ANGKOR AND THE KHMER EMPIRE (802 – 1327)

Contents: Page:

Introduction

Religious Beliefs and Practices

Political System

Social Organisation

Daily Life

Economics, Trade and Agriculture

Temples and Infrastructure

Suryavarman II and Angkor Wat

Jayavarman VII

Glossary

Lesson Lesson Content: Number: 1 – 2 Introduction:  Geographical Setting – Southeast Asia; Indochina;  Champa, Dai Viet, Pagan etc.  China and India  Pre-Angkor background – Funan, Zhenla  Available sources. 3 – 5 Religious beliefs and Practices:  Hinduism  Buddhism  Epics and Myths – Ramayana etc. 6 – 7 Political System:  Khmer Kingship – Chakravartin - Jayavarman II  Khmer administration and bureaucracy 8 - 9 Social Organisation  Social Structure  Legal System  The Army 10 - 11 Daily Life  Family Life  Education  Food  Women  Housing  Fashion 12 – 13 Economics, Trade and Agriculture 14 – 17 Temples and Infrastructure  Water management: Canals, Barays  Temples & Monasteries, Hospitals, resthouses, roads. 18 – 19 Suryavarman II – Virtual Site Study: Angkor Wat 20 – 22 Jayavarman VII 23 - 24 Decline and Legacy

Introduction K. 323: 54–56 (AD. 889) The land that he protected was limited by the border with the Chinese and by the sea; as for his glory, like the garland of his qualities, like his knowledge and his prosperity, it was unlimited.

History of the Southern Qi Dynasty (AD. 479 - 501) Fanzhan, King of Funan despatched an embassy to China in (AD 243) to ‘offer the gift of musicians and products from his country’… The (Funan) market is the meeting place between east and west… as Funan offers a place of passage from one ocean to the other… Long ago in the time of Fanzhan there was a man from the country of Tanyang (Southern Afghanistan) whose name was Jiaxiangli. He travelled in stages from his country in India, doing business along the way, until he reached Funan. He told Fanzhan about the customs of India, the great riches, the fertile land, and said that everything one could desire could be found there, and that great kingdoms had for generations respected this kingdom. Fanzhan asked him: ‘How far away is this place, how long does it take to get there?’ Jiaxiangli replied ‘India must be more that 30,0A00 li from here; to sail there and back would take a good three years, and it could be even four years before reaching home; it lies at the centre of heaven and earth.’ The people of Funan are malicious and cunning. They take by force the inhabitants of the neighbouring cities who do not render them homage, and make them slaves. As merchandise, they have gold, silver, silks. The sons of the well-to-do families wear sarongs of brocade. The poor wear a piece of cloth. The women pull a piece of cloth over the head. The people of Funan make rings and bracelets of gold and vessels of silver. They cut down trees to build their houses. The king lives in a multi-storey pavilion. They make their enclosures of wooden palisades. At the seashore grows a great bamboo, whose leaves are eight or nine feet long. The leaves are tressed to cover houses. The people also live in houses raised from the ground. They make boats 80 or 90 feet long and 6 or 7 feet wide. The bow and stern are like the head and tail of a fish. When the King goes out, he rides on elephant-back. The women also ride elephants. For amusement, the people have cock-fights and hog-fights... They have cane sugar, pomegranates, oranges and much betel nuts.

History of the Liang Dynasty (AD. 502 – 556) Where they live, they do not dig wells. By ten families, they have a basin in common where they get water. The custom is to adore the spirits of the sky. Of these spirits, they make images in bronze; those which have two faces, have four arms; those which have four faces, have eight arms. Each hand holds something – a child, a bird, or quadruped, the sun, the moon. The king, when he travels rides an elephant. So do his concubines, the people of the palace. When the King sits down, he squats on one side, raising the right knee, letting the left knee touch the earth. A piece of cotton is spread before him, on which are deposited the gold vases and incense burners. In the case of mourning, the custom is to shave the beard and hair. For the dead, there are four kinds of disposal: burial by water, which consists of throwing the body into the water; burial by earth, which consists of interring it in a grave; burial by the birds, which consists of abandoning it in the fields; burial by fire, which consists of reducing it to ashes.

History of the Sui Dynasty (AD. 581 – 618) Every three days the king goes solemnly to the audience-hall and sits on a bed made of five pieces of sandalwood and ornamented with seven kinds of precious stones. Above this bed is a pavilion of magnificent cloth, whose columns are of inlaid wood. The walls are ivory, mixed with flowers of gold. The ensemble of this bed and the pavilion form a sort of little palace, at the background of which is suspended... a disk with rays of gold in the form of flames. A golden incense burner, which two men handle, is placed in front. The king wears a girdle of cotton, drawn-red, which falls to his knees. He covers his head with a bonnet laden with gold and stones, with pendants of pearl. On his feet are sandals of leather and sometimes of ivory; in his ears, pendants of gold. His robe is always made of fine white cloth...There are five great ministers...there are many inferior officers. Those who appear before the king touch the earth three times with their forehead, at the foot of the steps to the throne. If the king calls them and orders them to show their degrees, then they kneel, holding their hands on their shoulders...

Modern Sources Anne-Valérie Schweyer: Champa comprised of a group of small, fairly independent, maritime polities, which were occasionally unified under a ‘king of kings’. Because of the Chams’ important position on the maritime trade route – the first stop after China – their culture took foreign colouring a little ahead of that of the neighbouring Khmers: although both cultures developed politico-religious systems that borrowed much from the Indic and Sinic models, but remained loyal to a deep substratum of autochthonous beliefs and customs. The political models and religious and family structures of the two countries were similar, generating commonalities which at times drove them apart and at times pulled them together, even though the two people have different roots – the land-based Khmers belong to the Mon-Khmer/Austroasiatic linguistic group, while Chams are seafaring Austraonesians, recently (500 BC - AD) arrived from Borneo. Michael D. Coe: According to linguist Franklin Huffman, all mainland Southeast Asian scripts are derived from some form or forms of the ancient Brahmi script of South India. The earliest example of such writing in the region is a Sanskrit inscription of the second or third century AD from Vo-canh, on the South Vietnamese coast. It is not until AD 611 that we have the first known inscription in the Khmer language, from Angkor Borei, which is located on the lower Mekong at the head of the Delta, and which was clearly a key site for the early Khmer civilisation. Although the Khmer writing system is basically phonetic, like all Indic scripts it is far more complex than a mere alphabet would be. ‘Quasi-syllabic’ would be a more accurate description. There are 33 consonants, some aspirated and some not, and each with one or two inherent back vowels – thus there are two consonant series. As for the vowels themselves, there are 20 signs for these, consisting of ‘pure’ vowels, diphthongs, and vowels followed by –m… Khmer is written right to left and top to bottom, with no breaks between words. There are now two forms: 1) ‘round script’, virtually identical with the one finds on Classic Khmer inscriptions, and applied to religious texts, newspaper headlines and formal texts like those inscribed on public buildings and monuments, and 2) ‘oblique script’, derived from popular handwriting and used for all other printed works. There are some 1200 surviving stone inscriptions from the Cambodian past, many of great calligraphic elegance; these are usually incised on freestanding stelae or on the door-jambs of temples. The majority of them are in Sanskrit (using a very similar script to Khmer), and consist of poetic invocations, dedications and the like involving the Hindu deities and royal personages. The other corpus of texts is in Khmer, and while they also largely concern religious foundations, they usually provide us with more mundane but critical information of great anthropological and economic interest… What we do not have from the past are all the books that must have been in daily use everywhere. As a result of their having been written of perishable material, the tropical climate, insects and constant wars have seen to their total destruction; with only those records inscribed on stone, we are thus dealing with a very skewed and fragmentary sample of indigenous texts from past eras. It is known that there were two kinds of books. One

consisted of long, narrow palm leaves incised with a stylus, and loosely strung along one long edge. The other was a screenfold: paper from the inner bark of a tree was folded back and forth like an accordion, and then written on with a pen. Unfortunately, we do not know whether the palm leaf books had different contents from the screenfolds.1

Thanks to the entrepreneurial spirit of the traders in the Indian subcontinent, and to the boat-building and navigational skills of seafarers from the Mediterranean to Southeast Asia, over two millennia ago much of the Old World was bound up in was virtually a single economic system. During the Pax Romana, established by Augustus in 27BC, some Indian traders sailed to the mouth of the Red Sea, within the confines of the Roman Empire; about the same time, others headed over the Indian Ocean to the Malayan Peninsula and the rest of Southeast Asia, looking for the tin that they needed to make bronze coinage. Exotic luxury goods began to flow in both directions, as well as to and from China across the Delta... Buddhism and Hinduism arrived together in mainland Southeast Asia and Indonesia. During this early epoch of trading contacts, the most powerful chiefs and embryo kings of the Delta, and probably of inland regions as well, deliberately and willingly underwent a process of Indianisation to consolidate and magnify their rule. The major source culture, as Monica Smith of the University of Pittsburgh has made clear, was surely the powerful and prosperous Gupta state in northern and central India which flourished from about AD 320 to 455. After a period in which Buddhism had been virtually a state religion in India, the Guptas returned to a preBuddhist Hindu tradition, while reviving the Sanskrit language as the principal one for monumental inscriptions, land grants, seals and coins. Furthermore, the Guptas were great builders of temples and shrines... The various elites in Southeast Asia could have chosen the Chinese model, for China also was a trading partner, but did not do so. Why not? As the peoples of northern Vietnam later found out, China was an expansionist nation (as the Indian principalities were not); an adoption of Chinese-style imperial bureaucracy would have meant a burdensome and humiliating submission to the Middle Kingdom, and the lessening of their own powers. With China, it was all or nothing. In contrast, the Hindu religion and its trappings offered the benefits of a royal ideology tailor-made for nascent Southeast Asian kings, with no political strings attached. Here is what Indianisation eventually brought to the region:         

The rich and complex Hindu religion, its mythology, cosmology and rituals – in particular Shiva and Vishnu The Sanskrit language, the vehicle of Hinduism. The source of many loan words in Khmer. The Indic writing system, stone inscriptions and palm-leaf books The Hindu temple complex. A brick and stone architectural tradition, inspired by Gupta prototypes Statuary representing gods, kings and Buddha Cremation burial, at least of the upper stratum of society Rectilinear town and city plans Artificial water systems, including rectangular reservoirs and canals Wheel-made pottery, which supplemented but did not supplant the local paddle-and-anvil ceramic tradition.2

1 2

Coe, M.: Angkor and the Khmer Civilization, Thames and Hudson, London, 2004, p. 39-40. Coe, M.: Angkor and the Khmer Civilization, Thames and Hudson, London, 2004, p. 62-3.

