Rudravarman ( km, រុទ្រវម៌្ម, ) was the last king of
Funan
Funan (; km, ហ៊្វូណន, ; vi, Phù Nam, Chữ Hán: ) was the name given by Chinese cartographers, geographers and writers to an ancient Indianized state—or, rather a loose network of states ''( Mandala)''—located in mai ...
, as mentioned by the Chinese annals.
He was the eldest son of
Jayavarman Kaundinya
Jayavarman Kaundinya ( km, កៅណ្ឌិន្យជ័យវរ្ម័ន, ) was a ruler of Funan. He died in 514.
Biography
According to the Chinese annals, he reigned over a prosperous kingdom influenced by Shaivism, but at the same ...
and was born of a concubine. After the death of his father, he murdered the legitimate heir, his half-brother Gunavarman, and seized the throne in the year 514. Until at least 517 he was involved in a power struggle with his step mother, Queen
Kulaprabhavati Kulaprabhavati ( km, កុលប្រភាវតី, ALA-LC: ; 6th-century CE) was a queen regnant of Funan (in present-day Cambodia from 514 to 517.
She was the first queen in Cambodia noted to have been an autonomous wielder of the ultimate po ...
, who was supported by his opponents.
[Jacobsen, Trudy, Lost goddesses: the denial of female power in Cambodian history, NIAS Press, Copenhagen, 2008]
He subsequently sent embassies in
China in the years 517, 519, 520, 530, 535 and 539. He even proposed to give a hair of the Buddha to the Emperor of China, if the sovereign agreed to send the monk
Che Yun Pao to Funan.
References
Sources
*Bruno Dagens, Khmer, publishing company Les Belles Lettres, January 2003, 335 p. ( ), chap. I ("The Khmer Country, History"), p. 24-25
*(in) George Cœdès and Walter F. Vella ( eds. ) ( Trans. From French by Susan Brown Cowing) The Indianized States of Southeast Asia, University of Hawaii Press, May 1970, 424 p. ( ), p. 56-60
*Paul Pelliot, " The Funan ," Bulletin of the French School of the Far East, vol. 3, n o 1,1903, p. 270-271 ( ISSN 1760-737X, DOI 10.3406 / befeo.1903.1216 )
6th-century Cambodian monarchs
Funan
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