Hun-T’ien (which is probably the correct form of the name) and that he came from Chi or Chiao, an unknown locality.  The same annals state that towards the end of the fifth century the king of Fu-nan who bore the family name of Ch’iao-ch’en-ju[254] or Kaundinya and the personal name of She-yeh-po-mo (Jayavarman) traded with Canton.  A Buddhist monk named Nagasena returned thence with some Cambojan merchants and so impressed this king with his account of China that he was sent back in 484 to beg for the protection of the Emperor.  The king’s petition and a supplementary paper by Nagasena are preserved in the annals.  They seem to be an attempt to represent the country as Buddhist, while explaining that Mahesvara is its tutelary deity.

The Liang annals also state that during the Wu dynasty (222-280) Fan Chan, then king of Fu-nan, sent a relative named Su-Wu on an embassy to India, to a king called Mao-lun, which probably represents Murunda, a people of the Ganges valley mentioned by the Puranas and by Ptolemy.  This king despatched a return embassy to Fu-nan and his ambassadors met there an official sent by the Emperor of China.[255] The early date ascribed to these events is noticeable.

The Liang annals contain also the following statements.  Between the years 357 and 424 A.D. named as the dates of embassies sent to China, an Indian Brahman called Ch’iao-ch’en-ju (Kaundinya) heard a supernatural voice bidding him go and reign in Fu-nan.  He met with a good reception and was elected king.  He changed the customs of the country and made them conform to those of India.  One of his successors, Jayavarman, sent a coral image of Buddha in 503 to the Emperor Wu-ti (502-550).  The inhabitants of Fu-nan are said to make bronze images of the heavenly genii with two or four heads and four or eight arms.  Jayavarman was succeeded by a usurper named Liu-t’o-pa-mo (Rudravarman) who sent an image made of sandal wood to the Emperor in 519 and in 539 offered him a hair of the Buddha twelve feet long.  The Sui annals (589-618) state that Citrasena, king of Chen-la, conquered Fu-nan and was succeeded by his son Isanasena.

Two monks of Fu-nan are mentioned among the translators of the Chinese scriptures,[256] namely, Sanghapala and Mandra.  Both arrived in China during the first years of the sixth century and their works are extant.  The pilgrim I-Ching who returned from India in 695 says[257] that to the S.W. of Champa lies the country Po-nan, formerly called Fu-nan, which is the southern corner of Jambudvipa.  He says that “of old it was a country the inhabitants of which lived naked; the people were mostly worshippers of devas and later on Buddhism flourished there, but a wicked king has now expelled and exterminated them all and there are no members of the Buddhist brotherhood at all.”