Religious Beliefs and Practices K.235 – Sdok Kak Thom stela (AD. 1052) Homage to Śiva whose essence is highly proclaimed without words by the subtle Śiva, His form, who pervades (everything) from within and who activates the senses of living beings... Then His Majesty Parameshvara (Jayavarman) went to reign at Mahendraparavata3... Then a Brahmin priest named Hiranyadarma, wise in (siddhi) magic power, came from Janapada, for His Majesty Parameshvara had invited him to conduct a ritual so that Kambujadesa (Cambodia) would not be dependent any more on Java and that he would be a sovereign chakravartin... After carefully extracting the meaning of the satras (sacred texts) by his experience and understanding, this Brahmin (Hiranyadarma) established the magical rituals, called Devaraja4 for the sake of prosperity in the world... Then His Majesty Parameshvara returned to reign in the city of Hariharalaya, and the kamraten an ta raja (the ‘god who is king’) went there also... As a teacher zealously instructs his disciples or a father his children, so did he (Udayadityavarman II), for the sake of his duty, zealously taught his subjects, rightfully securing them protection and nourishment... In battle he held a sword which became red with the blood of the shattered enemy kings and spread on all sides its rising lustre, as if it were a red lotus come out of its chalice [or a sword drawn out of its scabbard], which he had delightedly seized from the Fortune of war...

Zhou Daguan Ch. 13Festivals The first month of the year is always the tenth month of the Chinese calendar (October in the Gregorian calendar). The month is called Jiade (K. Kaitek, S. Karttika, Hindu lunar month – the festival of Divali ‘row of lights’ is celebrated on the 2nd day of Karttika). A large stage is set up in front of the royal palace. There is room on it for a thousand or more people. It is hung everywhere with globe lanterns and flowers. Facing it on a bank between 60 - 95 metres away are some tall towers that are made of wood joined and bound together, like the scaffolding used to make a pagoda. They must be well over 60 metres high. Every night they put up three to six of these and set out fireworks and firecrackers on top of them. The various provincial officials and the great houses take care of all the costs. When night comes the king is invited to come out and watch. He lights the fireworks and firecrackers – the fireworks can all be seen 5 kilometres away. The firecrackers are as big as the rocks thrown by catapults and make enough noise to shake the whole city. All the officials and members of the royal family give their share of huge candles and betel nuts, and spend a great deal. The king also invites foreign envoys as spectators. Things go on in this way for fifteen days before coming to an end. Every month there is always an event. For example, in the fourth month there are ball games. In the ninth month there is ‘ya lie.’ Ya lie involves everyone in the country gathering together in the capital and being reviewed in front of the palace. In the fifth month there is “water to welcome the Buddha,” when Buddhas throughout the country, far and near, are all brought together and taken into the water, where they are bathed in the company of the king. There is also “dry land boating,” which the king goes up a tower to watch.

3

‘The Mountain of Indra’ (the King of the Gods) – Phnom Kulen. ‘The God of is King’ – a controversial term – often interpreted as the worship of a supreme God. The Devaraja was associated with the Chakravartin (Supreme/Universal King/Overord). The Chakravartin ruled the earth, paralleling the rule of the Devaraja over Heavens, further adding to the gravitas of the earthly ruler. 4

Modern Sources Jacques and Lafond In Cambodia and in ancient India there were two distinct types of deity: the ‘autochthonous’ or home-grown gods and those of Brahmanic or Buddhist origin… The existence of these (home-grown) ancestor spirits, called Neak Ta by the Khmers, and the worship they attracted is still widely attested up to the present day… Their shrines are usually humble and people typically make offerings of a little food, or sometimes a chicken and on special occasions even a pig, together with a few flowers, cigarettes, and liquor, the meat and alcohol ensuring the distinction between these gods and those of Indian origin… They are the guardians of the earth, ensuring its rich produce… They are neither virtuous nor vicious, but they can be bad-tempered and inflict illness if they consider they have not been properly treated. There was naturally a hierarchy among the deities. The most important of them is the Devaraja – the ‘king of the gods’ – who reigns over all the kingdom’s local divinities. At the same time as Jayavarman II had himself consecrated ‘emperor of the world’ in 802, he installed as his divine counterpart a kind of ‘super devaraja’, without iconic features, to remain close to the king as his presence in the spirit world… The gods of Indian origin were also the guardians of the kingdom’s prosperity, providing the king with essential support in this regard. They were gods of the cosmos rather than of particular localities, so they were necessarily on a different plane from the autochthonous deities, but they could on occasion bestow favours on individual devotees. Three faiths were practiced in ancient Cambodia, although they can be viewed as varieties of a single creed, as each derives from the same primordial principles. They were Hinduism, which manifested itself in the cults of Shiva and Vishnu, and Buddhism which it seems, in the earliest period followed the Mahayana or ‘greater vehicle’ path. Theravada – the ‘lesser vehicle’ branch of Buddhism – is attested by a few inscriptions but although there must have been monuments, none have survived…5 Once a year the solemn feast of the god was celebrated with great ceremony. It was that he came forth from his shrine to visit his people (not the statue itself which would have been inextricable without demolishing the shrine, but a bronze replica), and was carried around the outer wall of the temple atop a chariot, probably hauled by men, as is still the custom in India. To mark the occasion, other gods from nearby temples were invited to join the procession… A special case was that of the ‘temple mountains’ where the central shrine was erected at the top of a pyramid. Except for the small temple of Baksei Chamkrong, they were State temples which housed the empire’s most important gods, such as the Baphoun and Bayon.6 Jayavarman II was consecrated as Maharajadhiraja (the great king of kings). The kings exerted considerable power in theory, but despite the laudatory inscriptions it was rarely (perhaps never) the case that any of them was truly the sole ruler of all the Khmers. The King’s main duties were to ensure the prosperity of his kingdom and the reign of Dharma, the rules which ordain world order and the harmony of all beings. His life was marked by two great ceremonies: 1. his Consecration as king, confirmed him as the supreme protector of his subjects in this world and 2. his Cremation extended his role as protector into the next world. King and Kingship were indissolubly linked, the king being, in Indian ideology, a prajapati – a master of creatures and the master of life. The stelae of Jayavarman VII’s hospitals express ‘the bodily ills of his subjects become his spiritual sufferings.’ The Khmer empire is said to have been strongly centralised, but it is clear that powerful nobles also existed, and although they were the king’s vassals they were undoubtedly the lords of their own domains. The texts, albeit mostly in discreet terms, allude to various uprisings, the implications being that the monarch’s supreme power also had its limits.7

5

Lafond, P., Jacques, C.: The Khmer Empire – Cities and Sanctuaries from the 5th to the 13th Centuries, River Books, Bangkok, 2007, p. 34-7. Lafond, P., Jacques, C.: The Khmer Empire – Cities and Sanctuaries from the 5th to the 13th Centuries, River Books, Bangkok, 2007, pp. 19-21. 7 Lafond, P., Jacques, C.: The Khmer Empire – Cities and Sanctuaries from the 5th to the 13th Centuries, River Books, Bangkok, 2007, p. 24. 6

Political System K. 323: 54–56 (AD. 889)

(Yasovarman I)

The land that he protected was limited by the border with the Chinese and by the sea; as for his glory, like the garland of his qualities, like his knowledge and his prosperity, it was unlimited. K. 286 (AD. 947) Baksei Chamkrong

(Rajendravarman II)

His Majesty surpassed other kings by his royal power... His beauty, naturally charming, giving joy to thousands of eyes, much surpassed the beauty of Smara (goddess of Love), which excited the great anger of Siva... K. 528 (AD. 952) Mebon

(Rajendravarman II)

XVIII. From his infancy, His Majesty was complete in talents... XXIV. Like the grace of spring in the gardens, like the fullness of the moon, so arose, ravishing, splendid, the beauty of fresh youth... XXXV. This servant, Kavindrarimathana, was charged by the king to build a rock and other edifices in the middle of the pond of Yasodhara (The Mebon in the East Baray)... IC. Always in movement, attractive, omnipresent, strong, large, bringing order to the turbulent world, his glory seemed made of elements. C. Eloquence, valour, beauty, grace, sweetness, goodness, these virtues and still others, he was the sole depository of them; and by the Creator he was created still superior in energy and intelligence... CXLVI. The city of the King of Champa, having the sea for its moat, was reduced to ashes by his warriors, obedient to his orders... CXLIX. Having obtained his throne and disperse his enemies... the earth up to the ocean was so completely rid of his enemies by him, that still today his glory, going alone on all sides, does not falter... CLXXII. Nothing was comparable to the amplitude of his virtues. Having studied the teachings of the Buddha, he had no false ideas, even under the influence of other masters... CLXXXVIII. Shining resplendent, his toe-nails reflected the rays thrown by the crowns of the stubborn enemy kings who now lay prostrate before him. CIC. A mango tree, sterile since its birth, obeyed his order to produce fruits... K. 266 (AD. 960) Bat Chum

(Rajendravarman II)

XIII. He restored the holy city of Yasodharapura (Angkor), long deserted, and rendered it superb and charming by erecting there houses of ornamented with shining gold, palaces glittering with precious stones, recreating the palace of Mahendra (Indra’s heavenly palace) on earth... XXIV. Early on his reign, he instructed his minister, Kavindrarimathana, to build him a palace. This minister, dear to the gods, who knew the arts like Visvaharman (Khmer god of Architecture), was charged by his king to make at Yasodhara a charming palace. K. 806 (AD. 961) Pre Rup

(Rajendravarman II)

XXIII. It was play for him to break into three a large bar of iron, by striking it lightly with a single stroke of his sword, as if he had struck a banana stalk. There is no need to talk about his bodily strength and the stroke of his sword made into the flesh of his enemy... LXXVI. Despite having the skill of the great Kshatriya and born from the arm of Brahma, his enemies disputed his authority and challenged him on the field of battle, but his victory was able to prove that he truly held the arm of Brahma. K. 292 (AD. 1011)

(Suryavarman I)

933 śaka (AD. 1011), the 9th day of the crescent moon of Bhadrapada, Sunday. Here is (our) oath: We all who belong to the division of the tamrvāc8 of the 1st (2nd, 3rd, 4th) category, swear, cutting our hands and offering our lives and our devotion gratefully and unerringly, to His Majesty Sūryavarman, who has enjoyed the legitimate monarchy since 924 śaka (AD 1002), in the presence of the Sacred Fire, of the Holy Jewel of the Brahmins and the ācāryas. We will not revere any other sovereign; we will not be hostile to him, we will not comply with his enemies; we will not commit any act which might do him harm. All these acts which are the fruit of our grateful devotion towards His Majesty Sūryavarman, we will endeavour to accomplish. In case of war we will strive to fight with all our hearts, not to bind ourselves to life; by devotion (to the king) we will not run away from combat. If, in times of no war, we die of disease, may we obtain the reward of people devoted to their master. If we remain in the service of the king, when the time to die (in service) arrives, we will do it in devotion...

