The Šaiva Religion among the Khmers Parti
Alexis Sanderson *
The primary religion of the Khmers is now Theravâda Buddhism, as it is throughout mainland Southeast Asia with the exception of sinicized Vietnam; but the rise of that religion occurred only with the decline and fragmentation of the Khmer kingdom of Angkor and the concomitant growth of the power and influence of the Tai, who had adopted the Theravâda from the Mon of Dvâravatï and lower Burma. Our records of the Khmer principalities of the fifth to eighth centuries and of the unified kingdom of Angkor that emerged thereafter and endured into the fourteenth, show that religion throughout that time comprised three other faiths of Indian origin: Šaivism, the Pâncarâtrika Vaisnavism of the Bhâgavatas, and Mahâyâna Buddhism in the developed form that includes the system of ritual and meditation known as the Mantranaya, Mantrayâna or Vajrayàna. The three coexisted harmoniously for the most part but with Šaivism predominant. This was so throughout ancient Kambujadeša, the area of Khmer settlement that extended southeast through modern Kampuchea from the Angkor region north of the Great Lake into the delta of the Mekong river in southern Vietnam, and to the north, through north-eastern Thailand 1 and the Champasak province of southern Laos. 2
* Spal ding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics, All Souls College, University of Oxford. 1 . The remains of nearly two hundred Khmer temples of the Angkorean period survive in modern Thailand in the provinces of Chanthaburi, Sa Kaeo, Prachin Buri, Nakhon Ratchasima, Buri Ram, Surin, Si Sa Ket, Ubon Ratchathani, Yasothon, Roi Et, Maha Sarakham, Khon Kaen, Chaiyaphum, and Sakon Nakhon, with the greatest concentrations in Nakhon Ratchasima, Buri Ram and Surin. 2. I have chosen to use the term Kambujadeša to avoid confusion with the modern state of Kampuchea or Cambodia. Kambujadeša or Kambuja is the name given to their territory by the Khmers in their Sanskrit and Old Khmer inscriptions of the Angkorean period: K. 14, v. 3; K. 235, Khmer, С 1. 72; К. 258 С, v. 2; К. 278, v. 2; К. 282 D, v. 23; К. 549, 1. 12-13; К. 956, 1. 16. They also show the form Kambudesa (kamvudesa) and synonyms: K. 300, v. 9; K. 400 B, v. 2; K. 923, v. 14; K. 806, v. 270a (kambuvišvambhara). These names were understood through a tradition that the Khmer kings are the descendants of a mythical progenitor Svâyambhuva Kambu (K. 286, v. 1 1 sqq.), i.e. as 'the land of the sons of Kambu' or 'the land of Kambu'. In Middle Khmer we find kâmbuj, kambujdes, kambujdes (K. 465 of A.D. 1583 [NIC I: 22]), in Modern Khmer kambujá/Kampučhea/, and in Old Javanese kamboja (Dešawarnana 15.1). The earliest occurrence of the word of which I am aware is in A.D. 817. It occurs in Campa, the rival kingdom to the east of Kambujadeša, in a Sanskrit inscription of king Harivarman I at the Po-Nagar temple (C. 2 = M. 26): àkambujàrdham ajitabhujaujasâ 'one the might of whose arm was unconquered right up to the middle of Kambuja[desa]'. Perhaps there was no sense of any such comprehensive entity in the pre- Angkorean period. Running through the kingdoms of mainland Southeast Asia, the Da Tang Xiyu ji of Xuanzang (= Taishô 2087), completed during that period, in a.d. 646, calls the kingdom between Dvâravatï (dolobodi) to the West and Mahâcampâ (mohojenbo) to the East not Kambujadeša or similar, as we might expect, but ïsânapura (yishangnabuló) (Beal 1884, 2:200). This is the name of the capital (= Sambor Prei Kuk) of the
Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient, 90-91 (2003-2004), p. 349-462.
