wendan". Archived from the original on 15 October 2022.
  5. ^ Higham, C., 2001, The Civilization of Angkor, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, ISBN 9781842125847
  6. ^ Zhang Hui Ji (2005). The Life of Hsüan Tsang by his by his personal disciples Hui-li and Yen-ts'ung (PDF). Delhi: Akshaya Prakashan. ISBN 81-88643-16-5. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 March 2025.
  7. ^ Thongtham Nathchamnong (November 2012). "แคว้นของชาวกวย-กูย?" [Kingdom of the Kouy People?]. Thang E-Shann (in Thai). ISSN 2286-6418. OCLC 914873242. Archived from the original on 2024-10-07. Retrieved 2025-05-12.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
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