8

Centrally appointed agents for the government in the provinces. Lustig argues that this comprised of 4000 members, from 200 different sruk.

K. 230 (AD. 1026)

(Suryavarman I)

Loñ Śri Barddha … presented a request (to the king) asking him to accept these servants, rice fields and gardens in royal favour and to offer them to the divinity he had erected, and to offer (these to the king) in the name of a royal foundation, and asking if His Majesty Sri Sūryavarman could erect a stele proclaiming protection for this royal foundation.

Zhou Daguan Ch. 4 Officials As in China, the country has officials with a rank of chief minister, commander-in-chief of the army, astronomer, and so. Below them are various kinds of junior officials, but they are not called by the same titles as ours. In general, those who take on these positions are the king’s relatives. If they are not, they give him a daughter as a concubine as well. In going out and about, the insignia and retinue of these officials vary by rank. The most senior are those with a palanquin with gold poles and four parasols with gold handles. Next in rank are those that have a palanquin with gold poles and two gold-handled parasols. Next down are those with a palanquin with gold poles and one goldhandled parasol; and next again those with just one gold-handled parasol. At the lowest level are those who just have a parasol with a silver handle and nothing else. There are also those who have a palanquin with silver poles. The senior officials with gold-handled parasols are all called bading or anding. Those with silver-handled parasols are called siladi. The parasols are all made of a strong, thin red Chinese silk, with fringes that hang down and trail on the ground – except for oiled parasols, which are made of the same silk, but are green and have short fringes.

Modern Sources Charles Higham: In about AD 800, a king named Jayavarman II laid the foundations of a state and a dynasty that endured for two centuries. From this period on, the state was called Kambujadesa, or Cambodia. He ruled from the land between the northern shore of the Great Lake and the Kulen uplands. The lake supplied limitless fish while regular flooding encouraged the cultivation of rice. In many respects, the founding king and members of this new dynasty achieved the objectives of his predecessor, Jayavarman I. They presented an image of a united kingdom, which encompassed the rich lowlands flanking the Mekong River to the delta, the Great Lake and the fine agricultural land of Battambang to the west. Successive court centres were located beyond the flood zone of the Great Lake. They incorporated increasingly large and impressive temples dedicated to the sovereign and his ancestors, and barays fed by the rivers issuing from the sacred Kulen upland. There were palaces and secular buildings, although being made of wood, they have not survived. Jayavarman II set a precedent to be followed by his successors, by having himself consecrated king of kings in a highly charged ritual ceremony. He surrounded himself with court officials whose ceremonial duties, such as bearing the royal fan or fly whisk, were to be jealously guarded by their dependents. The court was projected as the centre of the kingdom and a representative of heaven, but was sustained by the agricultural surpluses.9 The origins and achievements of Jayavarman II remain shrouded in a mist that only intensive archaeological research and the fortuitous discovery of further inscriptions can disperse. Two inscriptions find him, during the last two decades of the eighth century, on the east bank of the Mekong some distance from the old Royal centre of Ishanapura. Of aristocratic origin, he probably began his career at or near Vyadhapura, Banteay Prei Nokor...10 For further information of Jayavarman II, we must turn to an inscription found at Sdok Kak Thom in eastern Thailand and dated 260 years later than the events described. It was put in place by Sadisiva, a member of an aristocratic priestly family who traced his ancestors back to the time of Jayavarman II. It describes how Jayavarman II returned from Java to rule in the holy city of Indrapura. The term Java has led to a wild-goose chase involving was between the Khmer and Javanese, but the truth is probably less dramatic. Vickery has noted that the Khmer described their close neighbours, the Chams as the Chvea. Banteay Prei Nokor lies on the eastern marches of Cambodia, and a skirmish with the Chams is a more likely interpretation of this statement than a long sojourn in distant Java. Shivakaivalya, the ancestor of the family described in the text, was a royal chaplain who had been in charge of a linga at Bhadrayogi in the district of Indrapura. The king ordered Shivakaivalya to move himself, his family and presumably their retainers to Purvadisa, where they were granted land and established a settlement called Kuti. Its location is unknown, but it was a considerable distance from Vyadhapura. This move was not without incident. According to an inscription from Palhal in Battambang Province, dating to AD 1069, Jayavarman’s early years involved much conflict. He ordered the mratan Prithivinarendra to pacify all districts. Accompanied by two other leaders, he extinguished resistance in Malyang, modern Battambang. Jayavarman rewarded his generals with fine estates and the two other leaders who accompanied Prithivinarendra settled there with their families... In the meantime, Jayavarman established himself at Hariharalaya on the northern margins of the Great Lake, an area noted for the potential of flood retreat agriculture.11 The trend towards centralised authority, identified in the administration of Jayavarman I of Chenla, was greatly strengthened by Jayavarman II and his successors. The central court was the heart of the social system. At least from the reign of Indravarman I and probably from that of Jayavarman II, this comprised a temple dedicated to the king and his ancestors, combined with Shiva. There would be a royal palace and, except (during weak) reigns, a reservoir. The central temple would be enclosed by walls and often a moat. As the palaces were built of wood, their layout is unknown, and extensive excavations are necessary to illuminate the urban landscape.

9

Higham, C.: The Civilization of Angkor, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 2001, p. 53. Higham, C.: The Civilization of Angkor, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 2001, p. 54. Higham, C.: The Civilization of Angkor, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 2001, pp. 56-7.

10 11

Representations of wooden palaces on temple walls, however, reveal the rich secular architectural tradition that has not survived. Successive rulers established their own court centres. During the reign of Jayavarman II, courts were established at... Hariharalaya and Mahedraparvata. Indravarman I ruled at Hariharalaya...Jayavarman IV at Lingapura (Koh Ker), Rajendravarman at old Yashodharapura... The administrative apparatus to control the kingdom involved a central bureaucracy and a corps of loyal regional officials. The former called upon members of the elite aristocratic families, many of whom traced their ancestry to the followers of Jayavarman II and were often related to the royal line by family ties. There was an administrative hierarchy, identified through titles, grades and insignia, which over time evolved in complexity and in the range of duties. A high official named Sri Nivasakavi served as the hotar to Jayavarman III and Indravarman I. An inscription from the Bakong temple at Hariharalaya praises his many virtues, knowledge and religious dedication. A text from Prasat Kandol Dom, adjacent to Preah Ko, describes a second official, Shivasoma, as the king’s guru... ...Two senior figures subsequently occupied positions of the highest authority under the king, the rajakulamahamantri and the vrah guru. The former appears first in a text dating to the reign of Harshavarman I. Several inscriptions show the person’s responsibility for issuing tax immunity for religious institutions and permission for the joining of foundations. We also see him exercising his authority in the sacred court, with powers to punish those who transgressed a royal edict. The vrah guru discharged both ritual and civil duties. We find him, for example, fulfilling rituals to ensure wet season rains, transmitting royal edicts to various foundations and playing a role in the foundation of two religious corporations. The number of officials increased markedly during the reign of Rajendravarman and again during the reign of Jayavarman V. The central court included functionaries of various degrees of rank, charged with authority over royal warehouses, or the proper surveying of boundaries. Courtiers also served the king personally, as fanbearers, holders of fly-whisks, pages of the bed-chamber and doctors.12 (The Khlon visaya’s) duties included the definition of land boundaries and doubtless the maintenance of records of ownership. They witnessed land transactions, placed boundary markers and, on occasion, made meritorious donations to religious foundations. The latter institutions, and those identified for specific payments in kind to the central authority, fell outside their jurisdiction. We also encounter the tamrvac, who appear to have been centrally appointed agents for the government in the provinces, essential intermediaries for overseeing royal edicts. It is possible that some villages within a visaya (district) were grouped for administrative purposes in a unit intermediate in size between a community and a province, but the village itself, then as now, was the heart of the agricultural system. We read of a khlon sruk as being an individual responsible for village matters... Taxation centred upon surplus product. The state of Angkor never employed a monetary system although measures of gold and silver are commonly used in trade transactions.13 Michael D. Coe Given the army of bureaucrats, servants, slaves, guards, religious specialists and others in attendance upon the ruler and his family – including a sizable corps of pages – the royal compound may have resembled a small city in its own right. Membership in the huge royal family was recognised only out to the fifth degree of relationship, and except for those genealogically closest to the king, these persons had little authority except that conferred by the monarch. There was no hereditary, ranked nobility in Cambodia... (but) there was a sizable group of... royally appointed bureaucrats (Khlon) who administered Angkor and its empire, most of them chosen from members of the great landholding families. Classic Angkor was the centre of an empire, the huge territory of which was divided into provinces. Although Zhou claims that there more than 90 of these, most scholars consider this doubtful. Among his many other 12 13

Higham, C.: The Civilization of Angkor, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 2001, pp. 85-6. Higham, C.: The Civilization of Angkor, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 2001, pp. 86-7.

benefactions, Jayavarman VII distributed 23 images of the Mahayanist deity Jayabuddhamahanatha throughout his empire, and these must more accurately represent the number of such divisions at the end of the 12th Century, when the Khmer Empire had reached its apogee. There are two words for ‘province’: praman an visaya, probably both synonymous. Each of these was in turn divided into villages (sruk or grama). At every level there were mandarin bureaucrats (khlon, ‘chiefs’) representing the central administration, and who ensured that revenues (rice, goods, corvée labour, and the like) flowed smoothly upwards through the system. Most or all of these were appointed by the king, not elected: Angkor was no republic or democracy. The khlon visaya was the provincial chief, overseeing the fiscal officers responsible for tax collections, as well as property transactions and the fixing of boundaries. Each village had its own headman (khlon sruk), in reality a royal agent; the actual representatives of the Cambodian village were the gramavrddha, the village elders, who acted as link between the local and central administrations…. According to historian Sachchidanand Sahai, there were three kinds of villages:   

Those attached to temples by the king or by individuals; Those assigned to individuals by the king; Those that supplied particular commodities to the royal storehouse. An ambitious individual from a prominent family could buy a tract of unoccupied land or obtain it from the king, then found a sruk with royal approval. Large proprietors possessed many villages, but the number held by some great religious establishments staggers the imagination – the vast 12th Century Ta Prohm monastery within Angkor received the revenue of 3,140 villages. Lesser functionaries were such officers as the khlon vala, the leader of corvée-men, or soldiers; the khlon vnam, the superintendent of a temple; and the khlon sru, chief of the rice-fields. Within the village were local judicial courts (vrah sabha), and there was always a keeper of records – an office that continued down to the 19th Century. Between the central and local administrations was the institution known as tamvrach. This was a corps of peripatetic royal inspectors, divided into four categories – first, second, third and fourth tamvrach, possibly each in a different cardinal direction. Such roving agents undoubtedly allowed the king to keep his finger on the country’s pulse and to be given ample warning about any troubles or even rebellion that might be brewing outside the capital. It is no accident that the 4,000 men who swore a loyalty oath in 1011 to Suryavarman I were all tamvrach. Because almost all the Classic inscriptions deal with matters that are fundamentally religious in nature, such as the endowment of temples and foundations, we have much information on the central religious hierarchy, but little about the secular one. The picture is also somewhat clouded by the situation that certain religious officers also played important civil roles: the vrah guru, for instance, not only educated the crown prince and sacrificed for rain, but he also controlled the administration of some temple lands.14

14

Coe, M.: Angkor and the Khmer Civilization, Thames and Hudson, London, 2004, p. 141-2.

