1. Several large stone steles with inscriptions have been transferred to museums in Hanoi and Da Nang and recently put into preservation in the Exhibition House of the My Son Relic Management Board.
We noticed a small stone slab still remaining at the site. On the slab were a few faded lines of writing, but they contained specific data about an important historical milestone.
It is a stone slab with inscriptions recorded by researcher George Coedes in 1908, coded C 75, and recorded by the My Son Relic Management Board with the new inventory number MSD350.
Inscription C 75 has only 4 lines of ancient Cham script, inheriting the Brahmi script (Sanskrit, Indian origin); it was transcribed into Latin by Louis Finot (1904), translated into French, printed in a research article in the Journal of the French School of the Far East, and recently edited by Arlo Griffiths (2009) with a Latin transcription of 4 lines:
(1) di śakarāja 913 huriy 5 vaṅun vulān 4 vr̥ haspativāra [ma]
(2)ghanakṣatravr̥ ścikalagna kāla yāṅ po ku vijaya śrī harivarmmadeva
(3) punaḥ yāṅ po ku śrī jaya īśānabhadreśvara karaṇa kīrtti yaśa di bhūmima
(4) ṇḍala niy
The tentative translation is as follows: “In the year 913 of the Saka calendar, on the 5th day of the 4th month, on the Maga moon, the constellation Scorpio was in the zodiac, when King Yan Pu Ku Vijaya Śrī Harivarmadeva had the image (temple or linga) of the god Iśāna-Bhadreśvara rebuilt to bring glory to the country.”
Iśāna-Bhadreśvara is a title of the god Siva, associated with the names of the first kings of Champa, and is honored as the patron deity of the kingdom.
The year 913 of the ancient Saka calendar corresponds to the year 991 of the Gregorian calendar. This is the time after the attack of King Le Hoan (Dai Viet) on the capital of Champa.
The book “Complete Annals of Dai Viet” recorded an event that happened in 982: “The king personally went to attack Champa, captured countless soldiers, along with hundreds of courtesans and an Indian monk, took back precious objects, collected tens of thousands of gold, silver and treasures, leveled the citadel, destroyed the ancestral temple, and returned to the capital after a year.” And in 988, “The king of Champa, Bang Vuong La Due, in Buddha city, named himself 俱尸利呵呻排麻羅 (Cau Thi Li Ha Than Bai Ma La)”.
2. Comparing with an inscription found at Dong Duong relic (Thang Binh district) recording the establishment of a temple by the Champa king in the capital Indrapura in 875, researchers concluded that the attack by King Le Hoan in 982 took place in the capital area of Indrapura. This led to the Champa king fleeing to "Buddha city" (understood as Vijaya city in Binh Dinh today).
Regarding these events, the history of the Song Dynasty (China) also recorded that in 990, the new king of Champa ascended the throne in the "Buddhist Oath country", sending an envoy to report that Champa was attacked by Giao Chau (Dai Viet).
In 1007, the king of Champa, named 楊普俱毗茶室離 (Dương Phổ Câu Bì Trà Thất Lợi), sent an envoy to the Song Dynasty, saying that the king had fled to Phật Thệ, 700 miles north of his old headquarters.
In the C 75 inscription at My Son, there is a phrase referring to the Champa king: “yāṅ po ku vijaya śrī harivarmmadeva”. This phrase includes both a respectful title (yāṅ po ku = Supreme King) and a praise term (vijaya = glorious victory) as well as a Sanskrit title (śrī harivarmmadeva = Divine Harivarman).
Meanwhile, Chinese and Dai Viet historians, when recording the names of Champa kings, often wrote them short, using the pronunciation (or meaning) of a few syllables.
In the Song Dynasty history, it is recorded as 楊普俱毗茶室離, in Sino-Vietnamese it is read as Dương Phổ Câu Bì Trà Thất Lợi, but in Chinese it is read as yang-pu-ju-bi-cha-she-li, which can be recognized as the transcription of yāṅ po ku vijaya.
Similarly, Dai Viet history records the name of the Champa king of this period as 俱尸利呵呻排麻羅, the Sino-Vietnamese reading is Cau Thi Li Ha Than Bai Ma La, the Chinese reading is ju-shi-li-a-shen-bei-ma-luo; it could be a way of recording the name Ku Śrī Harivarmadeva in ancient Cham of the same king in the C 75 inscription.
The comparison of the names refracted through the four languages of India, China, Cham, and Vietnam still requires more meticulous research. But it is likely that the remaining inscriptions on the C 75 stone slab at the My Son relic recorded an important milestone in Champa history, that is, after the attack of King Le Hoan in 982, the holy land in My Son was still restored and built by King Yāṅ po ku vijaya śrī Harivarmmadeva, although the capital of the Champa king at that time had moved to Cha Ban (Binh Dinh).
Source: https://baoquangnam.vn/bong-dang-lich-su-tren-mot-phien-da-3140066.html
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