Jayavarman II

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Jayavarman II (Khmer: ជ័យវរ្ម័នទី២), a 9th Century Khmer king, is widely recognized as the founder of the Khmer Empire, which ruled much of the Southeast Asian mainland for more than six hundred years. Historians commonly date his reign as running from 802 A.D. to 835-850 A.D. An inscription recounts that on a mountaintop Jayavarman had a Brahman priest conduct a religious rite that created an independent Khmer state, with Jayavarman as its head. The text also recounts establishment of the Hindu court ritual known as the cult of the devajara (Khmer: ទេវរាជា), continued by successive Khmer monarchs. He appears to have reigned in more than one capital, including Hariharalaya near the present-day village of Roulous, southeast of the main Angkor complex that was later the empire’s capital.

Despite this key role in Khmer history, few firm facts survive about Jayavarman. No inscriptions authored by him have been found, but he is mentioned in numerous others, some of them written long after his death. He appears to have been of aristocratic birth, beginning his career of conquest in the southeast of present-day Cambodia. He may have been known as Jayavarman Ibis at that time. “For the prosperity of the people in this perfectly pure royal race, great lotus which no longer has a stalk, he rose like a new flower,” declares one inscription. ^[1] Various other details are recounted in inscriptions: he married a woman named Hyang Amrita; he dedicated a temple at Lobok Srot, in the southeast.

Taken in sum, the record suggests that Jayavarman and his followers moved over the course of some years from southeast Cambodia to the northwest, subduing various principalities along the way. Historian Claude Jacques writes that he first seized the city of Vyadhapura in the southeast, then pushed up the Mekong to take Sambhupura. He later installed himself at another city state, now known as Banteay Prei Nokor, near present-day Kompong Cham. Jacques believes that from there he pressed on to Wat Pu, seat of a city-state in present-day southern Laos, then moved along the Dangrek Mountains to arrive in the Angkor region. Later he brought pressure on local Khmer leaders located to the west, but they fought back and drove him to seek refuge on the summit of present-day Mount Kulen, about 50 kilometers east of from Angkor, where the Brahman declared the independent state. Jacques suggests that this step might have been intended to affirm Jayavarman's authority in the face of strong resistance.

Once established in the Angkor region, he appears to have reigned not only in Hariharalaya, located just north of the Tonle Sap lake, but also at a place that inscriptions call Amarendrapura. It has not been positively identified, though some historians believe it to be a now lost settlement at the western end of the West Baray, the eight kilometer-long holy reservoir that was built about two centuries after his death. No single temple is positively associated with Jayavarman, but some historians suggest he may have built Ak Yum, a brick stepped pyramid, now largely ruined, at the southern edge of the West Baray. The temple was a forerunner to the mountain-temple architectural form of later Khmer kings.

The most valuable inscription concerning Jayavarman II is one dated 1052 A.D., two centuries after his death, and found at the Sdok Kak Thom temple in present day Thailand. “When His Majesty Paramesvara came from Java to reign in the royal city of Indrapura,…Sivakaivalya, the family’s learned patriarch, was serving as his guru and held the post of royal chaplain to His Majesty,” states the inscription, using the king’s posthumous name. ^[2] In a later passage, the text says that a Brahman named Hiranyadama, “proficient in the lore of magic power, came from Janapada in response to His Majesty’s having invited him to perform a sublime rite which would release Kambujadesa [the kingdom] from being any longer subject to Java.” The text also recounts the creation of the cult of the devaraja, the key religious ceremony in the court of Jayavarman and subsequent Khmer monarchs.

The word "Java" has caused endless debate among scholars. Many, such as Charles Higham, doubt that it refers to the island of that name in present-day Indonesia. They believe it means some other foreign place which at the time had a similar-sounding name, perhaps the kingdom of Champa to the east. Or perhaps it referred to a place on the Malay peninsula then under the rule of Java. Others scholars, such as Lawrence Palmer Briggs, have taken it to mean the island. If Jayavarman did come from there, he would have likely been influenced by the refined art and culture of the Sailendra dynasty that was in power at the time, including the concept of the devajara,^{[citation needed]}

Writings attributed to an Arab merchant named Sulayman, who is said to have traveled in the region in the Ninth Century, contain a detailed story of a “maharaja,” apparently an Eighth Century Javanese king, who heard that a Khmer king had expressed a desired to see the maharaja’s head on a platter. In response, the maharaja stealthily came to the Khmer kingdom with soldiers, captured the offending monarch, sat on his throne and had him beheaded. The embalmed head was left behind as a warning to later Khmer kings. Early scholars of Khmer history theorized that this tale, though likely embellished, described basic historical events that played a role in Jayavarman’s own personal history. He was successor to the beheaded king, they suggested. He embarked for Java to pay tribute, but declared independence after his return.

The Sdok Kak Thom inscription states that Jayavarman II died at Haraharilaya. After him, the throne was held by his son Jayavarman III and two other kings of the family into which he had married. He is formally honored along with these two kings and their wives in the Preah Ko temple in Roulous, built by King Indravarman I and inaugurated in 880 A.D.

Debate continues concerning Jayavarman II's dates. The Sdok Kak Thom inscription puts his accession to the throne in 802 A.D., a date now generally accepted by scholars. But an inscription from the reign of the 10th Century monarch Rajendravarman II dates the event to 791/792 A.D. None of these dates, however are mentioned in inscriptions of Indravarman I. Similar ambiguity exists concerning the date of his death.

More broadly, debate continues as to whether Jayavarman II’s rule truly represented a seminal turning point in Khmer history, the creation of an independent unified state from small feuding principalities, or was instead part of a long process toward that end. Certainly inscriptions indicate that later Khmer kings treated him as the august first in their line and font of their own legitimacy. But Hindu civilization had existed already for centuries in the region; the fact that Jayavarman was the second monarch to carry that name is a sign that there was already long line of kings of significant states in the region. ^[3]

[edit] Notes

^ Briggs, The Ancient Khmer Empire p. 83.
^ Sak-Humphry, “The Sdak Kok Thom Inscription,” p. 46.
^ Mabbett and Chandler, The Khmers’’ pp. 87-89.

[edit] References

Sak-Humphry, Chhany. The Sdok Kak Thom Inscription. The Edition of the Buddhist Institute 2005.
Higham, Charles. The Civilization of Angkor. University of California Press 2001.
Briggs, Lawrence Palmer. The Ancient Khmer Empire. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 1951.
Mabbett, Ian and Chandler, David. “The Khmers.” Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1996.
Jacques, Claude and Lafond, Philippe. The Khmer Empire: Cities and Sanctuaries from 5th to 13th Century. River Books [2007].