Chakravartin/Maharajadiraja

Senapati

Purohita

Vrah Guru

Rajakulamahamantri

Courtiers

Kamraten

Mratan Kurun

Kamsten Mratan Klon

Tamvrac Khlon

Khlon visaya

Khlon Karya

Khlon Sruk

Chakravartin

Royal Family

Khlon (Bureaucrats)

Professionals - architects, artisans

Peasants

Khnyum (Slaves)

The Kings of Angkor Reign Dates

King

Buildings of Notes/Significant Events

Europe

802 – 835

Jayavarman II

835 – 877

Jayavarman III

Phnom Kulen Founded the Khmer Empire – capital: Hariharalaya Prasat Sak.

Charlemagne crowned Holy Roman Emperor, 25.12.800 Alfred ‘the Great’ 871 – 899. Iceland colonised, c.870

877 – 889

Indravarman I

Preah Ko (880), Bakong (881), Indratataka baray.

889 – c. 910

Yasovarman I

c. 910 – 923

Harshavarman I

Lo Lei (893) Phnom Bakheng (907), Phnom Bok, East Baray Baksei Chamkrong, Prasat Kravan (921)

923 – 928

Ishanavarman II

928 – 941

Jayavarman IV

941 – 944

Harshavarman II

944 – 968

Rajendravarman II

968 – c.1000

Jayavarman V

1001 – 1002

Udayadityavarman I

1002 - 1010

Jayaviravarman

North Khleang Civil War – Suryavarman I eventually victorious

1002 – 1049

Suryavarman I

1050 – 1066

Udayadityavarman II

South Khleang, Preah Vihear, Wat Phu, Phimeanakas & Royal Palaces, West Baray. Expanded Khmer control over central & southwest Thailand and established Khmer centre at Lopburi. Bapoun (1060), West Mebon

1066 – 1080

Harshavarman III

1080 – 1107

Jayavarman VI

1107 – 1113

Dharanindravarman

1113 – c.1150

Suryavarman II

1150 – c.1165

Yasovarman II

c.1165 - 1177

Tribhuvanadityavarman

Cham invasion – King killed, Angkor sacked?

1177 – 1181

INTERREGNUM

Cham domination

Murder of St Thomas Becket (1170),

1181 – c.1220

Jayavarman VII

3 Crusade (1189-1192), Crusaders seize Constantinople (1204) foundation of the Franciscans (1209) Magna Carta (1215)

c.1220 – 1243

Indravarman II

Ta Prohm (1186), Preah Khan (1191), Neak Pean, Angkor Thom, Srah Srang, Bayon, Hospital Chapels Conquers the Cham expanding Empire to greatest size. Banteay Kdei, Suor Prat Towers

1243 – 1295

Jayavarman VIII

English conquest of Wales (1283)

c.1295 – 1307

Indravarman III

1307 – 1327

Srindrajayavarman

Mangalartha (1295), Terrace of the Leper King – last known royally endowed temples. King abdicated. Preah Pithu, Preah Palilay Theravada Buddhism became the state religion. King abdicated.

1327 - ?

Jayavarmadiparameshvara

Magyars invade central Europe (889) Cluny Abbey founded (910)

Koh Ker Moved capital to Koh Ker Pre Rup (961), East Mebon, Banteay Srei (967) Moved capital back to Angkor region. Raided Champa, Dvaravati and Sukhothai regions. Ta Keo (1000) Consolidated Rajendravarman’s conquests.

Viking exploration of Greenland & Canada

Westminster Abbey started (1052), St Mark’s Venice started (1063), Norman Conquest of England (1066) Battle of Manzikert (1071) st

Phimai (Thailand) Founds the Mahidharapura Dynasty.

1 Crusade (1096-1104)

Angkor Wat, Phnom Rung (Thailand), Beng Mealea, Banteay Samre Re-established relations with China; fought the Dai Viet & Chams. Cham polities made vassals of Angkor.

Paris University founded (1150)

Notre Dame de Paris started (1163)

rd

Battles of Sterling & Falkirk (1297-8) Avignon Papacy (1309-1377) Hundred Years Wars (1337 – 1453) Black Death (1347-1350)

Social Organisation K. 105 (AD. 987) In 908 śaka (AD. 987), on the 14th day of the crescent moon of Bhādrapada, a Sunday, there was an order from His Majesty to Vāp Hrdayaśiva, pamcām pratyaya of the fourth category, stipulating that he go and give a rice field, because he had borrowed with interest a pair of buffaloes, in order to buy the laterite, in view of building a holy pyramid. K. 380E (AD. 1049) His Majesty ordered this decision to be engraved on a pillar of stone at Sri Sikharsvara, and ordered it to be engraved on another pillar of stone to be placed in the land of Vibheda, granted graciously by His Majesty Śri Suryavarman to Sri Sukarma Kamsten and the family of Sri Sukarma Kamsten, installed in the land of Vibheda, which henceforth carries the name Kuruksetra. K. 835 (AD. 1061) By order of His Majesty Udayadityavarman, he (Gunapativarman, architect) was promoted to the dignity of Vishvakarman, chief of the artists... On the occasion of the completion of these works at the Eastern Baray and the Baphuon, the king gave him land from his own domain, exempt in the future from all disputes... Having assembled Brahmin priests and princes as witnesses, the king ordered the chief of the Court to set out five boundary-markers of this terrain... In consideration of the virtues of this Vishvakarman, the king had this domain with the family inscribed in the varna (celebrated caste) of the People in Charge of the Golden Cups. K. 254 (AD. 1129) I have offered these slaves and these lands to supply provisions in favour of the sanctuaries. I have erected roadways, constructed bridges to enable the paths to pass. I offer the fruit (of my acquired merits) to the king... and I desire only the fruit of my devotion to my master. Zhou Daguan Ch. 9 Slaves Family slaves are all savages purchased to work as servants. Most families have a hundred or more of them; a few have ten or twenty; only the very poorest have none at all. The savages are people from the mountains. They have their own way of categorising themselves, but are commonly called “thieving Zhuang”... A strong young slave is worth perhaps a hundred pieces of cloth; a weak old one can only fetch thirty or forty. They are only allowed to sit and sleep under the house. If they are carrying out their tasks then they can come up into the house, but they must kneel, join their hands in greeting, and bow down to the floor before they can venture forward. They address their master as batuo and their mistress as mi. Batuo is ‘father’, and mi is ‘mother.’ If they do something wrong they are beaten and take their caning with their heads bowed, not venturing to move even a little... Sometimes slaves run away. Those that are caught and taken back must carry a dark blue tattoo on their face, and sometimes an iron shackle around their neck or between their arms and legs. Ch. 14 Settling Disputes ...If two have a dispute to resolve and cannot agree on the right and wrong, there are twelve small stone towers (Prasat Suor Prat/Kleangs) on a bank opposite the palace, and the people concerned are sent to sit in two of them. Outside, members of each family keep guard against the other. They may sit in the towers for a day or two, or for three or four days. Then for sure the one who is in the wrong becomes visibly ill, and leaves. The one who is in the right is absolutely fine> Thus right and wrong are assessed and decided on, in what is known as the judgment of heaven. Such is the spiritual power of the local gods.

Modern Sources Claude Jacques & Philippe Lafond: The Army was mainly made up of local or foreign mercenaries, but when the need arose the king could resort to recruiting local conscripts, if necessary by force. Naturally the majority of the troops were infantry, under the command of officers on horseback. It is doubtful whether there was a proper cavalry corps because horses were still a relative rarity as they had to be imported, mostly from China… The king and the senior commanders rode to battle on elephant back…Suryavarman II formed his own ‘praetorian guard’ called the anak sanjak. The best impressions of what battle might have looked like appear on the reliefs at Bayon, Banteay Chmar and Angkor Wat. The troops on both sides wield the same kinds of weapons, whether fighting on foot, on horseback or on elephant back. There are spears, bows, sabres, swords and daggers. The most formidable weapon is the phkeak, a sort of axe hafted onto a curving handle… From the late 12th century, a more complex engine of war begins to appear: a sort of military catapult (ballista) consisting of a pair of bows mounted on the pack saddles of elephants or on two-wheeled carriages. For protection the adversaries had two types of shield, a small round one, and a long one high enough to shield its wearer… The Sacred Fire also accompanied the army, carried on a palanquin and accompanied by a chaplain. There was also a navy which played an important role, to judge from later chronicles. The ships were apparently single-decked and from 17 - 25 metres long by 1.5 - 1.8 metres broad. They had between 12 and 25 oarsmen, often sheltered behind sheaths of woven rattan and coaxed by pilots who sat or stood at the stern. In the middle stood the combat troops. The boats were the shaped like the mythical naga, with a pair of fierce eyes at the prow and a tail at the stern. A special boat, more elaborately decorated transported the ‘admiral’ or king.15 Michael D. Coe (Hinduism) divided society into four major castes (varna): the priestly Brahmins, the Kshatriya warriors, the merchant Vaishyas, and the lowly, labouring Shudras. But the caste system in the Indian sense never really took hold in Cambodia. There were always Brahmins. And these were probably the dominant element in the religious bureaucracy, especially in the royal court, but intermarriage of Brahmins with Kshatriya members of the royal family was not uncommon. The king, in fact, seems to have combined the secular, military role of a Kshatriya with the religious functions of a Brahmin. It is generally agreed that among the Khmer, the varna were not castes but something like aristocratic guilds of specialists within the Royal Palace; occupational titles may been entirely honorific and theoretical... Thus, we have a ‘varna of the fly whisk bearers’, who seem to have been military officers and generals. In all cases, membership in a varna was something that could be bestowed by a king in recognition of outstanding service of one sort or another. The majority of the population apparently consisted of peasant rice farmers, subject to regular corvée labour and the occasional military service, and obligated to provide goods and services to the religious foundations, to landlords, to the bureaucracy & to the king... The inscriptions describe three kinds of slave(khnyum): 1. Slaves legally acquired, 2. Slaves who are inherited, and 3. vrah khnyum- so-called ‘religious slaves’, but more likely ‘slaves of the gods’, not of humans: villagers who provided fortnightly service to a temple.16

15

Lafond, P., Jacques, C.: The Khmer Empire – Cities and Sanctuaries from the 5th to the 13th Centuries, River Books, Bangkok, 2007, p. 34-7. Coe, M.: Angkor and the Khmer Civilization, Thames and Hudson, London, 2004, p. 133-5.

