history of Cambodia

Foundation of the kingdom

In 790 a young Cambodian prince, claiming to be descended from the rulers of Funan, was consecrated in eastern Cambodia under the title Jayavarman II. Part of the ceremony involved breaking ties with “Java,” which probably was a reference not to the island of Java but to the kingdom of Srivijaya on the island of Sumatra. Over the next 10 years, Jayavarman extended his power northward into the Mekong River valley until, in 802, he was reconsecrated as a chakravartin (the ancient Indian conception of world ruler) in northwestern Cambodia. The capital seems to have been located in the Kulén Hills, north of the present-day provincial capital of Siĕmréab, where he died in 835. Despite the high status accorded him by subsequent Angkorean kings, Jayavarman seems to have left no inscriptions of his own, and the monuments that can be dated to his reign were small and hastily built.

Jayavarman’s real accomplishment was less tangible and lasted longer, for he appears to have established what came to be called Kambuja-desa, a confident, self-aware kingdom that superseded and came to control a range of smaller states. He was Cambodia’s first nationally oriented king. It is not known whether smaller states were forced into submission or joined of their own volition. Despite the grandeur of the Angkorean temples that were built over the next four centuries, Jayavarman’s successors were often powerless or constrained by opposing forces. Revolts and usurpations were frequent, as were foreign invasions. Rulers were the object of rival claims by family members, priests, generals, and bureaucrats. Some kings, especially usurpers, had more freedom of action than others. Those who ruled in periods of peace were also in a better position to undertake building programs and public works. Like their counterparts in medieval Europe, Cambodian kings were far removed from ordinary people. The king was perceived primarily in religious terms, and he ensured the fertility of the soil and the well-being of the kingdom through the rituals he performed. In exchange for his protection, the people were subject to intermittent military service and corvée duty and were also called on to provide labour without payment for Buddhist and Hindu religious foundations and for local elites.

Toward the end of the 9th century, soon after Jayavarman’s death, the Cambodian capital shifted to the northern shores of the Tonle Sap, near present-day Phumĭ Rôluŏs. A king named Indravarman I (ruled 877–c. 890) constructed a large reservoir and several temples there, including a pyramidical structure called the Bakong—the first Cambodian temple to be built primarily of stone rather than brick. The so-called “temple mountain” became the model for the many larger royal temples at Angkor that served as monuments to the greatness of their patrons and, subsequently, as their tombs.

Angkorean civilization

Indravarman’s son and successor, Yaśovarman I (ruled c. 890–c. 910), moved the capital again, now closer to Siĕmréab, to a location that subsequently became Angkor—a name derived from the Sanskrit word nagara, meaning “city”—which has become one of the world’s most-celebrated archaeological sites (and a UNESCO World Heritage site), as well as the popular name for Cambodia’s medieval civilization. The city that Yaśovarman founded, Yaśodharapura, retained that name and remained Cambodia’s capital until it was abandoned in the 16th century. His temple mountain, now called Bakheng (literally “Mighty Ancestor”), was built on a natural hill that overlooked a teeming city, the more-distant rice-growing plain, and the Tonle Sap. The mountain occupied the centre of the city, just as Mount Meru, the mythical home in India of the Hindu gods, was said to stand at the centre of the universe. Yaśovarman built a large reservoir nearby. The city wall of Yaśodharapura measured 2.5 miles (4 km) on each side. For such an ambitious building program, the king needed to command a large labour pool. Other evidence suggests that his reign was characterized by tolerance toward a variety of Buddhist and Hindu sects that occasionally blended into local cults honouring ancestral spirits and spirits of the soil. Indeed, for all the apparent absolutism of its kings, a consistent feature of Angkorean civilization unmatched in medieval Europe was religious toleration.

