Angkor - Day 1: A Brief History

This entry provides only a rough synopsis of Khmer history, to give the other entries a bit of perspective. There are numerous on-line resources which cover this topic much more thoroughly.

The early Khmers were heavily influenced by trade with India, beginning around 1st century AD and adopted many things, Hindu Mythology and Sanskrit among them (but not the caste system). From around the 1st to 8th centuries AD, the region of Cambodia was likely a series of small kingdoms, each with shifting alliances to the others.

Jayavarman II was the founder of the Khmer empire, unifying Cambodia's competing kingdoms at the time. He also established himself as a god-king, a title claimed by all subsequent Angkor rulers. One of his successors, Indravarman I, was responsible for building a 6.5 square km (!!) baray (reservoir) that was probably instrumental in helping the empire to flourish, providing the first stage of an extensive irrigation system. The empire went through a number of ups and downs with a succession of kings, some better at helping the empire to flourish than others. In the course of one of the battles with their enemies, the Chams, the incumbent king was killed, and one of the cousins led the Khmers to victory over the Chams. This cousin was subsequently crowned as Jayavarman VII, and became Angkor's most prolific temple builder. He presided over Angkor at the apex of their architectural achievements.

All the older temples are dedicated to the Hindu gods Vishnu and Shiva. Brahma, for whatever reason, was not given equal veneration by the Khmers.. Under the rule of JV7, however, who converted to Mahayana Buddhism, all temples built by him were primarily Buddhist, but still had numerous Hindu themes, since he did not want to alienate the Hindu population. A number of the existing Hindu temples were renovated with Buddhist themes and architecture.

Following JV7's reign, however, the empire went into decline. Reasons cited include an overworked irrigation system, excessive deforestation, an population exhausted by JV7s unparallelled construction spree, as well as subsequent rulers losing control of the peripheries of the empire. Evenually the Thais grew stronger and made repeated attacks against Angkor, finally sacking the city in 1431. Following this, the Khmer empire gradually shifted eastwards to the Phnom Penh area.