The Đông Yên Châu inscription is an Old Cham inscription written in an Old Southern Brahmi script, found in 1936 at Đông Yên Châu, northwest of

Trà Kiệu Trà Kiệu is a village in Duy Sơn commune, Duy Xuyên district, Quảng Nam province, Vietnam. Geography Trà Kiệu is located in the Thu Bồn river valley inland from Hội An, which has since moved putting the site on the southern b ...

near the old

Champa Champa ( Cham: ꨌꩌꨛꨩ; km, ចាម្ប៉ា; vi, Chiêm Thành or ) were a collection of independent Cham polities that extended across the coast of what is contemporary central and southern Vietnam from approximately the 2nd ...

capital of Indrapura,

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making ...

. The inscription was written in prose, is the oldest document of Cham, and testifies the existence of indigenous beliefs among the ancient

Cham people The Cham (Cham: ''Čaṃ'') or Champa people (Cham: , ''Urang Campa''; vi, Người Chăm or ; km, ជនជាតិចាម, ) are an Austronesian ethnic group. From the 2nd century to 1832 the Cham populated Champa, a contiguous territor ...

of Champa kingdom. Though not itself dated, the phrasing of the inscription is identical with those of dated

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...

inscriptions of

Bhadravarman I Bhadravarman or Phạm Hồ Đạt (, Middle Chinese: ''buam’-ɣɔ-dɑt,'' Sanskrit ''Bhadravarman'', literally "Blessed armour" but also meaning the '' Jasminum sambac'' flower), was the king of Champa from 380 to 413. In 380, Bhadravarman ...

of the second dynasty, who ruled Champa at the end of the 4th century CE. It contains an imprecatory formula ordering respect for the "naga of the king", undoubtedly a reference to the protective divinity of a spring or well. This vernacular text shows that in the 4th century, the land which now constitutes modern day central

was inhabited by an Austronesian-speaking population. The evidence, both monumental and palaeographic, also suggests that

Hinduism Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...

was the predominant religious system. The fact that the language in the inscription shares some basic

grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes doma ...

and

vocabulary A vocabulary is a set of familiar words within a person's language. A vocabulary, usually developed with age, serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the ...

with Malay has led some scholars to argue that the inscription contains the oldest specimen of Malay words in the form of

Old Malay Malay was first used in the first millennia known as Old Malay, a part of the Austronesian language family. Over a period of two millennia, Malay has undergone various stages of development that derived from different layers of foreign influen ...

, older by three centuries than the earliest

Srivijaya Srivijaya ( id, Sriwijaya) was a Buddhist thalassocratic empire based on the island of Sumatra (in modern-day Indonesia), which influenced much of Southeast Asia. Srivijaya was an important centre for the expansion of Buddhism from the 7th ...

n inscriptions from southeastern

Sumatra Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...

. However, most scholars consider it established that this inscription was written in Old Cham instead. The shared basic grammar and vocabulary comes as no surprise, since

Chamic The Chamic languages, also known as Aceh–Chamic and Achinese–Chamic, are a group of ten languages spoken in Aceh (Sumatra, Indonesia) and in parts of Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and Hainan, China. The Chamic languages are a subgroup of Malay ...

and

Malayic languages The Malayic languages are a branch of the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup of the Austronesian language family. The most prominent member is Malay, which is the national language of Brunei, Singapore and Malaysia; it further serves as basis for Ind ...

are closely related; both are the two subgroups of a Malayic–Chamic group within the

Malayo-Polynesian The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. The Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken by the Austronesian peoples outside of Taiwan, in the island nations of Southea ...

branch of the Austronesian family.

Text

The language of the inscription is not far from modern Cham or Malay in its grammar and vocabulary. The similarities to modern Malay and Cham grammar are evident in the ''yang'' and ''ya'' relative markers, both found in Cham, in the ''dengan'' ("with") and ''di'' (locative marker), in the syntax of the equative sentence ''Ni yang naga punya putauv'' means "This that serpent possessed by the king", in the use of ''punya'' as a genitive marker, and so on. Indian influence is evident in the Sanskrit terms ''Siddham'', a frequently used invocation of fortune; ''nāga'' "serpent, dragon"; ''svarggah'' "heaven", ''paribhū'' "to insult", ''naraka'' "hell", and ''kulo'' "family". The text of the inscription itself, associated with a well near Indrapura, is short but linguistically revealing: Transliteration :''Siddham! Ni yang nāga punya putauv.'' :''Ya urāng sepuy di ko, kurun ko jemā labuh nari svarggah.'' :''Ya urāng paribhū di ko, kurun saribu thun davam di naraka, dengan tijuh kulo ko.'' Word-for-word English equivalent, except that Thurgood leaves unglossed the words given here as "(that)", "(O)", "(in)". :''fortune! this (that) serpent possess king.'' :''(O) person respect (in) him, for him jewels fall from heaven.'' :''(O) person insult (in) him, for one-thousand year remain (in) hell, with seven family he.'' English translation :''Fortune! this is the divine serpent of the king.'' :''Whoever respects him, for him jewels fall from heaven.'' :''Whoever insults him, he will remain for a thousand years in hell, with seven generations of his family.'' Malay translation :''Sejahtera! Inilah naga suci kepunyaan Raja.'' :''Orang yang menghormatinya, turun kepadanya permata dari syurga.'' :''Orang yang menghinanya, akan seribu tahun diam di neraka, dengan tujuh keturunan keluarganya.'' Western Cham translation :''Nabuwah! Ni kung nāga milik patao.'' :''Hây urāng adab tuei nyu, ka pak nyu mâh priak yeh hu plêk mâng syurga mai.'' :''Hâi urāng papndik harakat pak nyu, ka ye saribau thun tram di naraka, hong tajuh mangawom nyu.'' Vietnamese translation :''Thời vận! Đây là xà thần của người.'' :''Ai tôn trọng người, với ngươi vàng bạc rơi từ thiên đường.'' :''Ai sỉ nhục người, kẻ đó sẽ ở địa ngục ngìn năm, với bảy đời gia đình hắn.''

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dong Yen Chau inscription Cham Austronesian inscriptions 4th-century inscriptions Malay inscriptions Earliest known manuscripts by language History of Vietnam 1st millennium in Vietnam