Latest / The Khmer Empire: The Lost Civilization Behind Angkor Wat — Fexingo History / The Forgotten King Who Built Angkor: Jayavarman II
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about the builders of Angkor — Suryavarman II, Jayavarman VII, the engineers, the priests. But today I want to go back to the very beginning. Before Angkor Wat, before the empire even had a name, there was a king who essentially started it all. His name was Jayavarman II. Luna: I know the name, but honestly I don't know much about him. Wasn't he the one who brought the devaraja cult? Lucas: That's exactly the thing — yes and no. The devaraja, or god-king, is closely tied to him, but the story is more complicated. Jayavarman II comes to us mostly through one inscription, the Sdok Kak Thom, which was written about 250 years after his reign. And it tells us that he performed a ritual on top of Phnom Kulen — that's the mountain range north of Angkor — that declared him a chakravartin, a universal monarch. But what that actually meant, and whether it was a full-blown cult, is still debated. Luna: So he's kind of a legendary figure, like King Arthur? Lucas: In some ways, yes. We don't have a single contemporary source that mentions him. Everything comes from later inscriptions, and even those are fragmentary. What we do know is that he appears in the early ninth century, around 790 or 800, when the region we now call Cambodia was a patchwork of small states — Chinese records called them 'Funan' and 'Chenla', but those terms are really vague. Jayavarman II is said to have united these warring lords under one rule and founded the first capital at a place called Mahendraparvata, which means 'Mountain of the Great Indra'. Luna: And that was on Phnom Kulen? I remember hearing something about that. Lucas: Exactly. Mahendraparvata was the mountain capital, and it's only in the last decade or so that archaeologists using lidar have really started to uncover it. It's a whole city up there, hidden under the jungle. But before he became king, Jayavarman II apparently spent time in Java, at the court of the Sailendra dynasty. The Sailendras were a powerful Buddhist dynasty that built Borobudur — that massive stupa — and they had a lot of influence across Southeast Asia. There's a theory that Jayavarman II learned about kingship, about ritual, and maybe even about the idea of a divine ruler from them. Luna: So he brought that Javanese concept back to Cambodia and adapted it? Lucas: Possibly. But the Sdok Kak Thom inscription says that a Brahmin named Hiranyadama came from a place called 'Janapada' — which could be a part of India or maybe even Java — and performed a tantric ritual to establish the devaraja. The inscription says Jayavarman II 'inaugurated' the cult, and that it was tied to a royal linga — a stone phallus symbolizing Shiva. This linga was supposed to be the king's personal divine essence, kept in a temple at the centre of the kingdom. But here's the thing: later kings like Indravarman I and Suryavarman II also built their own linga temples. So the devaraja might not have been a single permanent cult, but something each king reinvented. Luna: It sounds like it was more about legitimacy than actual worship. Lucas: That's a good way to put it. The idea that the king was a god on earth gave him absolute authority — and it also made rebellion a form of sacrilege. But we also know that Jayavarman II didn't just sit on a mountain. He moved his capital several times, according to inscriptions — from one place called Indrapura, which might have been in the Mekong delta, to the Kulen hills, and later to Hariharalaya, which is the area around modern Roluos. That's where his successors built the first major temples. Luna: Wait — so he was a restless king? Always on the move? Lucas: It seems that way. But we have to be careful. The inscriptions that record these moves were written later, and they might be projecting a pattern of sacred geography onto his reign. What's clear is that by the time he died, around 835, he had laid the groundwork for a unified kingdom. His successors, especially Indravarman I, would build on that by constructing the first great state temples like Preah Ko and Bakong. Without Jayavarman II, there's no Bakong, no Angkor Wat, no Bayon. Luna: So why isn't he as famous as the later kings? Lucas: Partly because he left behind fewer monuments. Jayavarman VII built Angkor Thom and a network of hospitals and roads — you can see his legacy everywhere. Suryavarman II built Angkor Wat. Jayavarman II's capital on Phnom Kulen was abandoned relatively quickly, and the jungle swallowed it. For centuries, the only evidence of him was a few inscriptions and the stories they told. It wasn't until the late 20th century that archaeologists really started to explore the Kulen hills and find the remains of his city. Luna: So what did they actually find up there? Lucas: A lot. The lidar surveys from 2012 and onwards revealed an entire urban grid — roads, reservoirs, dykes, temple platforms. There's a huge square enclosure that might have been the royal palace, and a massive artificial mountain called Phnom Kulen itself, which is a natural hill but was carved with channels and basins. They also found the remains of a linga shrine, possibly the very one that housed the devaraja. But it's all very ruinous — later builders reused the stone, and the jungle has done its work. Luna: It's amazing that there's still so much to discover about a guy who started an empire. Lucas: Absolutely. And that's what makes him so fascinating. We have these scattered pieces — a Sanskrit inscription here, a Chinese reference there, a temple foundation over there — and we have to piece together a life from them. The Sdok Kak Thom inscription says he ruled for over forty years, which would be an incredibly long reign. If true, he had plenty of time to consolidate power and shape the Khmer identity. But we don't even know where he was buried. No tomb, no grand monument. He remains, in a way, a ghost king. Luna: So what do you think is the most important thing he did? Uniting the kingdoms, or starting the devaraja cult? Lucas: If I had to choose, I'd say it's the uniting. Because the devaraja concept existed in various forms across Southeast Asia — it wasn't unique to the Khmers. But the political unification, the creation of a single Khmer 'kingdom of Kambuja' — that's what allowed all the later building and conquest to happen. Without that foundation, Suryavarman II and Jayavarman VII would have been local lords fighting endless wars, not empire builders. So Jayavarman II is the quiet beginning of an incredible story. Luna: He's like the root of the tree that grew into Angkor. Lucas: Exactly. And roots are easy to overlook when you're staring at the branches and the flowers. But without them, nothing else stands.