After several decades of warfare, dislocations, and disorder—Yaśodharapura itself was abandoned for nearly 30 years—Rajendravarman II (ruled 944–968) restored the capital and set in motion a period of peace and prosperity that lasted nearly a century. During the reign of his successor, Jayavarman V (968–c. 1000), the rose-coloured sandstone shrine of Banteai Srei—arguably the loveliest temple at Angkor—was built on the outskirts of the capital under the patronage of a wealthy priestly family, one of whose members had been Jayavarman’s teacher. In Yaśodharapura itself, Jayavarman began work on the imposing temple mountain now called Ta Keo, which was completed under his successor, Suryavarman I (ruled c. 1004–c. 1050). Suryavarman, an innovative and demanding monarch, was a usurper with links to princely families in what is now northeastern Thailand. His rise to power involved the subjugation of many areas that had become semi-independent under his predecessors, and his reign resembled that of Jayavarman II two centuries earlier. Suryavarman extended the Khmer empire westward into present-day Thailand, where he constructed the large mountaintop temple known as Preah Vihear. During his reign the number of cities ruled from Yaśodharapura grew from roughly 20 to nearly 50, and foreign trade increased, along with tighter central bureaucratic control. His successor consolidated those gains, put down a dangerous rebellion, and was responsible for the temple mountain known today as the Baphuon.

The closing years of the 11th century were ones of turmoil and fragmentation. At different times, two and even three “absolute monarchs” contended simultaneously for the title of chakravartin. At the end of the century, however, a new dynasty—which was to last for more than a century—began to rule at Angkor. Its most powerful monarch took the name of Suryavarman II (ruled 1113–c. 1150), although he probably was not descended from the earlier king of that name. Like his namesake predecessor, Suryavarman II was a formidable military campaigner. He avenged earlier attacks on Angkor by armies launched from the kingdom of Champa, in what is now south-central Vietnam, and led expeditions into northern and southern Thailand. A campaign against Vietnam, which had recently declared its independence from China, was less successful.

Suryavarman’s major accomplishment, from a modern perspective, was the Angkor Wat temple complex, still the largest religious structure in the world and one of the most beautiful. The temple, which eventually became his tomb and probably was an astronomical observatory as well, was dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu. Its bas-reliefs, running for nearly a half mile inside its third enclosure, depict events in the well-known Indian epics Mahabharata and Ramayana—confirming that those texts were widely known at Angkor—as well as Suryavarman himself holding court. The elegance of the carvings, the hundreds of graceful statues of angelic dancers (apsaras) that adorn the temple, and its reflection in the moats that surround it continue to give Angkor Wat an awe-inspiring air; in the 12th century, when its towers were gilded and its moats properly maintained, it must have been even more breathtaking.

Jayavarman VII

Suryavarman II’s successor, Yaśovarman II (ruled 1160–66), also reached into earlier history for his royal name, tracing his lineage to the Rôluŏs period of the late 9th century. During his reign several temples begun under Suryavarman were completed. Yaśovarman was overthrown by one of his officials after returning from a military campaign in Thailand. In the aftermath of the coup, a Cambodian prince, later to rule under the name of Jayavarman VII (1181–c. 1220), hurried home from Champa—it is uncertain from his inscriptions why he was there—to vie for the Cambodian throne. He arrived too late, and for the next 10 years he bided his time as the usurper lost control and Angkor was invaded and occupied by the Chams. In 1177, heading an army of his own, the prince attacked Angkor and defeated the Cham forces. The battles are vividly depicted in the bas-reliefs of his temple mountain, the Bayon. To forestall further Cham attacks, Jayavarman annexed the Cham capital, and Angkor controlled Champa until Jayavarman’s death.

When his campaign against the Chams was over, the future monarch worked to bring Cambodia under his control. An inscription referred to the kingdom he encountered as being “shaded by many parasols,” a metaphor for a multiplicity of rulers. In 1191, presumably when the process was complete, Jayavarman finally settled in Angkor. He soon embarked on a program of building and public works that was more extensive and grandiose than any in Angkorean history. According to his inscriptions, hundreds of thousands of people were involved in those projects.

