Other Ancient States in Early Asia

The development of powerful states in China and India during the first millennium B.C.E. had a potent effect on the cultures with which they came into contact. Many new states mushroomed in the wake of international trade relations, wars of undisguised imperial conquest, or exposure to new ideas and ideologies. To the northeast, the Han policy of imperial expansion during the second century B.C.E. saw the establishment of the commandery or province, of Lelang in northern Korea. This imposition of an alien regime in the midst of already sophisticated societies was, at least in part, a stimulus for the rise of four Korean states—Koguryo, Shilla, Paekche, and Kaya. By the fourth century C.E., the Chinese had withdrawn from their foothold in the Korean Peninsula, and the rulers of these states fought among themselves. In the seventh century, the rulers of Shilla allied themselves with the Chinese Tang emperor to vanquish all rivals and to establish the first pan-Korean state, Unified Shilla.
Across the Tsushima Strait in Japan, the adoption of sophisticated techniques for rice cultivation on the Han model, together with the construction of irrigation works, underpinned emerging statelets concentrated in Kyushu and the margins of the Inland Sea. The rulers built for themselves gigantic mounded tombs, the largest of which reached a length of nearly half a kilometer. The Nihongi, an indigenous historical record completed in the early eighth century C.E., names a sequence of emperors and empresses, together with their capitals, temples, and palaces. Tracing these sites and opening them by excavation have yielded a rich harvest of new information. The Nara plain, east of modern Osaka, was a focus for the early Japanese state, with royal tombs and the remains of great cities at Fujiwara and Heijo, which were built along the lines of the Chinese capital of Chang’an. In 1961, a vital discovery revealed that mokkan, written records on wooden slips, survived at Heijo in considerable quantities.
These illuminated the detailed workings of aristocratic households and court functionaries. Linked with the excavations in royal palaces and Buddhist temples, the features of the early Nara state of the eighth century have emerged clearly defined from oblivion. With the end of the Han dynasty in the early third century, China was divided into three states. The southern kingdom of Wu had no access to the lucrative Silk Road that linked China with the West, and the emperor sent emissaries south to seek a possible maritime link with the worlds of India and Rome. To their considerable surprise, the emissaries encountered a state that they named Funan, located on the delta of the Mekong River in modern Vietnam and Cambodia. Their report, which has survived, described a palace and walled settlements, a system of taxation and laws, written records, and the presence of craft specialists. Rice was cultivated, and there was vigorous trade.
Once again, archaeology has verified these written accounts. Air photography before the Second World War revealed the outline of moated and walled cities on the flat delta landscape, linked by canals that radiated, straight as arrows, between the centers. At ground level, the French archaeologist Louis Malleret in 1944 excavated the city of Oc Eo and traced the outlines of brick temple foundations, jewelry workshops, and house foundations. Dating this city was facilitated by the discovery of coins minted by Roman emperors of the second century C.E. Since the end of the war in Vietnam in 1975, research has raced ahead. Many more sites have been identified, and the inscriptions, written in Sanskrit and employing the Indian Brahmi script, record the presence of kings and queens who took Indian names and founded temples dedicated to Indian gods. Wooden statues of the Buddha have survived in the delta mud. Funan was one of many small mercantile states that prospered by participating in a great trade network now known as the maritime Silk Road. A two-way trade with the Indian subcontinent saw gold and spices heading west, while bronzes, glass and carnelian ornaments, and novel ideas entered Southeast Asia. Along the coast of Vietnam, temples dedicated to Siva and other Hindu gods, as well as Sanskrit texts, document the rise of the Cham states. Chams spoke an Austronesian language, unlike their neighbors in Southeast Asia, and they dominated this coastal tract with its restricted river floodplains until the march to the south by the Vietnamese that ended in the 18th century. The rich soil of Java sustained kingdoms that were responsible for Borobudur, the largest Buddhist monument known, dating to the ninth century, while the demand in the west for cloves and nutmegs saw the Spice Islands of Southeast Asia prosper.
The broad floodplain of the Chao Phraya River in Thailand witnessed the rise of a state known from its inscriptions, in the Mon language, as Dvaravati. Here are large, moated centers dominated by temples dedicated to the Buddha, which rose at the same time as the Funan state to the south. Small states developed along the coast of peninsular Thailand and Malaysia, as goods were transshipped from the Gulf of Siam to the ports on the Andaman Sea. One major trading state, known as Srivijaya, arose at Palembang on the island of Sumatra. To the west, the Pyu civilization of the dry zone in modern Myanmar (Burma) bequeathed great cities at Halin, Beikthano, and Sri Ksetra. On the Arakan coast, the part of Southeast Asia most exposed to trade with India, there are reports of visits by the Buddha himself, and cities were founded at Dhanyawadi and Vesali, complete with palaces and temples. Local origins are common to all these states that burgeoned along the maritime Silk Road. Explorations into their prehistoric ancestry reveal growing cultural complexity, as chiefs rose up and took advantage of the new opportunities afforded by international trade. Indian influence is seen in the Sanskrit and Pali languages, the Brahmi script, and Hindu gods. Beneath the surface of the Pyu, Dvaravati, Funan, and Cham civilizations lies a strong local culture. These cultures continued well into the second millennium C.E. In Cambodia the civilization of Angkor grew into a major regional power. Pagan was the center of the Burmese civilization. The Chams continued to flourish until the predatory Vietnamese began their march south.