Khmer Empire

• 1. Introduction

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  The Khmer Empire once built the most extensive pre-industrial urban complex in the world. Satellite imaging of Angkor's water management network confirmed that achievement, which held during the empire's peak in the 11th through 13th centuries. A civilisation stretching from what is now northern Cambodia all the way to the edges of southern China, ruling or vassalising most of Mainland Southeast Asia, left behind stone faces gazing from tower tops, a water reservoir measuring 7.1 by 1.7 kilometres, and a network of roads connecting every town in the realm. How did a prince performing a ritual on a mountain in 802 lay the foundation for all of that? And why, six centuries later, would a king simply abandon the greatest city his people had ever built?

• 2. The Founding Ritual

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  In 802, on the sacred mount now known as Phnom Kulen, a Khmer prince named Jayavarman II staged a consecration ceremony drawn from Hindu tradition. He proclaimed himself chakravartin, a Sanskrit title meaning universal ruler, and devaraja, meaning god king. In the same ritual, he declared the independence of Kambuja from a place inscriptions call "Java". Scholars have debated ever since whether that Java refers to the Indonesian island, to Champa, or to somewhere else entirely. In 2013, researcher Arlo Griffiths examined the inscriptions and concluded that in almost every instance they refer to the island of Java in the Indonesian archipelago.

  Jayavarman's political career had begun years earlier in Vyadhapura, in eastern Cambodia. According to the inscription at Sdok Kok Thom temple, around 781 he established Indrapura as his capital, then returned to the former kingdom of Chenla and defeated a series of competing kings. By 790 he had become king of an empire called Kambuja. He moved his court northwest to Mahendraparvata, far inland from the great lake of Tonle Sap, and eventually established a new capital called Hariharalaya, near the modern town of Roluos. That city sat roughly 15 kilometres southeast of where Angkor would later rise. Jayavarman II died in 835, having set the engine of an empire in motion.

• 3. Water, Rice, and Cities

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  Indravarman I, who reigned from 877 to 889, managed to expand the kingdom without going to war, funding ambitious building projects through wealth gained from trade and agriculture. He developed Hariharalaya further and constructed the Bakong temple around 881, a structure scholars note bears striking similarities to the Borobudur temple in Java. His son Yasovarman I then pushed the capital northwest to a new city called Yasodharapura, the first settlement of the greater Angkor area, built around the hill of Phnom Bakheng, which rises around 60 metres above the surrounding plain.

  At the heart of what made these cities possible was water. The Khmer built an intricate hydraulic system: networks of canals, moats, and massive reservoirs called barays. Yasovarman I created the East Baray, that reservoir stretching 7.1 by 1.7 kilometres. The king and his officials managed irrigation and water distribution directly, because that control translated into rice surpluses large enough to feed and sustain a vast urban population. At the Greater Angkor Region's peak in the 13th century, the population stood somewhere between 700,000 and 900,000 people, making it one of the most populous cities of the medieval world.

  Farmers planted rice near lake banks, in irrigated plains, or in the hills when lowlands flooded. Fresh-water fisheries from the Tonle Sap provided the population's main source of protein, often processed into prahok, a dried or roasted fish paste wrapped in banana leaves. Sugar palm trees, fruit trees, and vegetables grew in orchards around villages. This agricultural base, shaped and controlled through hydraulic engineering, underwrote everything the empire would build.

• 4. Angkor Wat and the Warrior Kings

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  Suryavarman II, who reigned from 1113 to 1150, presided over the construction of Angkor Wat over a period of 37 years. Dedicated to the god Vishnu, the temple is also known by its Sanskrit name Vara Vishnuloka, meaning the realm of Vishnu, honouring Suryavarman II in his posthumous identity as Vishnu. The 12th century in which he ruled was, by the source's own description, a time of conflict and brutal power struggles. Suryavarman II campaigned against Champa and Dai Viet to the east; he sacked the city of Vijaya in 1145 and deposed its king. Khmers occupied Vijaya until 1149, when Jaya Harivarman I drove them out. In 1114, Suryavarman sent a mission to the Chola dynasty of south India, presenting a precious stone to the Chola emperor Kulottunga I.

  The decades after Suryavarman II's death brought renewed instability. In 1177, a Cham fleet under Jaya Indravarman IV raided and looted Angkor in a naval battle on the Tonle Sap lake, killing the Khmer king Tribhuvanadityavarman. Jayavarman VII, who had already served as a military leader under previous kings, gathered an army and retook the capital. He ascended to the throne in 1181 and continued to wage war against Champa for another 22 years, until the Khmer defeated the Chams in 1203 and conquered large parts of their territory. Chinese sources record that Jayavarman VII added Pegu to Khmer territory in 1195.

