Historical figure
Jayavarman IX
Jayavarman IX, named in the studies cited here as Jayavarma Paramesvara, was a king of the Khmer Empire who came to the throne at Angkor in 1327.[1][2] He was a worshipper of Shiva, and he is the last king known to have left an inscription at Angkor before the return of Ang Chan in the middle of the 16th century.[2][3] Two studies have put him forward as the king behind the attack on Jayavarman VII's Buddha images.[2][3]
Name and reign
Maurice Glaize's list of kings gives him as Jayavarmaparameçvara, the successor of Srindrajayavarman, who reigned from 1307 to 1327. The list gives 1327 as the start of his reign and no end date.[1] Peter Sharrock wrote the name as Jayavarma Paramesvara,[2] and Martin Polkinghorne and his co-authors as Jayavarman Paramesvara.[3] None of the sources cited here gives the year his reign ended or names his successor.[1][2][3]
Inscriptions
In 1327, his first year on the throne, he set up a linga, the emblem of Shiva, in the Bayon. The inscription K.470 records it.[2][3] Sharrock noted that several lingas stand in sanctuaries of the Bayon today, but that K.470 is the only surviving inscription to mention one.[2] A second inscription of his, K.300 at Kapilapura, also shows his worship of Shiva.[3]
The defaced Buddha images
Jayavarman VII had made the Bayon the central temple of his Buddhist state. After his time, Buddha images in the Bayon were reworked into lingas, and thousands of Buddha figures were chiseled off his other temples.[2] This has often been laid to the reign of Jayavarman VIII.[2][3] Polkinghorne, Christophe Pottier and Christian Fischer named Jayavarman Paramesvara as another candidate.[3]
Sharrock went further. For him, placing a linga in the Bayon at the very start of a reign was a religious and political act of real weight. He asked whether the king turned the whole Bayon over to the rites of Shiva and then ordered the defacing of Jayavarman VII's other temples. Sharrock wrote that these questions cannot be answered with confidence, but that on the little evidence there is, no candidate is stronger.[2]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Angkor Database, Maurice Glaize, The Monuments of the Angkor Group (1944; English translation of the fourth French edition)
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Peter D. Sharrock, Garuda, Vajrapani and Religious Change in Jayavarman VII's Angkor (February 2009)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Journal Asiatique, Martin Polkinghorne, Christophe Pottier and Christian Fischer, One Buddha Can Hide Another (2013)