Trying to imagine how Vijaya looked during its heyday is difficult when you see what it’s like in the present.
The day after we went to Tháp Bánh ĺt and Tháp Bình Lâm, we ventured even closer to what used to be the center of Vijaya, which from the 12th to the 15th centuries was the most important principality of the Champa mandala. If there hadn’t been any Cham towers, this part of Vietnam would have appeared just like normal countryside dotted with small houses and vast expanses of rice fields, bordered by verdant hills and mountains. But that morning, through this very landscape, we were on our way to see the tallest temples ever built in Champa.
Also called les tours d’ivoire (“the ivory towers”) by the French in the past, Tháp Dương Long is a group of three towers constructed around the 12th – 13th centuries reaching a height never achieved before and after by the ancient Cham people. In fact, this project was conceived during a period of time of intensifying hostility between the Khmer Empire and Champa. Suryavarman II, the ambitious Khmer king who commissioned Angkor Wat, was on a mission to expand his realm even further. This time, he demanded the emperor of Dai Viet (Đại Việt) from what is now northern Vietnam to pay tribute, which was rejected outright. Unsurprisingly, this sparked a series of Khmer military campaigns northward. However, due to the difficulties his troops encountered, Suryavarman II persuaded the crown prince of Champa to join his offensive against Dai Viet which had by then established themselves as Champa’s main rival to the north.
Initially, Champa agreed to forge an alliance with the Khmer Empire to wage war against Dai Viet. However, due to the joint forces’ limited success in conquering the latter, the Cham crown prince grew weary of the conflict. Following his ascension to the throne in 1139 taking the title Jaya Indravarman III, the new king of Champa decided to make peace with Dai Viet, a decision which angered Suryavarman II. ‘What could the Khmer ruler possibly do to us?’ was probably what the new Cham king had in mind.
Unfortunately, Suryavarman II’s ambition was too big to contain.
In 1145, the Khmer king invaded Champa and sacked Vijaya, effectively putting an end to Jaya Indravarman III’s rule. Suryavarman II’s troops went even further by destroying the temples at My Son (Mỹ Sơn) which had for a long time served as the religious center of Champa. However, despite this the Khmer never really conquered the entirety of Champa as the Cham resisted and staged an uprising against the newly-installed puppet king appointed by Suryavarman II. Led by a prince from Panduranga, one of the principalities of Champa, the Cham people revolted and managed to regain control of Vijaya. The prince then assumed the throne of the kingdom and became Jaya Harivarman I, and soon enough he embarked on a mission to consolidate his reign over Champa and to keep the Khmer at bay. Meanwhile, Suryavarman II’s sudden death in 1150 – probably during one of his campaigns to reconquer Vijaya – significantly weakened the Khmer Empire. In the years that followed, skirmishes between the two neighbors remained. But it was more than two decades later when Champa accomplished something they had never done before.
Under the rule of Jaya Indravarman IV whose reign over Champa started in 1167, the kingdom began a series of military campaigns against the Khmer Empire, their neighbor to the west which had repeatedly invaded and sacked Cham cities since the 10th century CE. This marked a period when it was the Khmer who were on the defensive, not the other way around. However, Champa’s land-based attacks proved ineffective in advancing their positions deeper into the Khmer realm. Because of this, Jaya Indravarman IV sought to purchase horses from China to reinforce his troops, a request which was rejected by the Song dynasty ruler. The Cham king then devised an alternative strategy: a naval attack. Given the fact that the ancestors of the Cham people were highly-skilled seafarers from Borneo, I wonder why it took so many centuries for Champa to eventually come up with this idea.
The three towers of Tháp Dương Long
In 1177, the warships of Champa sailed upstream on the Mekong River. As they arrived at Tonlé Sap, a major lake and important source of water for the Khmer living in Yasodharapura (the capital of the empire, better known today as Angkor), the Cham fleet launched a surprise attack on the Khmer right at the heart of their center of power. Probably no Khmer ruler could have envisioned something like this happening on the doorstep of their palace. As a result, the mighty Khmer Empire suffered a humiliating defeat and their king, Tribhuvanadityavarman, was killed. This ushered in an era of Cham occupation for the next four years.
Reading about what happened during this particularly bloody period of the history of both ancient Hindu kingdoms makes me wonder, was Tháp Dương Long commissioned to show the Khmers that Champa could build temples at a grand scale as well? We will never know. What we can tell for certain is despite the enmity between the two, cultural exchanges did happen. While Tháp Dương Long was most likely constructed as a symbol of pride of the Cham people, designed with Cham architectural style in mind, elements of the Khmer culture were also incorporated in the structures. Using red bricks as the main construction material, intricate reliefs were carved out of sandstone, a telltale sign of the Khmer influence. (On the other hand, there is a temple in Angkor with obvious Cham artistic influences which we, unfortunately, didn’t have time to see.)
