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Khmer Empire (Angkor)

For six centuries the kings of Angkor ruled the largest Hindu kingdom outside Bharat and built Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument on earth. Their temples are Mount Meru in stone, set in a city of reservoirs.

  1. Jayavarman II802–835
  2. Indravarman I877–889
  3. Yashovarman I889–c. 910
  4. Jayavarman IV928–941
  5. Rajendravarman II944–968
  6. Jayavarman V968–1001
  7. Suryavarman I1006–1050
  8. +4
Period: 802–1431 CERegion: Cambodia, with much of Thailand, Laos and southern Vietnam at its heightCapitals: Hariharalaya (Roluos), Yashodharapura (Angkor), Koh Ker (Lingapura)
Photo: Engraved by Hildibrand; E. Therond · Public domain

01The rite on Mahendraparvata

In 802 Jayavarman II climbed Phnom Kulen, which the Khmers called Mahendraparvata, and had a Brahmin named Hiranyadama perform a rite that made him chakravartin, so that Kambujadesha would no longer be subject to Java. The Sdok Kok Thom inscription of 1052 tells this, and it tells how the family of the priest Shivakaivalya kept the cult of the kamraten jagat ta raja, the god who is king, for 250 years. Every Angkor king after him dated his line from that day.

02Temple-mountains and barays

Indravarman I consecrated Preah Ko in 879 and the Bakong, the first great temple-mountain, in 881, and dug the Indratataka reservoir. His son Yashovarman I moved the capital to Yashodharapura, raised the Phnom Bakheng on a hill at its centre, and cut the East Baray, 7 km long. Each king who followed added a mountain of his own. In 967 the guru Yajnavaraha consecrated Banteay Srei, a small Shiva temple in pink sandstone carved as finely as sandalwood. Along the Dangrek scarp, Preah Vihear was enlarged under Suryavarman I.

Wat Phou (Vat Phou)
Place · Sacred site by the 5th century CE; present sanctuary mostly 11th century, KhmerWat Phou (Vat Phou)A Khmer Shiva temple climbing the slope of a mountain whose summit looks like a linga, which the inscriptions call Lingaparvata. A spring at the top once poured its water over the linga in the sanctuary.Read →

03Suryavarman II and Angkor Wat

Suryavarman II came to the throne in 1113 and built Angkor Wat for Vishnu. It faces west, its moat is 190 metres wide, and its galleries carry nearly a kilometre of reliefs: the Samudra Manthan with devas and asuras pulling Vasuki, the battle of Kurukshetra, the battle of Lanka, and the king himself holding court. His posthumous name was Paramavishnuloka, he who has gone to the world of Vishnu.

04Jayavarman VII and after

In 1177 a Cham fleet sacked Angkor. Jayavarman VII drove the Chams out, took the throne in 1181 and built Angkor Thom with the Bayon at its centre, its towers carrying great serene faces. He was a Mahayana Buddhist, and his temples Ta Prohm (1186) and Preah Khan (1191) were dedicated to his mother and father as Prajnaparamita and Lokeshvara. His Preah Khan inscription lists 102 hospitals across the kingdom. Jayavarman VIII brought back Shaiva worship in the later 13th century. The Chinese envoy Zhou Daguan lived at Angkor in 1296–97 and left the only eyewitness account. Siamese armies from Ayutthaya took the city in 1431, and the court moved south towards Phnom Penh.

Phnom Bakheng (Yashodharagiri)
Place · c. 900 CE, King Yashovarman I (r. 889–910)Phnom Bakheng (Yashodharagiri)The state temple of Yashovarman I on the one natural hill of the Angkor plain, the centre of his new capital Yashodharapura and more than two centuries older than Angkor Wat. A stepped Meru of five terraces carried 108 small towers around a central shrine of Shiva.Read →

The rulers

  1. 1Jayavarman IIProclaimed chakravartin on Mahendraparvata802–835
  2. 2Indravarman IPreah Ko (879) and Bakong (881)877–889
  3. 3Yashovarman IFounded Yashodharapura; East Baray889–c. 910
  4. 4Jayavarman IVRuled from Koh Ker928–941
  5. 5Rajendravarman IIReturned the court to Angkor944–968
  6. 6Jayavarman V968–1001
  7. 7Suryavarman IEnlarged Preah Vihear; West Baray begun1006–1050
  8. 8Udayadityavarman IIBuilt the Baphuon1050–1066
  9. 9Suryavarman IIBuilt Angkor Wat for Vishnu1113–c. 1150
  10. 10Jayavarman VIIAngkor Thom, the Bayon, 102 hospitals1181–c. 1218
  11. 11Jayavarman VIIIShaiva revival1243–1295

What they left

  • Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument in the world
  • Over 1,200 Sanskrit and Khmer inscriptions
  • Banteay Srei, Preah Vihear, the Bayon and Wat Phou
  • The Reamker, the Khmer Ramayana, still danced today
  • The barays and canals that fed the city of Angkor

Places

Wat Phou (Vat Phou)Ruined
The Gupta Age

Wat Phou (Vat Phou)

A Khmer Shiva temple climbing the slope of a mountain whose summit looks like a linga, which the inscriptions call Lingaparvata. A spring at the top once poured its water over the linga in the sanctuary.

