“Together with the Viet and the Khmer tribes, the Cham are among the origins of the present-day history of Vietnam. They have established a unique culture that is second to no other Ancient and Medieval culture in South East Asia, and which is an integral part of the Vietnamese culture as it is today.” The book includes 100 pictures selected from more than 7000 pictures that the author took during his thirty years of field trips to almost all temples, villages, historical vestiges of the Cham in the South-Central and West-South of Vietnam.
Those selected pictures help readers perceive the heritage of Cham culture on different fields such as temples and towers, sculpture, citadels, gravestones, material and spiritual lives, etc. that reflect various aspects of the Cham social and cultural lives through their history of formation and development. Each of the pictures also leads readers from one step to another in the Cham people’s seek for a reason for living, from their early days up to present days on the S-shaped land of Vietnam.
Moreover, the book provides scientists with “a block of fundamental material and general and valuable understanding of the Cham’s sculpture and art of portraying”.
Nguyen Vu
