Jayavarman I

Chenla

1. Funanto about 550
2. Chenla6th to 8th century
3. Angkor802 to 1431
4. After Angkor1431 to 1794
5. Modern kingdomfrom 1794

BeforeBhavavarman II639 (Glaize 1944)

This reignJayavarman Ibefore 665 to after 681 (Glaize 1944)

AfterJayavarman IIabout 802 to 850 (Glaize 1944)8th to early 9th century (Chevance et al. 2019)and 1 more reading

All Khmer monarchs

Jayavarman I was a Khmer king of the second half of the 7th century, when Chinese records called the Khmer lands Chenla. Heng Piphal and Paul Lavy date his reign to about 657 to 681. The earliest known stone inscriptions that tie a pre-Angkorian ruler to a palace and a capital city date from his reign and his daughter's.

The northern palace at Wat Phu, where an inscription of his reign was found, 2019.

Historical figure details
Roles	Khmer king
Period	Second half of the 7th century
Country	Chenla (present-day Cambodia and southern Laos)

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Angkor, Shiva, Vishnu, George Coedès, Kampot and 12 more.

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On this page

1. Family and accession
2. Capital
3. Reign
4. Succession
5. References

On this page

1. Family and accession
2. Capital
3. Reign
4. Succession
5. References

Family and accession

He followed King Bhavavarman II on the throne. The historian Michael Vickery wrote that Porée-Maspero, in 1950, and George Coedès, in 1951, had erred on some points, since the line of the 7th-century kings was then only partly understood. In Vickery's account Jayavarman I was not Bhavavarman II's son but a great-grandson of King Isanavarman I through another branch of the family.

The start of his reign is dated differently. Heng and Lavy give about 657. An inscription on the door of a small temple at Houay Kadienne, south of Wat Phu in present-day Laos, records the temple's founding on May 18, 654, in his reign. The French archaeological mission at Wat Phu wrote that this is the oldest known date of the reign, and that it moves the start of the reign three years earlier than had been held before.

Capital

Heng and Lavy write that the capital and the seat of power had moved to the Angkor region by 657, a date they take from an inscription found in Prey Veng. There the king began to issue his edicts from a palace at Purandarapura, a city they connect with the surroundings of the temple of Ak Yum. They infer from these royal edicts that power was becoming more centralized.

The location of his capital in the 660s is disputed. An inscription of 664 from his reign, found near Ba Phnom, says a royal order came from a place called Naravaranagara. Coedès took that place to be his capital and thought it was probably at Angkor Borei. A later reading of the inscription places Naravaranagara near the find site instead, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Ba Phnom.

Reign

Inscriptions of his reign come from a wide area, from the land around Wat Phu in the north to Kampot in the south. An inscription of 674 in Kampot records a foundation for a King Raudravarman, probably Rudravarman of Funan. Vickery saw this respect for a Funan king as a sign of continuity between Funan and Chenla.

The whole area south of Wat Phu seems to have grown on a large scale, above all in his reign. Five small laterite temples stand in the countryside there. Three carry inscriptions, at least two of them from his reign, and they seem to point to a moderately dense farming settlement spread over several small villages. Most of the monuments in the northern group at Sambor Prei Kuk probably date from the first three quarters of the 7th century, the reigns of Isanavarman I, Bhavavarman II and Jayavarman I.

Religious foundations made directly by a 7th-century king are rare in the inscriptions. At Wat Phu, an inscription of his reign known as K. 1059 records the work of an official he appointed, not of the king himself. It is cut on a rock further up the mountain than the main shrine of Shiva, and tells of a man named Jayantakuraja. His father had served Bhavavarman II. Jayavarman I gave him that title, with marks of honor such as a white parasol, and made him governor of Lingapura, a town that presumably lay on or near the mountain. As governor, he set up an altar, perhaps the inscribed rock itself, for the god Vishnu, on a mountain famous as a sacred site of Shiva. A stela from Wat Phu, known as K. 367, is usually attributed to his reign. It declares the mountain a place of sanctuary and seems to forbid the use of palanquins there. Dominic Goodall, who edited K. 1059, asks whether the stela should instead be dated later.

The same official may have founded a shrine in present-day Prey Veng province, recorded in an inscription of 673. Goodall reads its founder as Kuraja, a servant of the king who headed the royal assembly. He installed a form of Shiva called Kedaresvara there and gave it a golden sheath, a crown, land and cattle.

Succession

His daughter Jayadevi reigned from about 681 to after 713. She kept her base in the same area, with a different palace called Kamyarama.

References 4