History
Hinduism in Cambodia
Hinduism in Cambodia was, with Mahayana Buddhism, the religion of the Khmer kings from the first kingdoms of the lower Mekong to Angkor.[1][2] Its gods, above all Shiva and Vishnu, were worshipped in the brick and stone temples of the Khmer kingdoms, and Angkor Wat was dedicated to Vishnu.[1][3] From the 13th century Theravada Buddhism took its place as the faith of the people. A small group of Brahman priests serves at the royal court.[2][4]
Arrival
A Chinese envoy, Kang Tai, visited Funan in the middle of the 3rd century. His account tells of an Indian Brahman, Hun Tien, who came to the kingdom around the year 50 and founded its royal line. A Cham inscription of 658 at Mỹ Sơn gives him the Indian name Kaundinya, and Cambodian tradition knows him as Preah Thong (ព្រះថោង).[5]
Local records begin with Sanskrit inscriptions from the end of the 5th century. They show local rulers with Sanskrit names, such as Jayavarman, founding temples to Hindu gods.[1] In the Chenla period, rulers built single-chambered brick temples to Hindu gods, and inscriptions in Sanskrit and Old Khmer describe their kingdoms.[1] The archaeologist Charles Higham found no trace of an Indian community in these lands and concluded that local people chose the Indian traits that served their own ends.[1] The Old Khmer texts show that the temples also housed ancestral and local deities, often female, called kpon.[1]
Shiva, Vishnu and Harihara
Shiva was the chief god of the early kings. At Sambor Prei Kuk, the capital of Isanavarman I in the 7th century, the main god of the northern group of temples was a form of Shiva.[6] The later centers of Mahendraparvata, on Phnom Kulen, and Hariharalaya are also tied to Shiva and to forms of devotion to him.[6]
Vishnu was also widely worshipped. Images of a four-armed Vishnu with a tall mitre are found across early Southeast Asia.[7] In the 7th century Khmer rulers took up Harihara, a god who is half Shiva and half Vishnu. The art historian Paul Lavy reads Harihara as a statement of political and religious unity at a time when rulers were bringing smaller states together. At least ten images of Harihara survive from before Angkor, against only two from the whole Angkorian period.[7]
The royal cult at Angkor
In 802 a Brahman performed a rite on Phnom Kulen for Jayavarman II, an event that marks the start of the Angkorian period.[6] The royal cult connected with it is known by the Sanskrit name devaraja. Its Khmer name was kamraten jagat ta raja, and the historian Michael Vickery held that the institution belonged to old Khmer culture.[8] The idea of the god-king grew at Angkor and much later shaped government at Ayutthaya.[9]
Each king built a state temple. Rajendravarman built Pre Rup and the East Mebon in the 10th century. Each housed a central shrine with a state linga, a stone emblem of Shiva bearing the king's name, and smaller shrines to honor the king's ancestors.[1] Suryavarman II built Angkor Wat in the first half of the 12th century. Its central gallery was dedicated to Vishnu as the supreme god.[3]
Decline
From the 13th century Theravada Buddhism spread through society at Angkor. Wooden prayer halls replaced the long tradition of building stone temples to Hindu gods and Mahayana Buddhism.[2] As people turned to Theravada Buddhism in the 13th and 14th centuries, the Brahman priests who had served the temples lost their following, and their numbers fell.[3]
Hindu stories lived on in Khmer form. The Ramayana reached Cambodia around the 2nd century, and the Khmer version, the Reamker, is part of the country's literature and theater.[10] The idea of the god-king stayed central to government in Cambodia and Thailand until the early 20th century.[9]
Brahmans at the royal court
A small group of Brahman priests, the Bakou Borahet, serves the king. They wear white, black and red and do not cut their hair. They perform a ceremony each month and others through the year, among them the Royal Ploughing Ceremony, a rite near Khmer New Year and one at Pchum Ben.[4] At these rites they blow conch shells.[11] Unlike Buddhist monks, they may marry. The office passes from father to son.[4]
The priests lost their place at court after 1970, and their books were lost under the Khmer Rouge. In the early 1990s Norodom Sihanouk had them sought out and brought back to the palace.[4][11] Their leader in 2005, Kang Ken, described their practice as one that draws on both Buddhist and Hindu traditions.[4]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Proceedings of the British Academy, Charles F. W. Higham, The Origins of the Civilisation of Angkor (2003)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Yale MacMillan Center, Council on Southeast Asia Studies, Introduction of Theravada Buddhism to Angkor, Cambodia (c. 13th to 16th centuries) (talk abstract, October 13, 2021)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 University of Chicago, Digital South Asia Library (Huntington Archive), Angkor Wat, 1113-1150: The Role of Astronomy at Angkor Wat (undated)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 The Cambodia Daily, Samantha Melamed, Priests Uphold a Unique—and Royal—Tradition (October 31, 2005)
- ↑ Radio Free Asia Khmer, Chun Chanboth, History of the Khmer in the time of the kingdom of Phnom, part 3 (February 5, 2014; in Khmer)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Asian Civilisations Museum, Piphal Heng and Paul Lavy, Pre-Angkorian cities: Ishanapura and Mahendraparvata, in Angkor: Exploring Cambodia's Sacred City (2018)
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 34 (1), Paul A. Lavy, As in Heaven, So on Earth: The Politics of Viṣṇu, Śiva and Harihara Images in Preangkorian Khmer Civilisation (February 2003)
- ↑ Angkor Database, Michael Vickery, The Reign of Suryavarman I and Royal Factionalism at Angkor (undated)
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Temple Zone of Sambor Prei Kuk, Archaeological Site of Ancient Ishanapura (undated)
- ↑ Memory of the World Committee for Asia and the Pacific, The Reamker by Takrut (November 4, 2014)
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 The Cambodia Daily, Samnang Ham, Brahman Priest Who Served King Dies at 87 (April 3, 2002)
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