Funan’s embassy of 539 and the hair of the Buddha
In 539 King Rudravarman of Funan sent the Liang court a live rhinoceros, and his envoys told Emperor Wu that Funan possessed a hair of the Buddha twelve Chinese feet long; the emperor, a devout Buddhist, sent the monk Yunbao back with them to fetch it. The embassy was one of a series that made Funan a channel for Buddhist images, texts and teachers on their way from India to southern China.
- Date
- 539year known
- Place
- Funan (capital uncertain; Angkor Borei shown)approximate locationtoday: Angkor Borei, Takeo Province, Cambodia · Southeast Asia and Oceania
- Route
- Funan (capital uncertain; Angkor Borei shown) → Jiankang, the Liang capital
- Participants
- Funan, Rudravarman (king of Funan), Liang dynasty, Emperor Wu of Liang
- Threads
- Southeast Asia and Oceania (1st–10th c.)
- Also known as
- Buddha hair relic; Funan embassy of 539; Yunbao; Sanghapala; Mandrasena; Paramartha; Посольство Фунани 539 г.; Волос Будды; Сангхапала; Парамартха
The Book of Liang records that Rudravarman, a son of King Jayavarman Kaundinya by a concubine, killed his younger half-brother, the heir, and took the throne in 514, and that he sent embassies to the Liang in 517, 519, 520, 530, 535 and 539; the envoys of 519 brought a sandalwood image of the Buddha from India. The hair was a gift after Emperor Wu’s own heart: two years earlier, in 537, he had rebuilt the pagoda of the Ashoka temple in his capital and brought out from beneath it relics, including, the historian says, a hair of the Buddha, and the Book of Liang notes that scripture gave the Buddha’s hair the same length of twelve feet. Whether Yunbao brought the Funan relic back is not recorded. Funanese monks had already worked at the Liang court: Sanghapala translated eleven Buddhist works in forty-eight fascicles in Jiankang between 506 and 518 — the emperor himself took down the text at the first session — and Mandrasena, who had come with Sanskrit manuscripts, translated with him.
During the Datong years (535–546) the emperor also sent an officer, Zhang Si, to escort Funanese envoys home and to ask for eminent monks and Mahayana texts. Funan sent the Indian master Paramartha, a native of Ujjayini, who landed at Nanhai (Guangzhou) in 546 and reached the capital only in 548 (547 in Bao Gui’s preface of 597), just as Hou Jing’s rebellion was breaking out; he became one of the great translators of Buddhist texts into Chinese. Rudravarman is the last king of Funan known from the Chinese histories; in the following decades Funan was absorbed by Chenla.
Connections
Related events
- Zhu Zhantan, the ‘Indian’ king of Funan, offers tamed elephants to the Jin court357 · Southeast Asia and OceaniaFunan had been sending embassies to the Chinese courts since the 3rd century
- Varahamihira compiles the Pancha-siddhantikabetween 505 and 587 · South AsiaParamartha, whom Funan sent to the Liang court, was a native of Ujjayini in Avanti, the region where Varahamihira lived in the same century
- The rebellion of Hou Jing and the fall of Jiankang27 September 548 – between 20 May and 7 June 552 · East AsiaParamartha, whom Funan sent to the Liang court at the emperor’s request, reached Jiankang in 548, just as Hou Jing’s rebellion was breaking out
- Chenla absorbs Funanbetween 550 and 600 – between 627 and 637 · Southeast Asia and OceaniaRudravarman, who sent the embassy of 539, is the last king of Funan known from the Chinese histories
Same participants
- Gold pendant copying a coin of Antoninus Pius at Óc Eobetween 152 and 600 · Southeast Asia and Oceaniavia Funan
- Lý Bí’s rising against the Liang and the kingdom of Vạn Xuânbetween 541 and 542 – 548 · Southeast Asia and Oceaniavia Liang dynasty
Same place
- Founding of Funan: Kaundinya and Queen Liuyebetween 1 and 100 · Southeast Asia and Oceania
- Fan Shiman, the ‘Great King of Funan’c. 205 – c. 225 · Southeast Asia and Oceania
- Kang Tai and Zhu Ying, envoys of Wu, in Funanbetween 245 and 250 · Southeast Asia and Oceania
Adjacent events in the thread
- The inscriptions of Purnavarman, king of Taruma in western Javabetween 400 and 600 · Southeast Asia and Oceania
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within a year of this event
Western and Central Europe
- Volcanic winter of 536between 535 and 536 – 537
- Gothic War (535–554)535–554
- Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britainbetween 410 and 449 – between 550 and 625
Eastern Europe
- Early Slavic cultures: Prague-Korchak, Penkovka and Kolochinc. 450 – c. 700
- Kyi, Shchek and Khoryv: the legendary founding of Kyivbetween 500 and 700
Balkans and Anatolia
- Reign of Justinian I1 August 527 – 14 November 565
Middle East and Egypt
- Sack of Antioch by Khosrow IJune 540
- Reign of Khosrow I Anushirvan531–579
Africa
- Reign of Kaleb of Aksumbetween 510 and 514 – between 530 and 542
Central and Northern Asia
South Asia
- Varahamihira compiles the Pancha-siddhantikabetween 505 and 587
- The later caves of Ajanta under the Vakataka king Harishenabetween 460 and 480 – between 480 and 550
East Asia
- Jia Sixie writes the Qimin yaoshubetween 533 and 544
- Buddhism reaches Japan from Baekjebetween 538 and 552
- Kofun period: the age of keyhole tombsbetween 250 and 300 – 538
North America
- Basketmaker III: pottery, beans and the bow on the Colorado Plateauc. 500 – c. 750
- The Late Woodland period in eastern North Americac. 500 – c. 1000
Latin America
- Teotihuacan at its height: the largest city of the Americasc. 250 – c. 550
- Nazca culture and the Nazca Linesbetween 200 and 100 BC – between 500 and 800
The same period
Sources
- Wikipedia (English): Funan
- Wikipedia (English): Rudravarman
- Wikipedia (English): Paramartha (Chinese monk)
- Wikipedia (Russian): Бапном
- Book of Liang (Liang shu), ch. 54: Funan — Chinese text
- Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks (Xu gaoseng zhuan), ch. 1: Sanghapala and Paramartha — Chinese text
- Coedès G. The Indianized States of Southeast Asia / Ed. W. F. Vella; transl. S. B. Cowing. — Honolulu: East-West Center Press, 1968.