68-550 (Funan) and 550-802 (Chenla)
Though the newly Indianised princely states sometimes encompassed large areas, they were often no larger than a single fortified city. They warred among themselves, coalescing over time into a shifting set of larger states. According to 3rd century Chinese chronicles, one of China’s principal trading partners and a dominant power in the region was the Indianised state of Funan centered in today’s southern Vietnam and Cambodia. There is evidence that the Funanese spoke Mon-Khmer, strongly indicating a connection to later Angkorian and Cambodian civilization. Funan was predominate over its smaller neighboring states, including the state of Chendla in northern Cambodia. Over the later half of the 6th century, Funan began to decline, losing its western territories.
Chendla, already in the ascendant, conquered the Khmer sections of western Funan, while the Mon people won the extreme western section of Funan in present day Thailand. Later, Chendla seems to have gone on to conquer the remainder of Funan, signaling the beginning of the ‘pre-Angkorian’ period. Chendla flourished but for a short time. The third and last king of a unified Chendla, Isanavarman I, constructed the pre-Angkorian temples of Sambor Prei Kuk near modern Kampong Thom city. (If you come to Siem Reap from Phnom Penh by road, you will pass through Kampong Thom. With a few spare hours, it is possible to make a side trip to these pre-Angkorian ruins). Under Isanavarman I’s successor, Chendla disintegrated into smaller warring states.
It was briefly reunited under Jayavarman I in the mid-7th century, only to fall apart again after his death. On traditional accounts, Chendla finally broke into two rival states or alliances, ‘Land Chendla’ in northern Cambodia/southern Laos, and ‘Water Chendla’ centered further south in Kampong Thom.