Pre Angkor

The Mysteries of the Angkor Moat

Water, with its life-giving and purifying qualities, is central to Khmer cosmology and all varieties of Hindu religion. A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that is dug and surrounds a castle, fortification, building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive water defences, including natural or artificial lakes, dams and sluices. In older fortifications, such as hillforts, they are usually referred to simply as ditches, although the function is similar. In later periods, moats or water defences may be largely ornamental. They could also act as a sewer. Some of the earliest evidence of moats has been uncovered around ancient Egyptian castles. One example is at Buhen, a castle excavated in Nubia. Other evidence of ancient moats is found in the ruins of Babylon, and in reliefs from ancient Egypt, Assyria, and other cultures in the region.

The temple of Preah Ko, built in the 9th century AD, represents a unique transition point between the PreAngkorian and the Angkorian periods. It is undoubtedly one of the most important temple structures in Khmer architecture, if not in whole South-East Asia. This temple gave a whole range of 9th century temples
their stylistic group name, 'Preah Ko-Style'. Despite its importance, Preah Ko was rarely acknowledged in detail in academic literature. It is the general aim of this publication to analyze Preah Ko in its historical, archaeological, architectural, stylistical and contemporary social and religious questions and to understand the whole complex as a 'historical palimpsest', since its dynamic history was (over-) written several times until today. In the 20th century, several alterations took place, especially in French colonial times in the 1930s, during the
time of the war between the Red Khmer and the Vietnamese in the 1970s and the Hungarian and German
restoration phases in the 1990s until today.
With a unique collection of illustrations, this book is meant as a kind of source book of the 'Preah Ko-Style' with the temple of Preah Ko in its centre. Its well preserved stone, brick and especially stucco decorations amaze conservation and art experts, and tourists alike.

Archaeological data over the past two decades have contributed to our understanding of the transition into the historic period in Southeast Asia and rebutted outdated models of externally stimulated complex polity formation. This article investigates the transition into the Pre-Angkorian period 300–500 CE based on a model constructed using archaeological data from Thala Borivat, Cambodia. Data from Thala Borivat suggest a pattern of continuity where smaller proto-historic settlements may have become incorporated c.300–500 CE into larger ones which became major Pre-Angkorian centres. This phenomenon coincided with evidence of increasing inter- and intra-regional interaction following the proto-historic period. This article argues that the model can be used to reinterpret the pattern observed in major Pre-Angkorian centres in the Mekong Delta and northeast Thailand. This pattern is complemented by the spatial correlation between the chronometrically-anchored ceramic traditions in proto-historic and early historic period Cambodia that suggests the continuity of local communities. Spatial correlation between prehistoric sites and inscriptions recording Pre-Angkorian elites, particularly the poñ, mratāñ, and kings provides similar patterns of continuity between the elites of the late proto-historic to the Pre-Angkorian periods.

This temple was built over natural rock, worshipped as Linga (Shiva), with both blocks of rock forming a cave and represented as Yoni (Uma). The tradition of belief of worshipping Linga represented by the natural mountain and having a temple built over the mountain here is a unique case; nevertheless, not many examples like this
can be found in other parts of Cambodia. This architectural concept comes from the harmony between the original animism of the Khmers with the adapted practices of
Hinduism from India.
From the end of 2014, in order to prevent any more serious damage to this temple, the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts has carried out emergency work to preserve this
temple.

An inscription at Prasat Banteay Srey, 15 km north of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, dates the inauguration of this Shivaite sanctuary to coincide with a planetary alignment. A planetary clustering or planetary alignment is when the five planets visible to the naked eye are observable at dawn or dusk above the eastern or western horizon. The five planets form together with the sun, the moon, Rahu and Ketu the Indian concept the Navagraha. A close gathering of the five planets is an impressive celestial event and has been described in ancient Indian and Chinese records and calculations.
Appendix III, pgs. 226-233 in Ancient Khmer Sites in North-eastern Thailand. Khorat, Buriram and the Angkor - Phimai route. Printed

How many battles were fought by warring kingdoms before the Khemer monarchs could seize absolute power and then build the magnificent temple structures? THE BATTLES for Angkor Wat or  Preah Pisnulok- explores this unknown feature of Angkor History

When there was a HINDU CAMBODIA are we right to suggest that climatic change or agricultural affinities made people migrate and abandon Angkor?
Could it not be because they despised changing religion from Hinduism to Buddhism and simply left the rulers to fester in their own pot of religious change.

