In the period between 100 BC and 500 AD, the Kingdom of Funan in the present-day [[Mekong Delta]] established a flourishing seafaring trade between China, Indonesia, and India. This kingdom was Hindu, with the kings of Funan sponsoring the worship of [[Vishnu]] and [[Shiva]]. Buddhism was already present in Funan as a secondary religion in these earliest times.
A [[Sanskrit]] inscription from 375 documents the presence of Buddhism in Funan. King Kuandinya Jayavarman (478-514) cultivated Buddhism and sent a Buddhist mission complete with Funanese Buddhist images, carved in coral, to the Emperor of China.<ref name=gyallay>Gyallay-Pap, Peter. "Notes of the Rebirth of Khmer Buddhism," ''Radical Conservativism''.</ref>
Another early inscription in Sanskrit dated 586-664 at Wat [[Prey Vier]] notes that two Buddhist monks named Ratnabhanu and Ratnasimha were brothers. Chinese texts attest that Buddhism flourished in Cambodia in the last half of the 5th century, and that King Jayavarman sent the Indian monk Nagasena to present a [[Official Communications of the Chinese Empire#Memorials|memorial]] in the Chinese Imperial court.<ref name=dawson>Dawson, Philip. ''The Art of Southeast Asia''.</ref>
Buddhism was clearly beginning to assert its presence from about year 450 onward, and was observed by the Chinese traveler [[I Ching (monk)|I Ching]] toward the close of the seventh century.
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