Kingdom of Funan

Funan was a network of Indianised states in mainland Southeast Asia, centred on the lower Mekong and covering parts of modern Cambodia, southern Vietnam and eastern Thailand, that flourished from the first to the seventh century AD. It is generally regarded as the first known kingdom of Southeast Asia. Almost everything written about it comes from Chinese sources: envoys of the Wu dynasty, Kang Tai and Zhu Ying, visited the country in the middle of the third century and described a walled capital, a king who lived in a palace, and a population of scribes, artisans and traders. The Chinese called the realm Funan, while Sanskrit texts knew the region as Suvarnabhumi, the land of gold. Its ports, above all Oc Eo in the Mekong delta, handled goods from India, Rome and China, and archaeologists have found Roman coins, Indian seals and Buddhist and Hindu images there. Funan's rulers adopted Sanskrit titles and Brahmanical and Buddhist cults, and the country is linked by legend to the brahmin Kaundinya and the serpent princess Soma, ancestors of the later Cambodian kings. In the sixth and seventh centuries its power fragmented, and the inland state of Chenla took its place.