At its apex, the Khmer empire was Southeast Asia’s largest and most influential civilization: its civilizational reach stretched across several of today’s nation-states, and its core contained one of the world’s largest pre-industrial urban complexes. The roots of 9th-14th century Angkorian civilization appeared in the Mekong delta more than a millennium before Jayavarman II declared himself the universal Khmer monarch in 802 CE. At the start and to the south was the early polity that 3rd century Chinese emissaries called Funan, and that contained urban centers, walled palaces, libraries, and rulers. The earliest Khmer writing appears in the 7th century in this region, or nearly four centuries after the Han Chinese reports of Funan. By the 7th century, Khmer elite inscribed their legitimacy onto brick shrines and temples they commissioned to honor Indic gods across the delta’s landscape. Elite sponsorship of the construction and maintenance of ritual spaces required wealth; so did their support for ritual practices at these places, which materialized order that structured pre-Angkorian society. The rise of the pre-Angkorian Khmer state occurred during a period of fluctuating international trade in goods and ideas, and previous models have emphasized international trade as the catalyst for early state formation. This chapter studies early state formation instead through the development of the Mekong Delta’s 6th-8th century monumental art and architecture. Brick constructions, their dedicatory inscriptions, and the statuary they housed created symbols of cultural commonality that linked formerly autonomous communities into coherent regional systems. The Lower Mekong Archaeological Project survey area includes the early urban center of Angkor Borei. Research described here emphasizes archaeological patterning in social power to offer Southeast Asian perspectives on the articulation between ideology and social order in early states.

-New research on the following TOPIcs each a CHAPTER
The Khmer Civilization as an Integration of Cultures page 25
-The Hindu Tradition of Coronation of Khemer kings page 42
-Significance of SUNLIGHT & NUMEROLOGY to Angkor Temples page 68
-The Rise and Antecedents of Jayavarman II  MODIFIED VERSION OF -The Khmer Civilization as an Integration of Cultures- page 90
•Honorific Epithet of SE Asian Kings page 122
•HARIHARA - in the Khemer Imperial Frame page 140
•- Devaraja as construed in  Khemer Honorofic Titles page 151
-REGNANT NAMES (in Sanskrit) OF CAMBODIAN MONARCHY page 160
-WHO? WHERE? WHAT? of JAYAVARMAN II page 174
•-Significance of SUNLIGHT & NUMEROLOGY in Angkor Templess page 195

Are there any-indianTwins-of-Angkor-wat - the Cambodian temples in the family of Hindu Temples. Find out in this 75 page research on the similarities of the cambodoan and hindu temples pointing to the fact that there are truly similar temples in India such as that of Angkor

At its apex, the Khmer empire was Southeast Asia’s largest and most influential civilization: its civilizational reach stretched across several of today’s nation-states, and its core contained one of the world’s largest pre-industrial urban complexes. The roots of 9th-14th century Angkorian civilization appeared in the Mekong delta more than a millennium before Jayavarman II declared himself the universal Khmer monarch in 802 CE.  At the start and to the south was the early polity that 3rd century Chinese emissaries called Funan, and that contained urban centers, walled palaces, libraries, and rulers.  The earliest Khmer writing appears in the 7th century in this region, or nearly four centuries after the Han Chinese reports of Funan. By the 7th century, Khmer elite inscribed their legitimacy onto brick shrines and temples they commissioned to honor Indic gods across the delta’s landscape.  Elite sponsorship of the construction and maintenance of ritual spaces required wealth; so did their support for ritual practices at these places, which materialized order that structured pre-Angkorian society.  The rise of the pre-Angkorian Khmer state occurred during a period of fluctuating international trade in goods and ideas, and previous models have emphasized international trade as the catalyst for early state formation.

This chapter studies early state formation instead through the development of the Mekong Delta’s 6th-8th century monumental art and architecture. Brick constructions, their dedicatory inscriptions, and the statuary they housed created symbols of cultural commonality that linked formerly autonomous communities into coherent regional systems.  The Lower Mekong Archaeological Project survey area includes the early urban center of Angkor Borei. Research described here emphasizes archaeological patterning in social power to offer Southeast Asian perspectives on the articulation between ideology and social order in early states.

In the term of authenticity of the site, inscriptions are concrete sources of Khmer Civilization. There is no doubt that these stone inscriptions are original data of Chenla Dynasty in pre-Angkorian period (7th-9th centuries) and were supported by great uniqueness of arts, architecture and urbanisation of Ishanapura. At least 23 inscriptions from this area have been listed and studied since the preliminary study by Finot L. (1912 & 1928) and a detailed study by Coedès G. (1952). Later, several selected inscriptions were studies by Cambodian scholars, Leang Hap An (1967) and Prof. Long Seam (2000). Notably, these inscriptions also describe continuity of the site during Angkorian period.

