Latest / The Khmer Empire: The Lost Civilization Behind Angkor Wat — Fexingo History / Jayavarman VIII and the Hindu Restoration of Angkor
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about Jayavarman VII, the great Buddhist king who built Angkor Thom, the Bayon, the hospitals. He died around 1218, and his son Indravarman II ruled for decades—but he was a weaker figure, and the empire started fraying at the edges. By the 1240s, things were shaky enough that a usurper seized the throne. And that's when the whole religious direction of Angkor took a sharp turn. Luna: A usurper who brought back Hinduism? Lucas: Exactly. His name was Jayavarman VIII, and he reigned from about 1243 to 1295. He was a zealous Saivite—a devotee of Shiva—and he launched what we can only call an iconoclastic campaign against the Buddhist imagery his predecessors had installed all over Angkor. And I mean systematically. Lucas: The Bayon temple, which Jayavarman VII had built as a Mahayana Buddhist monument with those massive faces of Lokeshvara—Jayavarman VIII had the central sanctuary modified. He removed the Buddha images, installed a Shiva linga, and rededicated the whole place to the Hindu god. It's a physical rewriting of history. Luna: Did he destroy everything? Or just repurpose it? Lucas: A mix. At the Terrace of the Leper King, there were these beautiful reliefs of Buddhist figures, and his workers literally chiseled away the Buddha medallions that had been carved into the walls. You can still see the damage today—nearly empty circles where medallions used to be. But elsewhere, they were more pragmatic. They'd just plaster over Buddha images and carve new Hindu scenes on top. Lucas: At Preah Khan—the temple Jayavarman VII had built as a Buddhist university—there was a massive standing Buddha in the central hall. Jayavarman VIII's men destroyed it. The French archaeologists who restored the site in the 20th century actually found fragments of that statue hidden in a shaft nearby, as if someone had tried to protect it. Luna: So there was resistance. People who didn't want to see Buddhism erased. Lucas: Probably. But we don't have texts that describe it—all our evidence is archaeological. And what's fascinating is that Jayavarman VIII didn't just target Buddhist art. He also revived the devaraja cult, the god-king ideology that Jayavarman II had established centuries earlier. He built new Hindu temples, like the small but exquisite Mangalartha, which was dedicated to Vishnu. Luna: Mangalartha—that's the one with the four-armed Vishnu relief, right? Lucas: Yes. And interestingly, Mangalartha is the last major temple built at Angkor before the empire's decline. It was finished in 1295, right at the end of Jayavarman VIII's reign. After that, construction basically stops for over a century. Lucas: But here's the thing—Jayavarman VIII's reign wasn't just about religion. He also had to deal with external threats. The Mongols were sweeping through Asia. Kublai Khan had already conquered China and was looking south. In 1283, the Mongols invaded Champa, and they sent envoys to Angkor demanding submission. Luna: How did Jayavarman VIII respond? Lucas: He played a clever game. He initially refused, and the Mongols threatened invasion, but he eventually sent tribute—an annual gift of ivory, rhinoceros horn, and other luxuries—to keep them at bay. He never actually submitted to Mongol rule, but he bought peace. The Chinese envoy Zhou Daguan, who visited Angkor a few years later in 1296, noted that the Khmer were still wary of the 'Tartars.' Luna: Zhou Daguan—we've mentioned him before. His account is our best eyewitness description of Angkor. Lucas: Exactly. He visited during the reign of Jayavarman VIII's successor—actually, by the time Zhou Daguan arrived, Jayavarman VIII had been overthrown. His own son-in-law, Indravarman III, deposed him in 1295, and Indravarman III was a Theravada Buddhist. So the shift away from Saivism was almost immediate. Lucas: And that's the irony: Jayavarman VIII's attempt to restore Hinduism and erase Buddhism only lasted about fifty years. After him, Theravada Buddhism, which had been spreading through Southeast Asia from Sri Lanka, took root permanently. The devaraja cult faded away. Angkor's last great building phase was under Theravada kings, but they built in wood and brick, not stone, so almost nothing survives. Luna: So Jayavarman VIII is kind of a tragic figure. He tried to turn back the clock, but he couldn't stop the change. Lucas: Right. And he's often overlooked in popular histories because he didn't build anything as grand as Angkor Wat or the Bayon. But his destruction—his iconoclasm—tells us a lot about how fragile religious identity can be, even in a powerful empire. The stones of Angkor still bear the scars of his zeal. Luna: Are there any records of what the ordinary people thought? Or is it all just kings and temples? Lucas: Almost nothing from ordinary people. But we have one intriguing hint: a small inscription from a monastic foundation mentions that some Buddhist monks fled into the forests during Jayavarman VIII's persecution. That suggests a kind of resistance, even if it was quiet. And those forest-dwelling monks—they were the ones who eventually helped spread Theravada Buddhism in the countryside, long after the court had turned back to Hinduism. Lucas: So in a way, Jayavarman VIII's persecution might have inadvertently strengthened the very tradition he was trying to erase. The more you push something underground, the more resilient it becomes. Luna: That's a powerful thought. A good place to leave it. Lucas: Absolutely. Thanks for listening to Fexingo History. Until next time.