The Võ Cạnh inscription is the oldest Sanskrit inscription ever found in Southeast Asia, discovered in 1885 in the village of Võ Cạnh, about 4 km from the city of Nha Trang, Vietnam. This inscription is in the form of a 2.5 m high stone stele, with three uneven sidesinscribed with the inscription lines. The inscription mentions the name of King Sri Mara, which according to paleographic analysis was to whom it was erected by his descendants around 2nd or 3rd century CE. There are still debates whether the inscription was a legacy of Lâm Ấp, Champa, or Funan. George Coedès mentioned the possibility of identifying Sri Mara with Fan Shih-man, which according to the Chinese chronicles was one of the rulers of Funan. Coedès considered the Võ Cạnh inscription as proof of the first wave of Indianization in Southeast Asia. Currently, the inscription is stored in the National Museum of Vietnamese History in the city of Hanoi, Vietnam. The stele was designated as a national treasure of Vietnam by the Vietnamese Prime Minister's decision in 2013.
Text
The Sanskrit text written on this inscription has been severely damaged. Of the three sides of the inscription stele, on the first side at least the first six lines are almost completely blurred, and so are the first eight lines on the second side. On the third side, even only a few characters can still be read. The parts of the text that can still be read contain the following phrases:
"compassion for the creatures"
"the priests, of course, who have drunk the ambrosia of the hundred words of the king"
"the ornament... by that which is the joy of the family of the daughter of the grandson of King Sri Mara... has been ordained"
"those who are seated on the throne"
"that which has to do with silver or gold"
"material treasure"
"all that is provided by me as one who is kind and useful"
"my minister Vira"
"the edict which bring the welfare of the creatures, by the better of the two karin, the going and coming of this world"
The mention of "the joy of the family of the daughter of the grandson of King Sri Mara.." may indicate the existence of a matrilineal system, which applies inheritance of assets to female relatives. The word karin can mean "ivory" or "tax", which here may mean the king was a generous person. The use of certain Sanskrit terms in the inscription text, according to Jean Filliozat, shows the possibility that Valmiki's Ramayanaepic was spread on the Indochina peninsula at the time this inscription was made. The Hindu religious terms used in the inscriptions is thought to date from pre-puranic time.