Alors que l'étymologie du nom de Fou-nan (扶南) (ហ្វ៊ូណន, ហ្វ៊ូណាន) dans les sources chinoises, pour désigner un ancien pays que l'on pense être l'ancêtre du Cambodge, fait quasiment l'unanimité, à savoir qu'il viendrait d'un terme indigène signifiant « montagne », celle du Tchen-la (眞 臘) (ចេនឡា, ចន្លាប), qui a succédé au Fou-nan, a laissé bon nombre de chercheurs perplexes. Pour certains, le nom chinois reste inananlysable tandis que d'autres ont fait des suggestions, parfois sous toutes réserves, parfois de manière plus affirmative. Après avoir passé en revue ces hypothèses, cet article se penche sur un terme indigène crāp (ច្រាប) /craːp/ présent en khmer moderne, et qui, au vu, des chroniques cambodgiennes, aurait existé dans un hydronyme.

While the etymology of the name Fu-nan (扶南) (ហ្វ៊ូណន, ហ្វ៊ូណាន), to designate an ancient country in Chinese sources which is thought to be the ancestor of Cambodia, is nearly unanimoumisly accepted as stemming from a local word meaning “mountain”, the etymology of Chen-la (眞 臘) (ចេនឡា, ចន្លាប), which followed Fu-nan left many scholars in bewilderment. For some of them, this Chinese name cannot be analysed, whereas some others made suggestions, sometimes with reservation, sometimes in a more assertive tone. After reviewing these past hypotheses, this article looks into a local word: crāp (ច្រាប) /craːp/, attested in Modern Khmer and which, according to Cambodian chronicles, was present in a hydronym.

11 new Technical papers on Angkor
CONTENTS page 3
PART I-INTRODUCTION page 4
CHAPTER I-Memories of the Past-The Wonders of Angkor Wat page 5
CHAPTER II Myths and Legends of Angkor page 18
CHAPTER III Anachak Khmer or Khemer Empire page  42
PART III-Technical and Quasi- tech papers 48
Chapter III Dashavatara  दशावतार page  49
CHAPTER IV 1000 Shivlingas India and Cambodia-( Khal  Spean) page 85
CHAPTER  V CHAPTER VI- Samudra manthan समुद्र मंथनAngkor Wat's marvelous bas relief - The churning of the ocean of milk page 92

Chapter VI -Banthey Srei- Citadel of Women and gender roles in Cambodia Page 115

CHAPTER VIII Rama, warrior king & devaraja ?The divine incarnation  as an Inspiration to SE Asian Monarchs page 149

CHAPTER IX SADASHIVA page170
CHAPTER X-A Shivling Established by Lord Kartikeya Himself tht emerges and submerges each day page  183
CHAPTER XI Architectural knowledge of the Pataliputra capital page 203
ABOUT THE AUTHORS page 218

All about the CITY OF SHIVA discovered in the forests. ISHANPURA (,Īśvara) is a concept in Hinduism, with a wide range of meanings that depend on the era and the school of Hinduism. Ishana is the short form of Ishvara. Therefore In ancient texts of Hindu philosophy, depending on the context, Ishvara can mean supreme Self, ruler, lord, king, queen or husband. In medieval era Hindu texts, depending on the school of Hinduism, Ishvara means God, Supreme Being, personal God, or special Self.

Design concepts of the Angkor wat temple:
This theory claims that the Brahmins, the priests, were mainly responsible for the spread of Indian culture throughout Southeast Asia. As said in the previous theory, the Vaishya Theory, a certain amount of power and authority was required for such a deep pervasion of the Indian culture. The Brahmins were the highest level in the caste system, deeply knowledgeable on the concepts of the political system and the religious system and thus able to spread these concepts to the countries and local communities in Southeast Asia. Furthermore, as they were the highest caste, it is likely that the local rulers themselves would have welcomed and respected their presence. The Brahmins interacted with the local rulers, becoming counsellors in court and legitimising the local rulers by giving them a sort of genealogical list, supporting them politically. Additionally, they were knowledgeable in the concepts of the cosmic universe, which would have intrigued the locals with its mystique, as the majority of the locals then practiced animism and was greatly curious about the spirits around them. It is not a far leap to assume that the Brahmins could easily influence the rulers and the community with the Indian culture.