• 5. Jayavarman VII's Empire

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  Jayavarman VII, who reigned from 1181 to 1219, is generally considered Cambodia's greatest king, and the scale of what he built makes that reputation easy to understand. He constructed a new capital called Angkor Thom, at the centre of which he placed the Bayon as the state temple. The Bayon's towers bear the carved faces of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, each face several metres high, cut from stone. He built Ta Prohm for his mother, Preah Khan for his father, and also Banteay Kdei and Neak Pean. He established a reservoir called Srah Srang and laid down an extensive road network connecting every town in the empire, with rest-houses built along the routes for travellers. Across his realm he established a total of 102 hospitals.

• 6. Society and Daily Life

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  Much of what is known about daily life in Kambuja comes from the Chinese diplomat Zhou Daguan, who arrived in Angkor in August 1296 and stayed at the court of King Srindravarman until July 1297. His account, known as The Customs of Cambodia, records that the towers of the Bayon were once covered in gold, and it describes everyday life in remarkable detail. Zhou Daguan's description of the marketplace is precise: no permanent buildings, an open square, traders seated on the ground on woven straw mats, no tables or chairs, a few traders sheltering under thatched parasols. Officials levied a tax or rent on each space occupied. Zhou Daguan noted that trade and economy in Angkor's marketplace were mainly run by women.

  Society was arranged in a hierarchy reflecting the Hindu caste system. Commoners, rice farmers and fishermen, formed the large majority. Royalty, nobles, warriors, and soldiers formed the governing elite. Brahmins, artisans, traders, and various craftspeople occupied intermediate ranks, while slaves occupied the lowest level. Farmers' houses were made of woven bamboo walls with thatched roofs, built on stilts near the rice paddies. A house was divided into three rooms: the parents' bedroom, the daughters' bedroom, and the living area. Sons slept wherever they could find space. Noble houses used the same materials but had wooden shingle roofs, more elaborate designs, and more rooms.

  Zhou Daguan recorded that local people did not produce silk or know how to stitch with a needle and thread. What textile production existed used cotton from kapok, woven by winding one end of cloth around the waist and hanging the other end over a window, using a bamboo tube as a shuttle. Silk production was introduced by people from Siam who had come to live in Cambodia, bringing their mulberry trees and silkworms from Siam.

• 7. Collapse and Abandonment

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  Jayavarman VIII, who reigned from 1243 to 1295, reversed the Buddhist direction of his predecessors. He was an aggressive opponent of Buddhism, destroying many Buddha statues and converting Buddhist temples to Hindu temples. In 1283 the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty threatened Kambuja; Jayavarman VIII avoided war with general Sogetu by paying annual tribute to the Mongols starting in 1285. His rule ended when his own son-in-law Srindravarman deposed him in 1295. The new king made Theravada Buddhism, which had arrived from Sri Lanka and spread through Southeast Asia, the state religion.

  The last Sanskrit inscription is dated 1327 and describes the succession of Indrajayavarman by Jayavarmadiparamesvara. After that, the historical record goes quiet. Archaeologists found that Khmer stone inscriptions are absent from the 14th through 17th centuries, limiting what can be recovered. Scholars have proposed several interlocking causes for the decline: the shift from Hinduism to Theravada Buddhism disrupted the concept of the devaraja, which had justified royal authority and funded massive building projects; eleven of the empire's 27 rulers lacked a legitimate claim to power, making internal power struggles chronic; and the empire turned inward rather than participating in international maritime trade.

  Ecological failure compounded the political instability. Scientists on the Greater Angkor Project determined that trees were cleared from the Kulen hills to make more rice fields, sending sediment-laden runoff into the canal network. The hydraulic system that had sustained millions degraded. Periods of severe drought alternated with violent monsoon floods during the 14th and 15th centuries, damaging infrastructure at the worst possible time. Researchers have determined that a period of strong monsoon rains was followed by severe drought, which damaged the hydraulic network and may have caused residents to migrate southward away from the empire's major cities.

  The Ayutthaya Kingdom, arising from a confederation of city-states on the lower Chao Phraya basin, besieged Angkor in 1352, captured it the following year, and placed successive Siamese princes on the Khmer throne. The Khmer king Suryavamsa Rajadhiraja retook the throne in 1357. In 1393, the Ayutthayan king Ramesuan besieged Angkor again, capturing it the following year. Finally, in 1431, the Khmer king Ponhea Yat abandoned Angkor as indefensible and moved to the Phnom Penh area on the Mekong, where Phnom Penh's growing importance as a trade centre had already begun to shift the empire's economic centre of gravity southward. Angkor was not entirely empty; one line of Khmer kings may have remained there, and inscriptions from the 17th century testify to Japanese settlements alongside the remaining Khmer, including a record of Ukondayu Kazufusa, who celebrated the Khmer New Year in Angkor in 1632.