16

Daily Life Zhou Daguan Ch. 3 Dress From the King down, the men and women all wear hair wound up in a knot, and go naked to the waist, wrapped only in a cloth. When they are not out and about, they wind a larger piece of cloth over the small one. There are very many different grades of cloth. The materials the king wears include some that are extremely elegant and beautiful, and worth three or four ounces of gold a piece. Although cloth is woven domestically, it also comes from Siam (Thailand) and Champa (southern Vietnam). Cloth from the Western Seas is often regarded as the best because it is so well-made and refined. Only the king can wear material with a full pattern of flowers on it. On his head he wears a gold crown, like the crown worn by the Holder of the Diamond. Sometimes he goes without a crown, and simply wears a chain of fragrant flowers such as jasmine wound round the braids of hair. Around his neck he wears a large pearl weighing about four pounds. On his wrists and ankles and all his fingers and toes he wears gold bracelets and rings, all of them inlaid with cat’s-eye gemstones... Senior officials and relatives of the king can wear cloth with a scattered floral design, while junior officials and no others can wear cloth with a two-flower design. Among the ordinary people, only women can wear cloth with this design. However if a newly arrived Chinese wears it, people do not make so bold as to take offence, on the grounds that he is ‘anding basha,’ meaning that he does not understand what is right and proper. Ch. 12Writing Everyday writing and official documents are all done on deer skin that is dyed black. Depending on whether it is big or small, broad or narrow, the skin is cut in whatever way is desired. People use a kind of powder like Chinese chalk, which is rolled into a little stick called suo and held between forefinger and thumb, to draw shapes on the parchment and make words. These fast forever. When they have finished with the chalk they stick it behind their ear. From the form of the words people can also make out whose handwriting it is. It can only be erased by being wiped with something wet... For the most part the shape of the words is just like the shape of words written in Uighur. The writing is always from left to right, not from top to bottom.

Economics, Trade and Agriculture K. 842 (AD. 968) Of all the merit of these foundations, the king should receive either one quarter or one sixth; the king, who will protect them, should receive half the merit; the favourite of the king, who will protect them, should receive one quarter of the merit. If ill fortune comes to the temple, the Śivaite master who is the Superior, the Chief Minister of the royal family and the good people who will inform the king seven times, should still receive half the merit. K. 158 (AD. 1003) [Vap Vāp respectfully informed the king] that the rice fields Stuk Sno, Pak Rvāt, Travān Krasāt and Chok Rhvit had been sold by Vāp Yo Rlan Pañjal to Me Neu, grandmother of Vāp Sah, guardian of the holy registers, for 1 elephant, 1 silver bowl (weighing) 5 li, 1 vaudi (weighing) 6 jyay, 1 copper basket (weighing) 7 jyay, 1 yo and (1) vlah of jñaśira; but concerning the ownership of these rice fields, when Vāp Yo Rlan Pañjal was dead, his descendants Vāp Sat, Vāp Hi, Vāp An and Vāp Isi contested this and claimed new goods; and that Vāp Sah and his family had given 200 (measures) of paddy and 5 spittoons to these people and brought a Ravān to trample the ground, to plant the markers there and give the ownership of it back to Vāp Sah and his family. Diogo Do Couto (c. 1543 – 1616). 44. It is certain that this kingdom formerly belonged to the Chinese, and the Cambodians still retain today their laws and customs: the governors are called mandarins; the money is in taels and maces, as in China, and the weights are the same. 45. Later the kingdom was subject to the king of Siam, who gave it to one of his vassals, named Dobetele, who peopled and enlarged it. 46. Its lands are so fertile... 47. It has many cattle, buffaloes, and so many deer that their skins are loaded onto vessels going to China, and it is by far the most important merchandise. 48. In the forests there are many goats, boars, gazelles, and so many elephants that it is held that the king has forty thousand. 49. These are hunted in the following manner: a corral of thick wood is built, that can be entered by only one door which is closed by solid portcullises. 50. Then, in places where male elephants are accustomed to feed, they send in some females who are trained and taught. 51. As soon as they see the elephants they run off to the corral, and the elephants, seeing them, follow then and enter through the doorway. 52. Then the hunters, who are above the doorway, drop the portcullis. 53, The elephants are enclosed in a narrow corral where they are tamed by the effects of hunger and thirst. 54. When they are ready to be trained, they are taken from there, placed between two domesticated elephants, and taken to the stables where they are kept... Modern Sources Michael D. Coe The Khmer Empire depended on an infrastructure of wet-rice agriculture, fishing, trade, tribute, taxation and corvée labour. Since most archaeological work in the Angkor region has concentrated on historic preservation and restoration rather than on research, little is yet known about the pattern of land use beyond the temple complexes. What seems clear, however, is that agricultural surpluses, gleaned from efficient rice farming, underwrote the Angkor economy. Chou Ta-Kuan reported that farmers could harvest up to four crops a year, but this is unlikely to be from the same fields but rather from cultivation of successive fields behind the receding flood from the Tonlé Sap. Remote sensing techniques have identified ancient field systems throughout portions of the Angkor region today, and van Liere estimated that more than 50 million bunded fields were cultivated between the ninth and fifteenth centuries, using a combination of floating rice and flood recession techniques. The Classic Khmer state was an immense revenue-gathering machine, and every individual in Cambodia except religious functionaries, priests, monks and slaves was subject to taxation, which was paid in kind, since there was no system of coinage. The king was the supreme receiver of taxes – there was a Khmer formula that went svey vrah rajya, - ‘he eats the kingdom’, meaning that he enjoys the fruits of his realm, but officials on every level participated in the system. The storehouses of the Royal Treasury were in the charge of high-ranking officers and are known to have contained, in addition to gold and precious jewels, such products of the land as rice, honey and

beeswax, clarified butter, sugar, spices, camphor and cloth. The king also benefited by revenues from the immense landholdings, as well as from at least part of the booty from military victories. There seems to have been taxes on everything – on land, on rice, salt, wax and honey, and so forth. Land taxes were based on paddy size and productive capacity (i.e. whether the fields were low-lying, river-side, or dryseason). There was even a market tax, but it is not known whether this was based on goods sold, on vendors themselves, or on the stalls that they rented.

Temples and Infrastructure K. 273 (AD. 1186) The Ta Prohm inscription, K. 273, states that 18 hotar, 2,740 kamsten, 2,202 assistants and 615 dancers, along with an unspecified number of monks, commoners and khnyum, were maintained at the monastery. The treasury contained 500kg of gold dishes; 500kg of silver dishes; 35 diamonds; 40,260 pearls; 4,540 gemstones; 523 parasols; 512 sets of silk bedding; & 876 Chinese veils (mosquito nets?)17 Diogo Do Couto (c. 1543 – 1616). 7. This town was square in plan and each side was a league in length. 8. It possessed four principal gateways and another which led to the royal palaces. 9. On each side of the square is a superb bastion built like the wall about which we shall soon speak. 10. The town was surrounded by a moat with the width of a blunderbuss shot and containing water three spans deep, without it ever having less. 11. Above the moat, there are five bridges corresponding to the five gateways previously mentioned; each of these is twelve feet wide; they are entirely built of arches of dressed stone of surpassing grandeur, and have on both sides parapets in perforated stone similar to marble, with above a fine rope very regularly constructed on which there are seated astride at regular intervals giants in a similar stone, quite remarkably carved with their hands on the said ropes; all have very long pierced ears, like those of the Canaras,18 whose work this may be. 12. The walls of the town are entirely built with hewn stone, so perfect and so well arranged that they seem to constitute just one stone – which is, as I have said, almost like marble –for there are no joins for the assembly of the stones, which are very big, nor an indication of how they were assembled. 13. The wall is of good height... and astride each stone there is a splendid giant, his back to the wall, brandishing in his hands fine clubs, held in the air which seems to be there to strike anyone desirous of climbing up. 14. The doors of each of the entrance pavilions are splendidly carved entirely in the same stone, so perfectly and so deliberately that Fr. Antonio da Madanela19 of the Capuchin order, who was in this town, told me he had taken in his hands several times the arms of these giants, which are carved from a single stone, to see if they were carved in the round. 15. What is most remarkable in this construction is that this stone is not found for twenty leagues around there, from which one can imagine the cost, the labour, the organisation and the manufacture which went into it. 16. Similarly, on a stone found above the entrance to a temple which we shall about later there were a few lines of the Badaga language – which is that of the Canara – saying that this town, these temples and other things about which we shall speak, were built on the orders of 20 (successive) kings and took 700 years to build. 17. On one of the sides of this town there were incomplete monuments which seem to have been the palaces of kings, because the workmanship, sumptuousness and grandeur immediately strike the eye; they are truly royal in their numerous cornices, leaf decoration, the figures and other ornamentation which delight the eye and bear witness to the skill of their sculptors. 18. In the centre of the town one saw the most extraordinary and still incomplete temple. 19. From each of the town gates to this temple is a highway s wide as on the outside bridges, with parapets built of the same dressed stone and in the same magnificence as those on the outside. 20. On each side of the highway stretch very fine canals, full to the brim with water which comes from the great moat surrounding the town, which enters through two sluices on the north and east sides, and then returns to the same moat to the south and west, so that the water in the moat never diminishes, and however much water enters the two sluices, returns again through the other two. 21. As for the great moat, it is always full, for important and abundant streams flow into it, and even because of an excess of water it is necessary to draw off some at some points so it does not overflow. 22. In this way the streets leading from the entrance gates is flanked by two others of water, through which numerous boats enter coming from the interior of the country along rivers outside the town full of provisions, firewood & other necessities, which are delivered to the very doors of the inhabitants, who all have access to the canal and river.

