カンボディア・プレアンコール期の pura (城市) に就いて

抄録

The accession of king Jayavarman II (802 A. D.) is one of the most important points in the history of Cambodia. Following this or in the Angkor period, her political system seems to have become centralized, while prior to that event, or in the pre-Angkor period, it was still decentralized. The author examined the contemporary inscriptions found in Cambodia and also some Chinese documents, and reached the conclusion that the puras were very important in the pre-Angkor period. As regards their structure, each pura had its chief who was either nominated by the king directly or authorized by him to succeed the position of chief and who was wealthy enough to make holy donations as mentioned in the inscriptions. Under superintendence of this chief, there were houses as many as several thousands according to Chinese sources. Kutunbin, or householder, paid the tax to the chief. Puras had rice fields, plantations and villages presumably in their environment. As for the relation between the state and puras, the chiefs of some puras were officials of the king. Judging from some cases in which chiefs received their puras from the king in reward for driving out hostile chiefs by arms, they seem to have had a considerable military forces. Chinese sources describe that under the king of Chên-la, there were 30 or more fort-towns (ch'êng) each with a chief and inhabitants. This description supports the facts found in the inscriptions. Such a pura had both dependent and independent elements in relation to the state. In the pre-Angkor period, Chên-la annihilated Fu-nan and unified the regions of the Lower and Middle Mekong, but it soon broke up into several principalities. The author supposes that this breaking up of Chên-la was caused by the predominance of the above-mentioned independent element.