The Rise of the Khmer

To study Khmer arts and their influence, it is first necessary to know who are the Cambodians, where they lived originally, how they came to hold sway in this part of the world, and who were the peoples enslaved by them. Old Cambodians, or Khmers, acted as forerunners of Western colonizing powers, and when they lost the territory once they conquered, their ruler now began to fear whether the people whom they once continually harassed, would not now harass them in turn, since they have become more powerful, and also to moan the loss of her past glory.

The original Khmers, the ancestors of the modern Cambodians lived around the Great Lake at the early period of the Christian Era. The region must have been rich and prosperous for it enticed the Indians to come and find a fortune in this land of gold, known as “Suvarnabhumi” in Sanskrit. According to legend in the fifth century a Brahmin, called Kaundinya, came to this land. He married a local princess, Soma, the daughter of a local chieftain who worshiped a Naga (Snake god). This Naga was the sacred symbol of the indigenous population, and the daily re-enactment of this mystic union between the king and a Naga princess was still an essential part of the court ceremony at Angkor over thousand years later. He taught her Indian civilization and belief. Thus Kaundinya and
his successors built the country into a strong Indianized State, known as Funan. It seems that the Descendents of this union followed a religion mixing elements of both Brahmanism and Animism, and were commonly known as Adhiraja “King of the Mountain”. They had gained this title because the king was thought to have a direct link with the god Shiva, who continuously manifested himself through a stone alter placed on a mountain top at the kingdom’s center. The very name Funan is a direct Chinese transliteration of the ancient Khmer word “Bnam” meaning mountain.

Funan had several states owing allegiance to the supreme king. Towards the fifth century, two states in the north of Funan were united and formed themselves into the State of Chenla around the middle of the Mekhong River, in the region of Champasak at Wat Phu. The country then came under the domination of Champa at the end of the fifth century. In the second half of the sixth century, the king of Chenla Bhavavarman, who established his capital to the north of the Great Lake, annexed both Funan and Chenla together and subjugated other feudatory states of Funan. He extended his country right up to Dongrek and what was later to become the Khmer Empire and replaced Funan.

There was no Thailand then but a country which the 21 Chinese called Tche-Tou, in what was to be Thailand in the Menam Valley. The town of Phimai (near Korat) was mentioned for the first time under King Isanavarman (610) under the ancient name of Bhimapura.

After the death of Jayavarman I in 667 Chenla was split up into two kingdoms: the Water-Chenla and the Land-Chenla. Water-Chenla was in the region now called Cochin-China, and Land-Chenla would correspond to the modern region of Cambodia up to Dongrek. Then in 802 a prince who had fled to Java came back and reunited both Chenlas into a united Khmer kingdom, and settled his capital at Indrapura. He was known as Jayavarman II (802–869).

Thus Kingdom of Angkor was founded by Jayavarman II, a prince from water Chenla who had spent his youth as a hostage in Java. He returned to Cambodia in about 800 A.D. He met the Brahman Sivakaivalya, who was to become his life-long spiritual mentor. In about 802 A.D. he married Dharanindradevi and declared himself a king and promptly initiated the reunification of his fragmented nation. He founded and moved his capital city three times, Hariharalaya, Amarendrapura Mahendraparvata, and at last, he moved his capital back to Hariharalaya. He threw off the overlordship of Java. However, in order to do this, he not only had to conquer back the kingdom, but also restore the cult of “Mountain king” to Cambodia by performing the necessary ceremony needed to link the king with the god Shiva and had the newly consecrated linga placed a top the “Bakong” pyramid located in the city center.

Under king Yasovarman (889–908) Angkor-Thom was built and he called his capital, not Angkor-Thom, but Indrapat. He built temples known as Phimeanakas, Loley , and Bapuon. He fought with Champa, took their capital and put a general of his choice on the throne, but a Cham uprising along the frontier forced him to retreat to his country.

The Khmer kingdom expanded eastward and westward: eastward and southward at the expense of Champa2 until this latter country was overrun by Cambodia. Leclere3 said that the Cambodians fought against the Chams and pillaged them in 969, 1145 and 1153. In 1145 king Suryavarman II took Vijaya, the capital of Champa, and annexed the country, but in 1158 the Chams revolted and became independent. The Chams were subjugated again in 1190 by Jayavarman VII and a Cambodians put on the throne until 1120. The Cambodians then withdrew from Champa because all their forces were after this required to fight against the Thai in the West, who were rising up against their sovereign in order to gain independence. It was at this time that the Chinese embassy to Cambodia reported that the Cambodian country was much devastated by the wars with the Thai (1296).4 This referred to the campaigns of Rama Kamhaeng of Sukhotai.

The Khmer Empire also expanded westward at the expense of the Mons of Davaravati and then at the expense also of the Thai who had come into the basins of the Menam and Mekhong Rivers in great numbers around the thirteenth century at the fall of Nanchao in Yunnan in 1253.
Thus the Khmer Empire became bigger and bigger at the expense of her neighbors through a succession of Khmer warrior kings. Her beautiful capital of Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, and many other archaeological sites were built on the forced labor and sweat of her sons and people she had enslaved. Angkor was first started by Yasovarman who died in 900 A.D.

King Suriyavarman, who died in 1050, extended the country towards Luang Prabang, Sukhotai, Sawankaloke (Sri Sachanalai) and Lavo (Lopburi). The Mons at this time must have been very weak and therefore fell an easy prey to the Khmers, who always seized chances to annex a defenseless country — as will be seen later that this has always been her tactics during the Ayudhya period of Thai history. Burma under King Anoratha (or Anuradha) at Pagan had become powerful, had taken the Mon capital of Pegu at this time, and annexed the whole country right down to the coast of Martaban. It was also said according to Thai legends that Anoratha even led his victorious army down to the Menam basin. King Anoratha’s empire and that of the Khmers must have touched each other and even overlapped in the Menam basin. At the farthest extent, the Khmers reached Muang Singh in the north, right up to the confines of China, and left ruins of Saifong at Vientiane, Phimai at Korat, and Preah Vihear in Dongrek mountains, as vestiges of the extent of her empire in those hey-days. Preah Vihear and Phimai were built by Jayavarman VI around 1080, although the town of Phimai was already mentioned in 610 in the reign of King Isanavarman as part of his Chenla territory. The Khmers also claimed to have extended their empire towards the whole of the Malay Peninsula. Khmer history recorded that Suryavarman I (1002–1049) made peace with Champa in order to fight the Kingdoms of Louvo and of the Menam valley, without having to face wars on two fronts.

Under the reign of King Jayavarman VIII (1162– 1201), it was mentioned that king Rajendravarman was a governor of Nakorn Rajsima at the time when the Thai were rising up to obtain their liberty. It was also mentioned that the extent of the Khmer empire at this time reached beyond Sukhotai. In the reign of Jayavarmadiparamesvara, in the first half of the thirteenth century, at the decline of Khmer power, it was still mentioned that her territory extended from Champa to Attopeu and beyond, to the gulf of Thailand and to the mountains on the west of the Salween, to the Chinese frontier in the north beyond Luang Prabang, and to the cape of Karman in the south. It was a vast territory of some one million square kilometers with about 20 tributary states.