Chenla

Chenla, known in Chinese sources as Zhenla, was the polity that succeeded Funan in the lower Mekong region before the rise of the Khmer Empire. Chinese annals describe a kingdom whose rulers bore Sanskrit names ending in -varman and whose court sent embassies to the Sui and Tang, yet modern historians doubt that it was ever a single centralised state. Its heartland lay around the Tonle Sap and the Mekong, with an early base at Champasak and a royal centre at Isanapura, the site now called Sambor Prei Kuk. Bhavavarman I and his brother Mahendravarman expanded against Funan in the late sixth century, and Ishanavarman I later consolidated power. Inscriptions record land grants, temple foundations and a court culture shaped by Indian models, while the brick sanctuaries of Sambor Prei Kuk rank among the earliest Khmer monuments. After Jayavarman I the polity fragmented; Chinese texts say that after 707 it split into Land Chenla and Water Chenla, and by the early ninth century Jayavarman II had founded the Khmer Empire. Chenla therefore marks the pre-Angkorian transition from Funan to Angkor.