Yamanadvipa

Yamanadvīpa—also rendered as Yavanadvīpa or identified with Java—was an early polity in Mainland Southeast Asia, recorded under the name Yen-nio-na-cheu () in the travel account of the Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang during his pilgrimage in India. Xuanzang situates this kingdom to the west of Mo-ho-chan-po (Mahacampa), identifiable with Lin-i, and lists it among six realms located beyond the “deep seas,” enclosed by high mountains and rivers that were difficult to access from the Gulf of Martaban. The other Mainland Southeast Asian kingdoms enumerated by Xuanzang include Sri Ksetra, Kamalanka, Dvaravati, Chenla, and Champa. These six were considered to lie within the Jumukote or Yamakote (; ), corresponding to the “Eastern Boundary” of Ptolemy’s cartographical representation of Jambudvipa.

The precise identification of Yamanadvīpa remains inconclusive. Yet its Sanskrit suffix dvīpa (), meaning “island” or “land surrounded by water,” has encouraged scholars to associate it with an insular or riverine setting. The element yamana (), meaning “restraining,” “curbing,” or “governing,” has further complicated interpretive attempts. Some researchers equate Yamanadvīpa with Yavanadvīpa (), noting that a “king of Yavana” appears in the Preah Khan inscription (K.908) of Jayavarman VII alongside the “king of Java” and two rulers of Champa. Earlier scholarship, however, equated “Yavana” with Annam, though both this identification and the broader Khmer assertion of suzerainty over neighboring polities have recently been critically reassessed.

In northern Champa, an inscription (C.149) records that two groups of senior officials of the Indrapura dynasty were dispatched to Yavadvīpapura—the capital of the nearly synonymous kingdom of Yavadvīpa—on diplomatic missions in 833 Śaka (911 CE). Yavadvīpa appears again in inscription C.22, dated to 1228 Śaka (1305/1306 CE), which notes that a princess of the great king of Yavadvīpa became a chief queen of Champa. Although Yavadvīpa has sometimes been equated with Java in Indonesia, Champa inscriptions generally refer to Java explicitly as Javā. Thus, the identification of Yavadvīpa likewise remains unresolved.

There was also a kingdom with an almost identical name, Chawa or Sawa (, ) of Khmu people, located northwest of Champa, and bordered Gotapura, centered at Thakhek, to the south. These two polities may have been influenced by the culture of Dvaravati in central Thailand. Chawa was later conquered by the legendary Khun Lo of Lao people in 698. The polity was then Taificated and historically known as Muang Sua. It later evolved to Luang Prabang of the Lan Xang kingdom in the 14th century.

Given Michael Vickery’s reinterpretation of the term “Java”—originally associated with the legacy of Jayavarman II—as referring to “the Chams,” Yamanadvīpa may correspond to the inland Cham polity known in Chinese records as Zhān Bó, whose hypothesized location aligns broadly with that of Yavanadvīpa. This interpretation is consistent with the hypothesis advanced by Tatsuo Hoshino, who argues that following the dissolution of the Wen Dan (a trans-Mekong confederation of city-states) in the early ninth century, the Isan region of present-day Thailand entered a political phase he designates as “Java.”

According to the Laotian Phra That Phanom Chronicle, the principal city of Champasri and several subordinate settlements—together with the neighboring kingdom of Kuruntha, centered at Saket Nakhon (modern Roi Et)—were destroyed by King Fa Ngum of Luang Prabang after he reunified the Lao realms in the mid-fourteenth century. Local traditions also maintain that the ruler of Champasri was closely related dynastically to Mahendravarman, a king of Chenla.

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