17

Coe, M.: Angkor and the Khmer Civilization, Thames and Hudson, London, 2004, p. 150. Indian kingdom of Vijayanagar A Portuguese Capuchin (Franciscan) monk. He arrived in Malacca in October 1584. He met with Diogo do Couto sometime in 1588 and passed on his observations. 18 19

24. A half-league from this town is a temple called Angar, built on a very fine flat piece of open land. 25. This temple is one 160 paces long, and of such a strange construction that one cannot describe it with one’s pen, nor can it be compared to any other building in the world. 26. The central body comprises four naves, and the roof of their vaults, highly decorated, rises up to a very high pointed dome, built on numerous columns, carved with all the refinements that human genius can conceive. 27. The temple was built on a superb foundation of very large paving stones of the same stone as the rest of the structure, up which one climbs using very well carved and remarkable steps, which go all around it. 28. At each corner of this great main structure of the temple are found others, smaller, in a similar style as the main structure, and all of which terminate in very pointed domes, so that they can be seen from more than four leagues off, entirely gilded at their summits, with their globes and their banners. 29. The temple is surrounded by a moat a musket-shot in width and seven spans in depth, above which is a bridge which corresponds to the only entrance that the central court has; at the entrance to the bridge are found two stone tigers, one on each side, so lifelike in size and so fearsome that they strike those who enter there with terror. 30. All the bridge is covered with the most delicately carved arches, in dressed stone, a very worthy thing to see. 31. This temple is surrounded by numerous handsome outbuildings, and the pillars of the galleries, like the balusters of the windows are of the same stone, so well polished that they seem to have been machinemade... 44. It is certain that this kingdom formerly belonged to the Chinese, and the Cambodians still retain today their laws and customs: the governors are called mandarins; the money is in taels and maces, as in China, and the weights are the same. 45. Later the kingdom was subject to the king of Siam, who gave it to one of his vassals, named Dobetele, who peopled and enlarged it. 46. Its lands are so fertile... 47. It has many cattle, buffaloes, and so many deer that their skins are loaded onto vessels going to China, and it is by far the most important merchandise. 48. In the forests there are many goats, boars, gazelles, and so many elephants that it is held that the king has forty thousand. 49. These are hunted in the following manner: a corral of thick wood is built, that can be entered by only one door which is closed by solid portcullises. 50. Then, in places where male elephants are accustomed to feed, they send in some females who are trained and taught. 51. As soon as they see the elephants they run off to the corral, and the elephants, seeing them, follow then and enter through the doorway. 52. Then the hunters, who are above the doorway, drop the portcullis. 53, The elephants are enclosed in a narrow corral where they are tamed by the effects of hunger and thirst. 54. When they are ready to be trained, they are taken from there, placed between two domesticated elephants, and taken to the stables where they are kept...

Modern Sources Miriam Stark Integral to this economy were the water control systems that facilitated settlement and farming throughout the Angkor region. The Khmers were consummate hydraulic engineers: they cut canals, dredged and straightened rivers, built dikes into floodplain to deflect and hold back floodwaters, dug moats around their temples and some residential areas, and built countless some reservoirs to tap the high water-table found in the region. The precise role of water control systems in the historical trajectory of the Khmer Empire and its agrarian systems, however, remains unclear. Several prominent Khmer kings also engaged in large-scale public works projects to build enormous baray, so large that they are visible from space by Satellite. The Indratataka (or Lolei baray), built between c. AD 877-890, was 3 kilometres long while the Yasodharatataka, or East Baray, constructed during the reign of Yasovarman, was 7 kilometres long. The role of these giant reservoirs for subsistence continues to be a source of debate, and the issue is sometimes glossed as the ‘hydraulic paradigm’. For a long time it was held that the agrarian economy of Angkor rested on irrigation. This has been challenged through analysis of aerial and satellite imagery. Work by van Liere and Acker suggests that the total irrigable land available was far smaller than Groslier calculated. And they argued that the ancient Khmers relied on the traditional rain-fed techniques of floating-rice and recession agriculture that are still in use in the region today, rather than on irrigation. Khmer-built dams may have functioned as flood retardation devices rather than for irrigation and the ponded water was primarily intended for the temples.

No evidence has yet been found for a centralised system of water control and it is possible that water control for farming was organised at the local level administered by the temples. Documentary evidence suggests that the temple functioned as a centre for administration and for the collection of tributes and gifts for redistribution, and this pattern may have begun during the pre-Angkorean period. Careful records were maintained of gifts to the temple, both in terms of human labour – commonly through gifts of slaves – and goods. Business transactions that occurred at the temple were also recorded, and the temple served as a type of ‘bank’ for the harvest and seed stores of commoners.20 Claude Jacques and Philippe Lafond Temples of Indian type, such as those of the Khmers, are quite different from western places of worship whether Christian, Jewish or Muslim. They were never designed as meeting-places, but as dwellings for the gods. In contrast with India where domestic architecture used various types of material depending on the wealth of the owner, Khmer houses were made of wood. As a rule, the abode of the gods was built in durable materials, for example: brick, sandstone, or laterite… Large halls were not required, since space was needed only to house the deity. The schema simply required a sanctuary, however small. Indeed the central sanctuary of Angkor Wat, one of the largest, is only 5 metres square, and the sheer size of the temples of the 12th and 13th centuries can be ascribed to the need to accommodate huge numbers of gods. In the case of the simplest temples the sanctuary was surrounded by an enclosure wall bordered on the outside by a moat. This ground plan has been interpreted as an image of the world, hemmed in by mountain ranges, which in turn are lapped by the great mythical ocean of chaos. The larger temples have two concentric enclosures. They open onto one or two or all four sides, through more or less elaborate pavilions which are themselves shrines and which are termed gopura, after the corresponding structures in South India. Within the enclosure, there is often a Sacred Fire Temple. Just as was the custom in India, Fire had to be ritually re-kindled each morning before the ceremonial worship of the shrine’s main deity. There must have been kitchens close by to cook the gods’ food, but as they would certainly have been temporary shacks made of perishable materials, no trace of them has survived. The gods in their shrines were treated as royalty by their servants, the priests. They awakened them daily, washed, dressed and fed them. The food was symbolically consumed by the gods and then distributed to the priests or others who happened to be present. Michael D. Coe The religious authorities and functionaries in the royal court were certainly almost entirely of the Brahmin caste, although some of the priests in the provinces and villages may not have been so. Most of them may have received the honorific Khmer title of sten an, reserved for learned men… In peninsular India, the purohita indicated a family priest or chaplain; in Classic Angkor, this important individual was the chaplain and the chief priest of the king and, at least according to the self-serving Sdok Kak Thom stela, was a hereditary officer charged with maintaining the cult of the devaraja. The Sanskrit title hotar or ‘sacrificer’ occurs frequently in the texts; this is also supposed to indicate ‘royal chaplain’ – but the exact scope of the term is unclear since while the royal purohita of the devaraja was a hotar, there were other hotars. Most of these may have had important administrative roles. There were many religious functionaries who received the Sanskrit title of acharya, a learned priest who acted as teacher and spiritual guide; or of pandita, someone versed in sacred lore; or of upadhyaya, a teacher and preceptor learned in the Vedas. As with many Classic Khmer titles, there is little information on whether these were or were not interchangeable.21

20 21

Stark, M: “Pre-Angkorian and Angkorian Cambodia” Southeast Asia From prehistory to history, Routledge, Oxford, 2004, pp. 107-8. Coe, M.: Angkor and the Khmer Civilization, Thames and Hudson, London, 2004, p. 142-3.

Suryavarman II and Angkor Wat K. 292 (AD. 1011) 933 śaka (AD. 1011), the 9th day of the crescent moon of Bhadrapada, Sunday. Here is (our) oath: We all who belong to the division of the tamrvāc22 of the 1st (2nd, 3rd, 4th) category, swear, cutting our hands and offering our lives and our devotion gratefully and unerringly, to His Majesty Sūryavarman, who has enjoyed the legitimate monarchy since 924 śaka (AD 1002), in the presence of the Sacred Fire, of the Holy Jewel of the Brahmins and the ācāryas. We will not revere any other sovereign; we will not be hostile to him, we will not comply with his enemies; we will not commit any act which might do him harm. All these acts which are the fruit of our grateful devotion towards His Majesty Sūryavarman, we will endeavour to accomplish. In case of war we will strive to fight with all our hearts, not to bind ourselves to life; by devotion (to the king) we will not run away from combat. If, in times of no war, we die of disease, may we obtain the reward of people devoted to their master. If we remain in the service of the king, when the time to die (in service) arrives, we will do it in devotion... K. 357 (AD. 1113) 1035 saka (AD 1113), Mis Majesty Suryavarman... grandnephew on the maternal side of Their Majesties Jayavarman & Dharanindravarman, ascended to the throne and invited the vrah guru to proceed with the royal appointment. The king then performed the sacrifices, starting with the sacred mysteries, had the solemn rites accomplished... and gave rich presents such as palanquins, fans, fly-whisks, crowns, buckles, pendants, bracelets and rings... Still young, at the end of his religious studies, he commanded armies as vast as the ocean in a terrible battle. Bounding on the head of the elephant of the enemy king he killed him, as Garuda on the edge of a mountain would kill a serpent.

Modern Sources Michael Vickery: Warfare began, presumably in the reign of the Cambodian King Suryavarman II (1112 – 1150) who pursued a policy of eastward expansion, apparently to bring Cambodia into the developing international maritime network initiated by the new policy of the Southern Sung Dynasty in China. For this Cambodia required seaports. Failing in their attacks on Vietnam, they focused on Vijaya (a Cham city) either because it was already developing as an important port, or because it was not yet a strong Champa centre and thus seen as an easy conquest.23

22

Centrally appointed agents for the government in the provinces. Lustig argues that this comprised of 4000 members, from 200 different sruk.

23

Vickery, M: “Short History of Champa” Champa and the Archaeology of My Son (Vietnam), National University of Singapore, 2009; pp. 53 – 55.