Numerous temples, statues, stone bridges, and inscriptions in the Angkor region and elsewhere in Cambodia testify to the vigour of Jayavarman VII’s long reign. He rebuilt and refortified the city. He was a fervent Buddhist of the Mahayana school; several larger-than-life-size statues of the monarch depict him in meditation. Like most other Cambodian kings, however, he also tolerated and patronized Hinduism and local ancestor cults. His extraordinary temple, the Bayon, with its multiple towers, each bearing faces of divinities turned in the cardinal directions, is perhaps the most intriguing of the monuments at Angkor. Like Yaśovarman I’s Bakheng, the Bayon stood at the centre of the royal city—which had shifted since Yaśovarman’s time—and symbolized Mount Meru. Many Hindu gods and the Buddha are depicted in the statuary of the temple, while the bas-reliefs depict scenes of ordinary life, providing a picture of 12th-century Cambodians at work, rest, and play that fails to emerge from the religiously oriented inscriptions or from carvings at other temples. The clothing, tools, houses, and oxcarts in the bas-reliefs closely resemble those found in the Cambodian countryside today.

The decline of Angkor

After Jayavarman VII’s death (about 1220), few stone monuments were erected at Angkor, and only a few inscriptions were incised. Little by little, the Khmer empire began to contract. Jayavarman’s campaigns neutralized Champa as a threat to Angkor, but, by the early 13th century, vigorous new kingdoms in what is now northern Thailand—centring on the city of Sukhothai—became powerful enough to throw off Angkorean domination, as did some Tai principalities in the south. In the mid-13th century, Tai armies even raided Angkor. For the next 200 years, however, Angkor remained a glittering, crowded, and wealthy city. It impressed a Chinese visitor, Zhou Daguan, who arrived there with a diplomatic mission in 1296. Zhou’s account is the longest and most-detailed extant description of the Khmer capital, supplementing the bas-reliefs of the Bayon. He left a picture of a bustling city in which the king still went forth in great pomp and ceremony.

Zhou also saw monks of the Theravada school of Buddhism at Angkor. The more-orthodox and austere school flourished in kingdoms to the west of Cambodia and contrasted sharply with the lavish and elitist rituals associated with Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism. When Zhou visited Angkor, Theravada Buddhism was still one religion among many. Soon afterward, however, it began to benefit from royal patronage, and the conversion of the majority of the population probably followed the conversion of members of the elite. Those disadvantaged by the change included the high-ranking Hindu and Mahayana priestly families who had built and maintained the temples at Angkor.

Some historians believe that the mass conversion to Theravada Buddhism—by undermining the Hindu and Mahayana Buddhist institutions underpinning the state and by encouraging through its doctrines a more-individualistic attitude among believers—contributed to the decline and gradual abandonment of Angkor, which certainly accompanied the conversion in the 14th and 15th centuries. That view, however, has been challenged by those who, doubting that Theravada Buddhism by itself could have had such a disintegrating influence, note that Thailand, even though it followed Theravada Buddhism, remained united and vigorous enough to conduct repeated military attacks on Angkor and carry away hundreds and perhaps thousands of Cambodians into captivity in Thailand. According to that opposing view, those Tai military campaigns offer a more credible explanation for the collapse of Angkor than does an interpretation identifying Theravada Buddhism as the primary cause. Yet a third explanation that has been proposed as for why Angkor declined is based on archaeological work on the site done in the late 20th and early 21st centuries that found evidence that serious environmental degradation may have undermined the region’s vital irrigation system.

Recorded Tai attacks on Angkor occurred in 1369, 1389, and 1431, and there undoubtedly were other attacks as well. In 1351 a Tai kingdom whose court modeled itself culturally on Angkor was founded at Ayutthaya (Ayudhya, or Siam), not far from present-day Bangkok. The Tai capital remained at Ayutthaya for the next 400 years. It is likely that a transfusion of elite culture from Angkor to the more-prosperous, more-secure Tai court began sometime in the mid-14th century. Many of the Khmer who remained at Angkor were probably drawn southward to the vicinity of Phnom Penh (which is thought to have been founded in the mid-15th century) by the region’s commercial possibilities. In any case, the smaller, outward-looking Khmer kingdom that had replaced Angkor in the south by the 16th century earned its wealth primarily from trade rather than from intensive rice cultivation and the mobilization of labour for public works.