Jayavarman V

Angkor › Yasodharapura

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

BeforeRajendravarman (II)944 to 968 (Glaize 1944)

This reignJayavarman V968 to 1001 (Glaize 1944)968 to 1001 (Vickery 1985)and 1 more reading

AfterUdayadityavarman I1001 to 1002 (Glaize 1944)

All Khmer monarchs

Jayavarman V (ជ័យវរ្ម័នទី៥) was a king of the Khmer Empire who reigned at Angkor (អង្គរ) from 968 to 1001. He came to the throne as a boy after Rajendravarman II (រាជេន្ទ្រវរ្ម័នទី២). His royal teacher, Yajnavaraha (យជ្ជនៈវរហៈ), founded the temple of Banteay Srei (បន្ទាយស្រី), whose foundation stele dates from the first year of his reign. In Michael Vickery's reading, officials and the royal guru grew in importance at his court. His posthumous name was Paramaviraloka (បរមៈវិរលោក).

Ta Keo, east of Angkor Thom, 2017. Photo: Jakub Hałun, CC BY-SA 4.0

Historical figure details
Khmer name	ជ័យវរ្ម័នទី៥
Also known as	Paramaviraloka (posthumous name)
Roles	Khmer king
Period	968 to 1001
Country	Khmer Empire
Subjects	History & Remembrance

Accession

Jayavarman V was the son or, in Lawrence Palmer Briggs's 1947 account, the brother of Rajendravarman II. He became king in 968, still a child; Charles Higham gives his age as ten. Chun Chanboth wrote that he took full control of the government some six years after his accession, and that he was taught by the Brahmin Yajnavaraha, his royal teacher.

He ruled from Yasodharapura (យសោធបុរៈ), the capital at Angkor to which Rajendravarman had brought the court back. Briggs called the city of the two kings Yasodharapura II and thought that their central temple was probably Phimeanakas. Chun Chanboth wrote that Jayavarman V founded a new city, Jayendranagari (ជយេន្ទ្រនគរី), with Ta Keo (តាកែវ) at its center.

Court and officials

Michael Vickery counted the reigns of Jayavarman V and Suryavarman I as the two that left the most inscriptions. He wrote that under Jayavarman V officials set up more inscriptions than before, and that several major new buildings of the reign were credited to named officials, with no word of the king's own part. Higham wrote that by the end of the 10th century the court had many ranks of officials, who saw to the law and to taxes and kept a register of land, whose limits were set out with boundary stones.

In Vickery's reading, the royal guru Yajnavaraha rose to great, perhaps the greatest, importance at court. One inscription traces his descent on his mother's side from Kings Indravarman, Yasovarman and Harshavarman, which made his link to the old royal line in some ways closer than the king's. A priest named Sivacarya held the posts of purohita and hotar together with that of "inspector of qualities and defects". Through marriage, the inheritance of three great families came together in him. In Vickery's account this concentration involved the family of the Sdok Kak Thom inscription, which claimed to have furnished the king's hotar ever since Jayavarman II and claimed important duties at Ta Keo.

Chun Chanboth wrote that, although the king and some of his high officials worshipped Shiva, Jayavarman V also supported Buddhism. He had one senior official repair Buddha images, make many new ones and obtain Mahayana Buddhist texts from abroad.

Temples

Yajnavaraha founded Banteay Srei with his younger brother. Its foundation stele, found in 1936, praises Jayavarman V and his guru. The stele was inscribed in 968, his first year as king, and by the positions of the sun, moon and planets it gives a date of April or May 967, in the last year of Rajendravarman's reign. Building there probably began under Rajendravarman. Another inscription at the temple, known as K. 570, has a Khmer text dated 968 that records gifts made in the names of Jayavarman V and Rajendravarman.

The temple mountain of Ta Keo, east of Angkor Thom, is credited to Jayavarman V by Michael Vickery, Chun Chanboth and the APSARA National Authority. Maurice Glaize dated it to the early 11th century and assigned it to Jayaviravarman. The APSARA National Authority writes that inscriptions name it Hemasringagiri, "mountain with a golden peak"; Higham gives the name as Hemasrinagari. In Glaize's account, work on its carving stopped soon after it had begun. The APSARA National Authority writes that construction went on under Jayaviravarman and then Suryavarman I, though the temple was never fully finished. Higham wrote that lightning struck the monument, an omen so bad that it was never completed. The APSARA National Authority gives the lightning strike as one of three possible reasons, with the very hard stone and the struggle for the throne at the end of his reign. Inscriptions dated 1007 on the door jambs of its eastern gateways record gifts to the temple, not its founding.

The APSARA National Authority calls the dating of Phimeanakas, the temple inside the royal palace enclosure at Angkor Thom, problematic. It dates the temple's architectural form to the late 10th century, under Jayavarman V, though some of its decoration belongs to other centuries. Glaize linked it with Rajendravarman, Jayavarman V and Suryavarman I. At Phnom Bakheng, an inscription from his reign on a door jamb recalls Yasovarman's founding of the temple.

Succession

Jayavarman V died in 1001. A nephew, Udayadityavarman I (ឧទ័យាទិត្យាវរ្ម័នទី១), followed him and reigned for a year or less. Jayaviravarman then reigned from 1002 to 1006 in Vickery's account, or to 1010 in Chun Chanboth's and Glaize's. Through those years he was in a long contest for the throne with Suryavarman I, whose reign is counted from 1002. Chun Chanboth wrote of a civil war lasting nine years. Vickery stressed that no evidence shows a foreign invasion behind Suryavarman's rise. Higham saw Jayavarman V as the last important king of Angkor's first dynasty.

References