Jayavarman VII K. 908 (AD. 1191) – Jayavarman VII’s foundation Inscription at Preah Khan. CXXII. On the roads from Yaśodharapura to the capital of Champā (he constructed) 57 inns of fire. CXXIII. From the capital of the town of Vimāy (there are) 17 inns of fire. CXXIV. From the capital to Jayavatī, from this town to Jayasiṃhavatī, from there to Jayavīravati, from this town to Jayarājagiri, from Jayarājagiri to Śri Suvīrapura …[illegible] from this town to Yaśodharapura (along this road) there are 14 inns with fire. CXXV. There is one at Śri Sūryaparvata, one at Śri Vijayādityapura, one at Kalyāṇasiddhika. CXXVI. In total 121 inns. CXXVII. The total of the divinities in gold, silver, bronze, stone, including Yama and Kāla, spread among all the provinces, amounts to 20,400. K. 273 (AD. 1186)

(abbreviated)

The Ta Prohm inscription, K. 273, states that 18 hotar, 2,740 kamsten, 2,202 assistants and 615 dancers, along with an unspecified number of monks, commoners and khnyum, were maintained at the monastery. The treasury contained 500kg of gold dishes; 500kg of silver dishes; 35 diamonds; 40,260 pearls; 4,540 gemstones; 523 parasols; 512 sets of silk bedding; & 876 Chinese veils (mosquito nets?)24 K. 485 (AD.1220) – Phimeanekas Poem/Inscription, by Queen Indradevi, wife of Jayavarman VII.25 LXV. (King) Yasovarman having been (overthrown) by a retainer seeking to obtain royal power, (Jayavarman) returned promptly from Vijaya to rescue this sovereign. LXVI. But Sri Yasovarman, having already been robbed of his kingdom and of his life by this (usurper), he (Jayavarman) stayed, waiting for the best moment to save the earth heavy with crime... LXVIII. Sri Jaya Indravarman, king of Champa, arrogant as Ravana... having an army led by Chariots, went to the country of Kambu equal to the heavens in order to fight. LXIX ... made harsh by Yama who resides in the Southern Region, and weakened by the Sun, in order to capture in battle... he killed that king26 who suffered the consequences (of his previous acts). LXX. Having by his patience in misfortune defeated in combat this (king of Champa) who had a boundless ocean of warriors, after having received the royal consecration, he (Jayavarman VII) enjoyed, by conquest of Vijaya and other countries, the purified earth, which could be called his home. C. 92 (AD. 1203) Myson VII In 1104 saka (1182), prince Sri Vidyanandana native of Vijaya (Champa) went to Cambodia. The King (Jayavarman VII) of Cambodia seeing that he possessed all the 33 marks of the Buddha received him favourably and taught him like a prince all the varied branches of military science. During his stay in Cambodia, a dependent town called Malyang, inhabited by a multitude of bad men, revolted against the king of Cambodia. The King, seeing the prince well versed in arms, ordered him to lead the troops of Cambodia and to take the town of Malyang. He did all the king desired and the king pleased with his valour, conferred on him the dignity of Yuvaraja and gave him all the pleasures and the good things which could be found in the kingdom of Cambodia. In 1112 saka (1190), King Sri Jaya Indravarman made war against the King of Cambodia. The latter sent his prince, Vidayanandana, at the head of the troops of Cambodia to take Vijaya and defeat the local king. He captured the king and had him conducted to Cambodia by the Khmer troops. He proclaimed Prince Suryajayavarmadeva, brother-in-law of the King of Cambodia, as the king of the city of Vijaya. In the same year, the king of Cambodia sent Jaya Indravarman IV to help prince Vidyananda to reconquer Champa. They met at Rajapura, took Vijaya, defeated and killed Jaya Indravarman V and rulled over Vijaya. Then Jaya Indravarman IV fled from the Cambodians and went to Amaravati where he raised a revolt and invaded Vijaya; but prince Vidyananda defeated him and put him to death. Henceforth, the prince ruled without opposition.

24

Coe, M.: Angkor and the Khmer Civilization, Thames and Hudson, London, 2004, p. 150. “We cannot deplore enough the loss of stanzas XXXVI-XXXIX concerning the Chams and which may have given the reasons for Jayavarman’s departure for Champa, more specifically for his journey to Vijaya, from which place stanza LXV will soon inform us he returns to come to the rescue of King Yasovarman II” – G. Coedés Inscriptions du Cambodge II, Ecole Française d’Extreme-Orient, 1942; p. 162 (translated from French by J. St. Julian) 26 The usurper king, Tribhuvanadityavarman, mentioned in LXV-LXVI. 25

Ma Duan-Lin: Ethnography of Foreign Peoples.27 Under the Sung Dynasty, at the twelfth moon of the sixteenth year ching-ho (AD 1116), the king of Cambodia sent as ambassadors, to great dignitaries of the kingdom... They came as a group of 14... The following year, these foreigners returned to Cambodia. New envoys of the same country arrived again (1120). Their king received investiture with honours equal to those given to the king of Champa. Then (in 1128), the Emperor gave higher honours on the king of Cambodia... being recognised as a great vassal of China. In 1171 there was a Chinese mandarin shipwrecked on the coast of Champa...(Both the Chams and Khmers) used elephants for fighting, without great advantage. The mandarin advised the king of Champa to use horsemen armed with crossbows, to whom he taught the art of using their bows on horseback... the success of the innovation was enormous; victory declared itself for Champa... (Then in 1177, King Jaya Indravarman, with the help of a shipwrecked Chinese sailor as navigator, the Cham king launched a sea-based attack). The king of Champa suddenly overwhelmed the capital of Cambodia with a powerful fleet, pillaged it and put the king (Tribhuvanadityavarman) to death, without listening to any proposal of peace. Modern Sources Michael Vickery: The Cambodians were successful in Champa for a short period of time in the 1140s, and subdued Vijaya, but were then defeated. Cambodian expansion began again under Jayavarman VII (1181 – 1220?) who, according to his own inscriptions, was in Vijaya, apparently in the 1160s-70s, and must have been involved in the local conflicts within Champa, forming his own Cham alliances and incurring enmity among other Cham. During this time Champa inscriptions imply a series of raids or brief incursions into Cambodia, and Chinese sources report the most serious in the 1170s (1170 and 1177). Attempts at the synthesis of these sources – Cambodian inscriptions, Champa inscriptions, and Chinese records – have produced much confusion, and it is still impossible to say that the best conclusion has been reached. At least, the conventional story of a grand conquest of Angkor in 1177 by the Cham and their subsequent occupation of the city for several years does not stand up to careful examination. First, this is the period in which Champa inscriptions are at their best for historical detail, and they do not at all claim an overwhelming victory and occupation of Angkor, contrary to the Cham habit in earlier times to boast of great victories, such as in 813-817 (inscriptions C19, 37, 31 in Panduranga), 1056 (C95, My Son), and 1080-1081 (C90A, My Son). Secondly, the Chinese reports, which have been given too much faith, are patently wrong in claiming that the Cham required the services of shipwrecked Chinese sailors to guide them upriver to Angkor. After several centuries of close relationships, both amicable and bellicose, neither the Cambodians nor the Cham required external guides into the territories of their neighbours, and this imaginative detail in the Chinese accounts casts doubts on other details in these records which were compiled long afterward by scribes without direct knowledge of the circumstances. Moreover, a famous inscription of Jayavarman VII which recognises a Champa victory (presumably because they had become his associates during his sojourn in Vijaya), and led troops in his campaign to unify the country. Afterwards, still in the service of Jayavarman VII, they returned to Champa to maintain Cambodian authority in Vijaya. The details from the Champa inscriptions imply that Champa, or at least the centre (Vijaya) and the south (Nha Trang and Phan Rang), but perhaps not the Thu Bon area (Amaravati) were subordinate to Cambodia since sometime before 1190, and that the victories of Jayavarman VII, both at home and in Champa, had depended to a large extent on Cham supporters, but that once given authority in their homeland they were unreliable.

27

Ma Touan-Lin, Ethnographie des peoples étrangères à la chinois meridionaux ouvrage compose du XIII siècle de notre ère, parMa Touan-Lin (French translation by le Maquis d’Hervey de Saint Denys, 1883) (English translation by J. St. Julian 2011)

There is then a long break in the epigraphy until in the 1220s, three in Phan Rang (C4/1220, 1227), Nha Trang (C30B4/1226) and My Son (C86/1230, 1234), show quite a different attitude toward Cambodia and its relations with Champa, and refer retrospectively to a 32-year war with Cambodia. The new inscriptions ignore the earlier Champa allies of Jayavarman VII, and say that he conquered the earth in 1190, or came, appointed by Yuvaraja in 1201, then left, and that there was war until 1220 when the Cambodians left Champa. They do not support the interpretation that the Cambodia of Jayavarman VII had secured full domination over Champa. In one of them a King Jaya Paramesvaravarmadeva, enthroned in 1226, claims to have been sole ruler of Champa during that time, thus contradicting the stories inscribed in the 1190s. He was certainly an important ruler, leaving ten inscriptions, six dated between 1220 and 1244, eight of them in Nha Trang and Phan Rang and one each in My Son and Binh Dinh. It is clear that the South of Champa was again growing in importance. Close attention to the evidence in the Champa inscriptions suggests that the traditional academic history of the time needs revision. There is no good evidence of a great Cham conquest of Angkor in 1177, certainly not with the detail supplied by the Chinese. During the time when Cambodia was in turmoil in the 1160s and1170s, there may have been more or less successful raids from Champa, while the future Jayavarman VII was in Vijaya, and, we may assume, was part of the Champa political scene. The evidence suggests further that the real conquest of Angkor was by Jayavarman VII and his Cham allies, probably in the 1170s, at least before 1182, and that the subordination of central and southern Champa to him dated from that time, but was never secure.28 Miriam Stark Jayavarman VII (AD 1181 – 1218) gave the Khmer Empire its last burst of glory. He conquered the Chams, extended Khmer dominion from Thailand into Laos, south throughout much of the Mekong Basin and west to the borders of Burma with the uncompleted city Prasat Muang Singh near Katchanaburi on the Kwae Noi River. For Jayavarman VII, imperial expansion meant monumental construction: great stone temples and their barays, resthouses, hospitals, and raised roadways and stone bridges to link the provinces to the capital. Portions of the road between Angkor and Phimai, which stretched at least 225 kilometres, are visible by remote sensing today; other roads radiated west, east and southeast. Jayavarman VII also made his mark in the capital with the 3 square kilometres’ walled city of Angkore Thom and its dominating Buddhist shrine, the Bayon, and two temple monasteries dedicated to his parents: Ta Prohm (to his mother) and Preah Khan (to his father). He celebrated both Hindu and Buddhist ideologies, and the four-faced towers that epitomise the Bayon are said to reflect the Buddhist incarnation of the Boddhisattva known as Avalokitesvara.29 Anne-Valérie Schweyer: The history of the Chams and the Khmer ran on parallel lines for centuries, separated by a mountainous border, until the lines suddenly converged in the 12th century, in the lifetime o king Jayavarman VII... This Cambodian king, exceptionally, was personally deeply engaged in both cultures. When he took power in Angkor, he provoked a collision of the two cultures, in an apparent attempt to straddle them. Champa formed a major part of Jayavarman’s personal history, and as soon as he secured his position as king in Angkor – using Cham allies in key roles – he turned to fusing Champa with Cambodia within his expanding empire – somewhat as Champa was later absorbed by Vietnam. He showed how close Champa was to his heart when he positioned 57 out of 121 national ‘staging posts’ along the highway between Angkor and Champa. Although the Khmers pulled their army out of Champa as soon as Jayavarman died, the evidence suggests he had intended the territories to remain united forever... We cannot understand Jayavarman VII of Cambodia unless we understand his relations with the Cham. It also raises the question of whether Jayavarman’s drive to bring the Chams into his reinvigorated Khmer world, did not in the end, fatally weaken both cultures, sowing the seeds of Cambodia’s ultimate decline as well as Champa’s eventual disappearance.30