Bakong, Roluos (Hariharalaya)Standing
The Age of Great Kingdoms

Bakong, Roluos (Hariharalaya)

The first great sandstone temple mountain of the Khmer, raised by Indravarman I at his capital Hariharalaya and consecrated in 881. Every later temple mountain of Angkor, up to Angkor Wat itself, grows from this five-tiered pyramid.

Phnom Bakheng (Yashodharagiri)Ruined
The Age of Great Kingdoms

Phnom Bakheng (Yashodharagiri)

The state temple of Yashovarman I on the one natural hill of the Angkor plain, the centre of his new capital Yashodharapura and more than two centuries older than Angkor Wat. A stepped Meru of five terraces carried 108 small towers around a central shrine of Shiva.

Koh Ker (Lingapura) and Prasat ThomRuined
The Age of Great Kingdoms

Koh Ker (Lingapura) and Prasat Thom

For sixteen years the capital of the Khmer empire, a city of lingas the inscriptions call Lingapura, with a seven-tiered pyramid 36 metres high at its heart. Its sculptures were looted for decades; some have come home, and the site became a World Heritage Site in 2023.

Pre Rup, AngkorRuined
The Age of Great Kingdoms

Pre Rup, Angkor

The state temple of Rajendravarman II, who brought the Khmer court back to Angkor from Koh Ker. A pyramid of brick and laterite that glows red at sunrise, it was dedicated to Shiva in 961 or 962.

Banteay SreiStanding
The Age of Great Kingdoms

Banteay Srei

A small Shiva temple of pink sandstone, carved so finely that it is called the jewel of Khmer art. It was built not by a king but by a royal guru.

Preah Vihear (Shikhareshvara)Ruined
Cholas and the Southern Seas

Preah Vihear (Shikhareshvara)

A Shiva temple strung along a cliff of the Dangrek mountains, ending at a drop of more than 500 metres over the Cambodian plain. Cambodia and Thailand have argued over it for a century.

Baphuon, Angkor ThomRebuilt
Cholas and the Southern Seas

Baphuon, Angkor Thom

A three-tiered temple mountain of Shiva, the ‘mountain of gold’ of the Khmer inscriptions, beside the royal palace of Angkor. Taken apart stone by stone by French archaeologists in the 1960s, it was left as 300,000 unnumbered blocks by the war and put back together only in 2011.

Prasat Phanom RungStanding
Cholas and the Southern Seas

Prasat Phanom Rung

A Khmer temple of Shiva on the rim of an extinct volcano in north-east Thailand, built as Kailasa on earth, with a processional way of naga bridges climbing to it. Its famous lintel of Vishnu asleep on Ananta was stolen in the 1960s and came home from Chicago in 1988.

Angkor WatStanding
Cholas and the Southern Seas

Angkor Wat

The largest Hindu temple ever raised, built by the Khmer king Suryavarman II for Bhagwan Vishnu. Its five towers stand for Meru, and they are on the flag of Cambodia.

Bayon, Angkor ThomStanding
Cholas and the Southern Seas

Bayon, Angkor Thom

The state temple at the centre of Angkor Thom, built by Jayavarman VII as a Mahayana Buddhist shrine. It is in a Hindu history because the Khmer world around it was Hindu, and because a later king turned it back to Shiva and Vishnu.

Evidence

Sdok Kak Thom inscriptionInscription
1052 CE (Shaka 974)

Sdok Kak Thom inscription

A long Sanskrit and Khmer stele recording 250 years of a priestly family that served the Devaraja of the Khmer kings.

On the timeline

  • 802 CE

    Jayavarman II proclaimed chakravartinPolity

    On the Kulen hills a Brahmin performed the devaraja rite for Jayavarman II and declared the Khmer land free of Java. The Sdok Kak Thom inscription of 1052 tells the account.

  • c. 889–900 CE

    Yashovarman builds YashodharapuraPolity

    Yashovarman I moved the Khmer capital to Angkor and set its centre on the hill of Phnom Bakheng, with a great reservoir, the East Baray, beside it.