Stung Treng is located in the northern part of Cambodia. The geography of Stung Treng is characterised by the confluence of three rivers: Mekong, Se Kong and Se San (Sre Pok). Due to this rich geographical feature, Khmer ancestors had built a number of religious monumental structures nearby the banks of those rivers. We could find many archaeological sites in that area. Scholars believe those major sites related to the early pre-Angkor period around the 6th and 7th centuries CE.

The Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts issued a declaration to local people who have kept cultural items to inform the officials in order to have the items inscribed in
the national inventory list. As part of the digitized documentation of Khmer antiquities, Stung Treng is one of the major provinces in the project. This work has
been accomplished through cooperation between the Department of Antiquities and the Stung Treng Provincial Department of Culture and Fine Arts. The work is being
carried out in situ in four major areas: Ba Deum, Kantuy Ko, Ba Chong (including Phnom Theat) and Thala Borivat.

This paper reviews the volume's collection of papers on historical and documentary approaches to ancient states. to do so, it explores the relationship between documentary and archaeological data for interpreting the origins of Angkor in Cambodia, which scholars usually equate with "Funan" and the subsequent pre-Angkorian period.

Conventional Southeast Asian scholarship uses documentary sources and art history to explain the origins of first millennium CE developments, when temple-anchored Brahmanic and Buddhist religions, international trade networks, and the region’s earliest cities emerged.  Geopolitical factors and regional intellectual paradigms partly explain why archaeological research lags behind epigraphy and art history for interpreting Early Southeast Asia. Yet findings from recent landscape-based archaeological research complicate interpretations in novel and important ways. This paper blends archaeological and historical research from protohistoric and pre-Angkorian Cambodia as a springboard for discussing the first millennium CE developments across mainland Southeast Asia. Studying sites, water features, statuary, ceramics and beads helps us understand how Southeast Asians drew from a South Asian idiom to forge ritual-political landscapes, establish local identities, and cohere populations into several of the region’s
earliest states.

The Historical Background of Angkor Wat* "The kings of the Khmer empire ruled over a vast domain that reached from what is now southern Vietnam to Yunan, China and from Vietnam westward to the Bay of Bengal. The structures one sees at Angkor today, more than 100 temples in all, are the surviving religious remains of a grand social and administrative metropolis whose other buildings-palaces, public buildings, and houses-were all built of wood and are long since decayed and gone. As in most parts of India, where wood was plentiful, only the gods had the right to live in houses of stone or brick; the sovereigns and the common folk lived in pavilions and houses of wood.

In Cambodia, in the classic Khmer architecture of the Angkorean period, we find a temple type in which the sanctuary is built atop a stepped pyramid. Nineteenth century archaeologists called these “temple- mountains.” Each important sovereign was apparently obliged to build one in order to establish his power. Baphuon is one such temple at Angkor, Cambodia. It is located in Angkor Thom, northwest of the Bayon.


Built in the mid-11th century, it is a three-tiered temple mountain built as the state temple of Udayadityavarman II dedicated to the Hindu God Shiva. It is the archetype of the Baphuon style with intricate carvings covering every available surface. The temple adjoins the southern enclosure of the royal palace and measures 120 metres east-west by 100 metres north-south at its base and stands 34 meters tall without its tower, which would have made it roughly 50 meters tall. Its appearance apparently impressed Temür Khan's late 13th century envoy Zhou Daguan during his visit from 1296 to 1297, who said it was 'the Tower of Bronze...a truly astonishing spectacle, with more than ten chambers at its base.

Archaeologists' growing commitment to studying the historical period has generated rich insights globally (e.g., Andrén 1998; Funari 1999; Orser 1996); this turn has also identified methodological challenges. Understanding the relationship between documentary and archaeological sources has been among the most persistent of these challenges (e.g., Feinman 1997; Kepecs 1997; Stark and Allen 1998). Chapters in this volume use case studies across the Old World to offer original contributions and explore significant, if sometimes intractable issues. Kohl (chapter 10) directly asks whether archaeological and written sources are qualitatively distinct or complementary. Acknowledging that most documentary sources are also archaeological in origin, I examine this relationship between archaeological and historical sources by tacking between my region of specialty in Southeast Asia (Cambodia and the pre-Angkorian Khmer) and chapters in this volume. Let us first turn to Cambodia in the firs...

This entry reviews the history of archaeological (and, by extension, art historical) research in what was first part of French Indochina, and is now the Kingdom of Cambodia.  It reviews the impact of 19th-century expeditions on European knowledge of Cambodia's archaeological past, and traces two parallel strands of research during that time: one that focused on prehistory (and emphasized geology), and one that focused on reconstructing a fallen classical civilization, akin to the ruins found in the Mediterranean. The entry concludes by discussing some developments in Cambodia's archaeological world after the end of the civil war.