28 29 30

Vickery, M: “Short History of Champa” Champa and the Archaeology of My Son (Vietnam), National University of Singapore, 2009; pp. 53 – 55. Stark, M: “Pre-Angkorian and Angkorian Cambodia” Southeast Asia From prehistory to history, Routledge, Oxford, 2004, pp. 109-110. Schweyer, A.-V.“The Confrontation of the Khmers and the Chams in the Bayon Period” Bayon: New Perspectives, River Books, Bangkok, 2007, p. 52.

Michael D. Coe The famous Chinese curse, ‘may you live in interesting times’, was only too true of the three decades of turmoil and trouble that ensued on the death of Suryavarman II. The next ‘universal monarch’ on the Angkor throne was Yasovarman II, but he may have been an usurper, as was the rebel bureaucrat who assassinated him in 1165. In 1177, the Cham king Jaya Indravarman (himself an usurper to the throne of Champa), taking advantage of the confused situation, decided to invade the Khmer Empire by land and by sea. Guided along the Vietnamese coast by a shipwrecked Chinese sailor, his fleet navigated the difficult Delta waterways and proceeded up the Tonlé Sap River into the Great Lake. After the capital, Yashodharapura (Angkor), had been taken, and its ruler slain, it was thoroughly sacked of its treasures, and many of its wood-built structures burned to the ground. In fact, the unpublished excavations by B.-P. Groslier in the Royal Palace compound found huge, charred, structural timbers buried under later layers.31

31

Coe, M.: Angkor and the Khmer Civilization, Thames and Hudson, London, 2004, p. 122.

Glossary Acarya (Sanskrit)

A spiritual guide or teacher, instructor of religious mysteries.

Anak sanjak (khmer)

Also pronounced neak – the general Khmer word for ‘a human being’. They also appear to have been members of an equivalent ‘praetorian guard’.

Angkor (Khmer, from Sanscrit nagara) ‘town’, or more strictly ‘capital’. Variant: nokor. Apsaras (Sanskrit)

Heavenly nymphs, the wives of the gandhavra (heavenly musicians). Often shown dancing.

Asura (Sanskrit)

A class of demons and the ‘heavenly princes’ (gods) foremost enemies.

Avalokiteshvara (Sanskrit)

‘The Lord who looks down’ - best known of the bodhisattva of Buddha. Variant: Lokeshvara.

Avatar (Sanskrit)

Usually used to refer to one of the various incarnations of a god.

Banteay (Khmer)

Fortress/precinct/enclosure.

Baray (Khmer)

A reservoir made with dikes, rather than being excavated.

Bodhisattva (Sanskrit)

According to Mahayana Buddhism, someone who has attained enlightenment, but has postponed their entry into Nirvana to help others gain enlightenment also.

Brahma (Sanskrit)

The creator god. He was born from a lotus growing out of Vishnu’s navel and is depicted with four faces looking towards the 4 cardinal points. Part of the Hindu Trinity (Trimurti).

Chakravartin (Sanskrit)

Universal monarch – a title used for the kings of Angkor.

Cham

A people who inhabited the coastal regions of southern Vietnam. The arch nemesis of the Khmer during the time of Angkor.

Churning of the Sea of Milk ‘Desiring immortality, the gods churned the Ocean of Milk to generate amrita – the elixir of eternal life. The snake Vasuki was used as a churning device. Vishnu, incarnate as the turtle Kurma, formed the pivot for the churning. – frequently represented in Khmer art. Corvée (French)

Mandatory work required of peasants for a period of time, similar to feudal obligations.

Deva (Sanskrit)

‘Heavenly Princes’ (minor gods).

Devaraja (Sanskrit)

‘King of the gods’ or ‘god who is king’ – Khmer translation: kamraten an ta raja

Dharma (Sanskrit)

The Hindu doctrine of moral duty or ‘good order.’

Dharmasala (Sanskrit)

A shelter for the free use of travellers – still a feature of Khmer villages.

Dhuli jen vrah kamraten an (Khmer) The highest title a Khmer king could bestow (Dhuli jen – literally ‘dust of the feet’) Dvarapala (Sanskrit)

Temple door guardian.

Ganesha (Sanskrit)

Shiva’s son – the elephant headed god. ‘The Lord of Obstacles’ and the god of intelligence.

Garuda (Sanskrit)

A mythical being, half-man, half-bird. The natural enemies of nagas.

Guru (Sanskrit)

‘Master’ or ‘Spiritual Guide’

Hanuman (Sanskrit)

General of the monkey army who fought for Ram in the Ramayana.

Hotar (Sanskrit)

A priest.

Indra (Sanskrit)

The Hindu god of War and tempests.

Kamraten (Khmer)

A high religious title, more exalted than a kamsten.

Kamsten (Khmer)

A religious title.

Khlon (Khmer)

Officials: Khlon Glan – chief of the storehouse; Khlon karya – chief of corvée labour; Khlon visaya – chief of boundaries, land distribution & ownership; Khlon sruk – village administrator.

Khnyum (Khmer)

‘Slave’, especially slaves of the gods when in temple service.

Linga (Sanskrit)

An icon in the shape of a phallus, representing Shiva.

Mahabharata (Sanskrit)

Great Indian epic, primarily concerned with the power struggle between the 5 Pandava brothers and their cousins the Kaurava. Often depicted in Khmer art.

Maharajadhiraja (Sanskrit)‘Supreme King of Kings’ – the title first adopted by King Jayavarman II in AD 802 and used by subsequent Khmer kings. Mahayana (Sanskrit)

‘The Great Path’ – a later development of Buddhism. The Buddha and Bodhisattvas are worshipped with rituals similar to Hinduism. Now dominant in China and Vietnam, but no longer adhered to in Cambodia.

Meru (Sanskrit)

Cosmic mountain of Hindu mythology, home of the gods and the axis of the world. Its summit has 5 peaks. Khmer temples often replicate this with 5 main towers.

Mratan (Khmer)

An official appointed by the king in central and regional administration. Mratan Klon – an official appointed to govern a region. Mratan Kurun – Higher in status to a Mratan Klon.

Naga (Sanskrit)

Mythical serpent-guardians of the underworld. Seen as the origin and protector of Angkor.

Nirvana (Sanskrit)

The state of bliss/enlightenment attained by the Buddha and Arhants (enlightened beings).

Pali

Indian language used in Theravada Buddhist scriptures.

Phnom (Khmer)

Mountain/ hill.

Prasat (Sanskrit)

Shrine, usually topped by a tower.

- pura (Sanskrit)

A suffix meaning ‘town’.

Purohita (Sanskrit)

‘Superintendent’ – the king’s close assistant, the Brahmin priest in charge of royal ritual.

Rajakulamahamantri

A title meaning great advisor.

Rama (Sanskrit)

The 7 and best known avatar of the god Vishnu.

Ramayana (Sanskrit)

Great Indian epic poem. It narrates the adventures of Rama and his spouse Sita, whose kidnapping by the demon Ravana and imprisonment in (Sri) Lanka sparks a ferocious war with Rama and his monkey army commanded by its semi-divine general Hanuman. Often depicted in Khmer art and dance.

Ravana (Sanskrit)

A powerful demon-king, depicted with 6, 8 or 10 heads and 12, 16 or 20 arms.

Sanskrit

Indian language in which all the Hindu scriptures and epics are written. The Khmer used it in preference to their own native language when writing temple inscriptions.

Senapati (Sanskrit)

General

Shiva (Sanskrit)

The Hindu god of Creation and Destruction. Angkor’s most popular Hindu god and part of the Hindu Trinity.

Sruk (Khmer)

A territorial division, possibly the size of a village.

Stela/Stelae (Latin)

A free-standing stone, often with an inscription.

Stupa (Sanskrit)

Buddhist relic shrine in the shape of an upturned begging bowl.

Tamrvac (Khmer)

Centrally appointed agents for the government in the provinces.

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Theravada (Sanskrit)

‘The teaching of the ancients’ Older form of Buddhism, according to Buddha’s original teachings.

Thom (Khmer)

Great, big.

Vahana (Sanskrit)

‘Vehicle’ – term for the animal which a god rides - Shiva & Nandi (bull), Vishnu & Garuda.

Vap (Khmer)

An honorific title meaning father.

-varman (Sanskrit)

‘Protection, breast-plate’ – a suffix for the royal names of almost all the Khmer kings: Jaya-varman means ‘Protected by Victory’ & ‘Indra-varman’ means ‘Protected by (the god) Indra.’

Vishnu (Sanskrit)

Hinduism’s supreme god, but less widely worshipped the Shiva by the Khmer. He is the divine preserver of the earth and the heavens. Through his avatars, he intervenes to restore order when there is chaos. In Khmer art, he is shown with 4 arms, holding a conch shell, discus, orb (representing the earth) and club.

Wat (Khmer, from Pali)

Theravada monastery consisting of the religious buildings and the monks’ cells. Angkor Wat, once dedicated to Vishnu, has since become known as ‘the city which is a (Buddhist) monastery.’

Yuvaraja (Sanskrit)

Crown Prince.