Fwd: An interesting link about Hinduism in Vietnam

dec 7th, 2006

i haven't read the article, but the champa or cham were hindu for a long time (i think they were native, not immigrants). they were brown malay-origin people who were defeated in a disastrous battle with yellow, chinese-origin annamese. eventually they also became mohammedan. there are chams in both cambodia and thailand as well these days, and they are almost all mohammedan.

there are remnants of indian influence still in vietnam -- the children still learn the alphabet as 'a, aa, e, ee...'.

during the vietnam war, it is believed that there was a south vietnamese president who was from a prominent saigon family (i can't remember the name). he was more or less instrumental in the disastrous war. this was considered to be sort of a historically ironic thing: because he was the son of the maid, who was believed to have been descended from the cham royal family of old. thus the scion of the chams was instrumental in the destruction of the annamese-led country!

the wheels of dharma grind slowly, but they do grind extremely fine!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Shankar

Rajeev,

I have read your impressive articles in Rediff and your blogs. Your
recent one about Angkor Wat and about the rise of South India were
very well written. Thanks for those wonderful articles.

You maybe interested in a link my friend of Vietnamese descent sent me
after his recent visit to Vietnam. The link is at :
http://www.cpamedia.com/articles/20010703_01/. It was interesting to
note that according to the article Hindus migrated to Vietnam (they
were known as Chams and their region was called 'Champa') and were
known for their maritime trade. I do not know if you have written
about this place before or have already gone through this article.
From the URL it looks like it is dated 2001.

Keep your articles coming.

Thanks

Shankar