The Inscription of Devānīka from Văt Luong Kău K.365: A Translation into Russian with a Commentary, in Vostok (Oriens) 2014 No. 2, pp. 142-8. = Надпись Деваники из Ват Луонг Кау (Лаос) K.365 / Вступ. ст., пер. с санскрита и коммент. // Восток. Афро-азиатские общества: история и современность. 2014. № 2. С. 142–148. = Zakharov, Anton O. Nadpys Devaniki iz Vat Luong Kau (Laos). K.365: perevod na russky i kommentarii", in Vostok (Oriens) 2014 N 2, pp. 142–148
The paper contains the first translation of the inscription K.365 from Văt Luong Kău from Sanskrit into Russian. The inscription contains a eulogy to the king Devānīka and dated from the fifth century. It originates from Văt Luong Kău near Vat Phu (Wat Phou) in Southern Laos. Comparing the epigraphic groups of Southeastern Indochina dated from the middle-first millennium, the author argues that the inscription of Devānīka is a remnant of an independent kingdom which cannot be associated with Early Zhenla, Campā (Champa) or Funan.

In my earlier article called DEVRAJA, GOD KING or King of Gods? I have tried to underline that the meaning attributed to the word Devaraja, supposed to have been first taken upon himself, by Jayavarman II is a little off the center. Similar titles self-congratulatory or otherwise were the trend of the day in a society that equated astrology as guiding principles of everyday and also Imperial life-a give and take between the Micro-cosmos and Macro-cosmos used quite effectively by the rulers of that era to control the populous as well as protect their supremacy.

The millennium between c.100 BCE and c.900 CE saw the growth of long-distance economic and cultural exchange both within and beyond Southeast Asia, processes which contributed to the development of early states and precipitated cultural changes through encounters with Indian and Sinitic cultures. Increasing numbers of people were travelling long distances along established trade routes into, within, through and out of the region, and for many different reasons. Visual representations of people claimed to be ‘foreigners’ in the art of this period have been identified in several cultural contexts, but have mostly received only cursory mention, often with a simple assertion of their identity. However, they are significant as locally-produced representations because, appropriately interpreted, they may offer new insights into intercultural interactions that have in large part been reconstructed from non-Southeast Asian textual sources and via studies of stylistic relationships and archaeological exotica. This thesis seeks to develop a methodology for the informed interpretation of such images that incorporates an appreciation of the cognitive processes behind the perception and representation of difference, otherness and foreignness in ancient art, in part by drawing on interpretive discussions of this kind of visual material elsewhere in the ancient world. Additional considerations pertinent to Southeast Asian engagement with non-local iconographic traditions are included. The resulting methodology is discussed further in three case studies where figures have been claimed to represent ‘foreigners’ to highlight the subjectivities, subtleties and sources involved in interpretation. Two of these have geographical foci, in pre-Angkorian Cambodia and Dvāravatī culture in Central Thailand, and one has a thematic focus, being an apparent association with early representations of horses in the region. In each case, significant new insights result from the attention paid to these figures and their interpretation, showing the methodology to be a productive approach to understanding long-distance connections in Southeast Asia, or indeed elsewhere in the ancient world.

Archaeologists' growing commitment to studying the historical period has generated rich insights globally (e.g., Andrén 1998; Funari 1999; Orser 1996); this turn has also identified methodological challenges. Understanding the relationship between documentary and archaeological sources has been among the most persistent of these challenges (e.g., Feinman 1997; Kepecs 1997; Stark and Allen 1998). Chapters in this volume use case studies across the Old World to offer original contributions and explore significant, if sometimes intractable issues. Kohl (chapter 10) directly asks whether archaeological and written sources are qualitatively distinct or complementary. Acknowledging that most documentary sources are also archaeological in origin, I examine this relationship between archaeological and historical sources by tacking between my region of specialty in Southeast Asia (Cambodia and the pre-Angkorian Khmer) and chapters in this volume. Let us first turn to Cambodia in the firs...

How was Angkor Discovered. The lucid stories:
The largest religious structure on earth has puzzled and enchanted visitors for centuries. How did it come to be? Jonathan Glancey investigates. By Jonathan Glancey14th March 2017 The first Western visitor to Angkor One hundred years after the fall of Angkor, in app.1550 or 1951, which when King Satha Ang Chan went for a hunt he stumbled upon the ruins of the Angkor Wat temple complex in the jungles. It is a known fact that Sâtha became fascinated with Angkor having made it his capital (1571-1576) commanding the partial restoration of the town.