Maha Vijaya

Vīrabhadravarman (Maha Vijaya, 摩訶賁該 in Chinese and Makha Bí Cai in Vietnamese), was the third king of the or the Simhavarmanid dynasty of Champa, ruled the kingdom from 1441/42 to 1446. He was a grandson of King Jaya Simhavarman VI, previously the chief general of Po Binasuor who had helped him to conquer most of modern-day Vietnam in the late 1300s. He was also a nephew of Indravarman VI, and his grandmother was Queen Parameśvarī, a concubine of Simhavarman VI.^[1] According to Vietnamese chronicles, he usurped the throne of his brother (probably Saṁsāramūrti Vr̥ṣujaya Vīrabhadravarmadeva) in 1442, also one of Indravarman VI's nephews, and his epigraphic stele presumably dates 1365 Śaka (1443/44), likely indicate that Virabhadravarman might be Maha Vijaya in Chinese and Vietnamese sources.^[2]

Under his predecessors, Po Binasuor, Simhavarman VI, and Indravarman VI, Champa was unified into a centralized monarchy in which the Vijaya king wielded most power over other local princes (yuvaraja) and kings.^[3] The kingdom had continued to prosper, but under Virabhadravarman's reign, it began to deteriorate due to internal conflicts between royal princes. So in 1444, war broke out between Champa and Dai Viet. Dai Viet's king Le Nhan Tong sent a fleet from Nghe An to the coast of Binh Dinh, ransacked the Cham capital, and captured Virabhadravarman in 1446, and which later he spent years in prison in Hanoi, while his brother Maha Kali (who previously overthrown) was installed as the puppet king.^[4]

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Bibliography[]

• Griffiths, Arlo (2019), "Epigraphical texts and Sculptural steles of 15th-Century Campā", in Griffiths, Arlo; Hardy, Andrew; Wade, Geoff (eds.), Champa: Territories and Networks of a Southeast Asian Kingdom, Danang: École française d’Extrême-Orient, pp. 193–220, ISBN 978-2-85539-269-1
• Maspero, Georges (2002), The Champa Kingdom, White Lotus Co., Ltd, ISBN 978-9-74753-499-3
• Schweyer, Anne-Valérie (2008), "L'époque dite décadente au Campā : vers une réhabilitation des 14e-15e siècles", in Pautreau, Jean-Pierre; Coupey, Anne-Sophie; Zeitoun, Valéry (eds.), Archaeology in Southeast Asian : From Homo Erectus to the Living Traditions, European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists. International Conference, pp. 221–230, ISBN 978-9-740-64564-1