Bia Ut
Cham · mortal · Cham traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Bia Ut is the Cham memory of Ngọc Khoa, a princess of the Nguyễn lords given in marriage to King Po Rome around 1631 to seal a political alliance. Where Vietnamese sources record only the dynastic match, Cham legend turns her into the agent of the kingdom's undoing: as queen she feigned a mortal sickness and told her husband she could be cured only if the sacred kraik tree — the tree in which Po Rome's own life and the realm's fortune were bound — were cut down. The king obeyed; the tree bled and died, his power drained away, and he was soon captured by the Vietnamese to perish in captivity. She endures in Cham tradition as the beautiful stranger-queen whose betrayal marks the beginning of the end of independent Champa.
Domains
- sovereignty
Powers
- engineered the downfall of Po Rome
Relations
- spouse: Po RomeGiven to Po Rome in the 1631 Cham–Nguyễn marriage alliance.Po Dharma, 'Le Pāṇḍuraṅga' (1987); R. Nakamura, dissertation (1999) (secondary)
Sources
- Bia Ut is the Cham name for the Vietnamese princess Ngọc Khoa, daughter of a Nguyễn lord, married to Po Rome in 1631 and remembered in Cham legend as the queen who brought about his ruin.: Po Dharma, 'Le Pāṇḍuraṅga (Campā) 1802–1835' (1987); Sakaya, 'Văn hóa Chăm' (2010) (secondary)