At the time of our visit, Tháp Dương Long was one deserted site situated far from the nearest big city. Hindu pilgrims most likely flocked to this temple during its heyday, but when we arrived there the fence was locked. Our driver, who spoke zero English, then called the number written on a small signboard hung over the fence – the caretaker’s phone number. Soon enough, a middle-aged man came on his motorbike. We paid the entrance fee and had the entire site to ourselves. It was sad to see the crumbling state of the three towers of Tháp Dương Long, and due to safety reasons visitors were not allowed to venture too close to the base of the structures. While they certainly were impressive, most of the stone elements were conspicuously absent. This is because the majority of the centuries-old stone carvings from this temple are now kept in a museum in Quy Nhon (Quy Nhơn), the capital of Vietnam’s Bình Định Province in which Tháp Dương Long is situated. Maybe this decision was taken considering the relatively remote location of these Cham towers, making it difficult for storing those invaluable works of art securely at their original places. Interestingly, as we were taking photos of these silent witnesses of the apogee of Champa, a church bell was ringing in the distance, a reminder of how much things have changed since the day the foundation of Tháp Dương Long was laid.
Our second destination on that day was another ancient Cham tower called Tháp Phú Lốc, also called le tour d’or (“the gold tower”) by the French – a recurring theme of how the former colonial power preferred to name these ancient monuments. Initially, when we booked the driver through our hotel the day before, he didn’t want to take us there due to the lack of proper access. However, being the first Cham tower anyone coming to this part of Vietnam by plane will see, we knew Tháp Phú Lốc was something we shouldn’t miss. After convincing the driver – through our hotel front desk staff member – that it was okay for us to pay more and to walk a little bit along an unmarked path while the car is parked some distance away, our driver finally agreed.
From the highway that connects the airport to the city of Quy Nhon, Tháp Phú Lốc is a prominent sight to your left-hand side, thanks to its hilltop location. Geographically speaking, this ancient tower sits at the highest point compared to other Cham temples. But it is also the least accessible of them all. Our driver had to get off the main highway and drove toward a village at the foot of the hill. Once there, he had to ask a few locals for directions, which then led us to a cemetery. I had read about how the pathway to the temple is located near it. But luckily I traveled with James who correctly pointed out an unassuming trailhead that would take us directly to our destination. After a short hike under the scorching sun, we arrived at Tháp Phú Lốc, another Cham temple constructed in the 12th century. Probably because of its hard-to-access location as well as the constant battering of the elements, Tháp Phú Lốc’s state of preservation was the worst of all the Cham temples we visited on our recent trip to Vietnam. However, the experience of standing in front of it was enough to compensate for the effort we made to reach it – and now our driver knows where to park should there be other guests in the future who are crazy enough to ask him to go to this particular temple.
Our third destination was just on the other side of the highway, and the closest to the center of Vijaya. Tháp Cánh Tiên is another hilltop Cham temple built in the 12th century. But what makes it unique and worth seeing is its relatively intact architectural and decorative elements including the iconic cánh tiên (“fairy wings”), a set of carved stones protruding from the edges of the roof after which the monument got its modern-day name. Stacked on top of one another, these wings were truly hard to ignore. Prior to this visit, I had read about the criticisms aimed at the way this monument was restored, for the replicas used in place of some missing decorative elements stand out too much and distract from the original building materials. However, as a non-archaeologist I actually thought it wasn’t as bad as I had anticipated. Yes, the new materials could have been more subtle while staying discernible from the original stones, but I still found myself enjoying this beautiful temple.
About 1 kilometer away from Tháp Cánh Tiên is the site where the citadel of Vijaya once stood, arguably the beating heart of Champa itself. But that was not what we wanted to see, since what remains now is in fact the vestiges of another citadel built in the 18th century by the Vietnamese on top of the older Cham structures. It was two Asian elephant statues purportedly dating back to the Champa period that intrigued us more. Standing for centuries directly to the south of the citadel, these figures were carved out of stone probably to remember the elephantine troops of Champa that were instrumental in their military campaigns. These elephants have obviously lasted longer than the Cham occupation of the Khmer Empire.
Beginning in 1177, Champa controlled Angkor until 1181 when the son of Suryavarman II’s cousin managed to assemble Khmer loyalists and led them to repulse the foreign invaders. Once the Khmer regained control of Angkor, the prince ascended the throne and took the title Jayavarman VII. He was only the second Buddhist ruler of the empire, after Suryavarman I, the king who built Baphuon. Jayavarman VII brought confidence back to his realm and commissioned major projects including the construction of Bayon, the only state temple dedicated to Buddhism in the history of Angkor. Naturally, his victories over Champa were immortalized on the walls of this sanctuary. And now after having visited the ancient temples in and around Vijaya, the scenes at Bayon depicting the battles between the two neighboring kingdoms come to life in my imagination.