Historical figure
Suryavarman II
សូរ្យវរ្ម័នទី២
Suryavarman II (សូរ្យវរ្ម័នទី២) was a Khmer king of the 12th century who built Angkor Wat.[1] He ruled the Khmer Empire from 1113 to about 1150[2] or 1152.[3] His name joins that of the sun god Surya and means "protected by the sun."[2]
Life
His birth year is unknown.[4] In the 11th century, Suryavarman I (សូរ្យវរ្ម័នទី១) had ruled a strong and united kingdom. For about half a century before Suryavarman II's reign, it was divided by unrest.[4] In its last years, rival kings held Angkor (អង្គរ) and the west of the country, among them Dharanindravarman I (ធរណិន្ទ្រវរ្ម័នទី១) in the west. Suryavarman II rose in revolt against them, and in 1113 he brought the Khmer lands together under one king.[5]
He strengthened his rule by sending armies to the east, west and south. From 1123 onward, wars with Dai Viet and Champa, two kingdoms whose lands lie in Vietnam, took up much of his reign.[4] He did not campaign to the north, toward China. The Khmer kingdom had had no diplomatic ties with China for more than two centuries. He restored them in 1116, and the kingdom gained a favorable place as a vassal of the Chinese empire.[4]
Religion
Suryavarman II worshipped the Hindu god Vishnu.[3] His personal teacher (guru) was the priest Divakarapandita (ទិវាករបណ្ឌិត).[4] Divakarapandita had been the royal priest of an earlier king at Angkor. Before Suryavarman II's reign he left Angkor and crowned Jayavarman VI (ជ័យវរ្ម័នទី៦), a rival king in the west of the country.[5]
Angkor Wat
Suryavarman II built Angkor Wat as a temple to Vishnu, and it may also have served as his mausoleum.[1] Work began in 1113, the year he came to power,[2] or early in his reign.[4] The temple stands outside the walls of Angkor Thom. A moat and a stone wall enclose it like a city, and it may have been the center of a new royal capital.[3]
Judson Knight, in Gale's Science and Its Times, writes that the temple's carvings show the king both as a ruler and as a god, the incarnation of Vishnu.[4] In a different view, Lawrence Palmer Briggs wrote that the king does not seem to have been joined with Shiva in the state cult, and that a cult joining him with Vishnu was perhaps put in its place.[3] An essay on the temple's astronomy, in the University of Chicago's Huntington Archive, holds that the lost image of Vishnu in the central tower may have been carved in his likeness. It adds that the king, if not exactly an incarnation of Vishnu, shared in some part of the god's sacred nature.[2] The same essay holds that he was probably crowned at the spring equinox, the day on which the sun rises over the central tower when seen from the western causeway.[2]
The royal procession relief
The carvings in low relief (bas-reliefs) of the outer gallery are given to the history of the king.[2] Its eight large reliefs mostly show episodes of the Ramayana, which Martin Knust calls the favorite epic in Cambodia. Beside these Hindu myths, the west wing of the south gallery shows a king, presumably Suryavarman II, with his court.[6]
Like the other reliefs on the north and south sides, the panel is laid out as a procession and reads from left to right. Its musicians play portable gongs, drums and several kinds of wind instruments, the same instruments as the army bands in the battle scenes. The panel was probably carved while the temple was being built or soon after.[6]
After his reign
Suryavarman II died around 1150.[2][4] The Huntington Archive essay says that all work on the temple stopped at his death,[2] and Knight writes that it was unfinished when he died.[4] Noel Hidalgo Tan and his co-authors write that Angkor Wat is thought to be incomplete, because the reliefs of the north-east gallery were left unfinished. They add that building is presumed to have been abandoned after the king's death.[1] About 30 years of civil war followed. In 1177 Cham forces from Champa captured and sacked the capital.[3] In the years after his death, the Chams also damaged much of Angkor Wat.[4] Jayavarman VII (ជ័យវរ្ម័នទី៧) drove them out and took the throne in 1181, and Angkor Wat was restored.[3][4]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Antiquity, Noel Hidalgo Tan, Im Sokrithy, Heng Than and Khieu Chan, The hidden paintings of Angkor Wat (2014)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 University of Chicago, Digital South Asia Library (Huntington Archive), Angkor Wat, 1113-1150: The Role of Astronomy at Angkor Wat (undated)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 The Far Eastern Quarterly, Lawrence Palmer Briggs, A Sketch of Cambodian History (August 1947)
- ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 Encyclopedia.com (Gale, Science and Its Times), Judson Knight, Suryavarman II (undated)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Radio Free Asia Khmer, Chun Chanboth, Two kings reigning at the same time in the mid-11th century, part 13 of a history series (May 14, 2014; in Khmer)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Music in Art, Martin Knust, Urged to Interdisciplinary Approaches: The Iconography of Music on the Reliefs of Angkor Wat (2010)