Theravada Buddhism

In the last post I mentioned that Theravada Buddhism was the dominate religion in Cambodia in 1296, however I didn't go on to point out that it is still the dominant religion today with 96.4% of the population clamming to be Buddhist.

Buddhism is primarily based on the teaching of Siddhartha Gautama who lived and taught in Nepal and India around 400 BCE and is regarded as the Buddha (The Awakened One). The central premise of his philosophy was to find a path to salvation by attaining insight into the ultimate nature of reality. There are two major branches of Buddhism. The first, and older, is Theravada ("The School of the Elders"). The second is Mahayana ("The Great Vehicle"). Both schools believe in the teachings of the Buddha, but there is disagreement on the expression and implementation. Unlike the Catholics and Protestants of Northern Ireland however, there is no animosity born out of this disagreement. Since Theravada is dominant in Cambodia and Southeast Asia, I'm focusing on that one.

Legend has it that King Asohka of India sent out a couple of monks to SE Asia in the 3rd century BCE where it spread, mingled and coexisted with Brahmanic religions that were introduced through trade with India. Sanskrit inscriptions and Chines reconds show that Buddhism was prominent in the Funan and Chenla Kingdoms, but around 600 CE the tide started shifting towards Hindu. While Hindu was the state religion of the Angkor Kingdom (except during Jayavarman VII), Mahahana Buddhist practices, strongly influenced with Tantric tendencies, were widely accepted.

Cambodia transitioned to Theravada Buddhism in the 13th Century after Tamilinda (Jayavarman VII's son) returned from Sri Lanka as an ordained Buddhist monk. This form of Buddhism was much more disciplined and orthodox being based only on the earliest teachings of the Buddha. One reason Theravada became so popular so fast was that it was inclusive of all members of society and not just the elites. This relatively sudden ground swell of ideological change may also have had a hand in overthrowing the "god-king" and bringing the Angkor Kingdom to an end.

Cambodia Trip Planning - A closer look at Angkor

Since Angkor Wat is the "big deal" in Cambodia, and one of my primary motivations for going, I thought I would take a closer look at it. As previously mentioned, The Angkor Empire started in 802 CE when King Jayavarman II broke away from Java. He set up his capital in Hariharalava (today called Roluos), just southeast of Angkor Wat. Harihara is the name of a deity that combines the essence of Vishnu (Hari) with that of Shiva (Hara). He also started a trend of associating the ruler with the power of Shiva by proclaiming himself a devaraja or "god king" (deva = god, raja = king). A title he felt he deserved after unifying several political factions in the area.

Side note: Connecting the king to Hinduism was started 300 years earlier by the first Khmer ruler, Rudravarman, who's name comes from adding the name of a powerfull Hindu deity (Rudra = Controller of awesome powers) with varman (protected by). Jaya and Vijaya were the gate-keepers of Vaikuntha, which was Vishnu's dwelling and means "place or eternal bliss".

In 877 Indravarman I comes to power and builds the empire's first "baray", a giant artificial body of water used for irrigation.

His son, Yashovarman I, then comes to power in 889 and moves the capital to the Angkor area. The new capitol is called Yasodharapura and is centered around a temple on a low hill known as Phnom Bakheng, surrounding it with a moat fed from the East Baray. In this case the baray not only irrigated the rice fields, but also represented the mythological oceans surrounding Mount Meru (Phnom Bakheng), the abode of the Hindu gods.

Typically, a lingam served as the central religious image of the Angkorian temple-mountain. Usually set in an open base (the female yoni), the lingam was anointed by priests with milk and other libations as the source of life. The temple-mountain was the center of the city, and the lingam in the main sanctuary was the focus of the temple. The name of the central lingam was the name of the king himself, combined with the suffix "-esvara" which designated Shiva. Through the worship of the lingam, the king was identified with Shiva, and Shaivism became the state religion.

Over the next 300 years, the Khmer empire produced some of the world's most magnificent architectural masterpieces in the Angkor. There was a short period where Jayavarman IV moved the capitol to Koh Ker in 928, but Rajendravarman II moved it back to Angkor in 944. Some 72 major temples or other buildings dot the area. King Suryavarman II built the most famous temple, Angkor Wat, between 1113 and 1150 as his personal temple mausoleum.

Beautiful nymphs called apsaras arose from the foam in a Hindu creation myth, Churning of the Sea of Milk. They dance and sing for the gods and mortals who reach paradise. Some 1700 apsaras are carved on the walls of Angkor Wat alone; thousands more - individual in dress, hairstyle, and ornamentation - appear in almost every Angkor temple, Hindu and Buddhist alike. Classical Cambodian dance echoes an apsara's graceful gestures.

Breaking with the tradition of the Khmer kings, and influenced perhaps by the concurrent rise of Vaisnavism in India, he dedicated the temple to Vishnu rather than to Siva. With walls nearly one-half mile long on each side, Angkor Wat grandly portrays the Hindu cosmology, with the central towers representing Mount Meru, home of the gods; the outer walls, the mountains enclosing the world; and the moat, the oceans beyond. However worship of Vishnu was secondary and always pressant.

After Suryavarman, thinks went downhill for a bit. Internal strife opened the door for the Cham (now southern Vietnam) to invade and destroy Yasodharapura. The future King Jayavarman VII rallied his people and defeated the Cham. After he was crowned in 1181 he built Angkor Thom over the ruins of Yasodharapura. He also shifted the state religion from Hinduism to Mahayana Buddhism. He built the Bayon at the heart of Angkor Thom, and on the face towers, the king represented himself as the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (Buddhist hero who renounced nirvana to save all sentient beings) moved by compassion for his subjects. Hindu temples were altered to display images of the Buddha, and Angkor Wat briefly became a Buddhist shrine. But after his death there was a Hindu revival and most of the Buddhist images were desecrated.

In 1296 Chinese diplomat Zhou Daguan visited Angkor and the journal of his experiences are the most significant source of information about everyday life at Angkor. He also observed tree separate religious groups: Theravada Budhism (the dominant one), Brahmans and Shaivites or lignam worshippers. It was around this time that the Angkorian civilization began to decline and officially came to an end when Thai invaders sacked Angkor in 1431. Only Angkor Wat remained occupied as a Buddhist shrine.

Cambodia Trip Planning - A Brief History

Stone tools dating back 1.83 million years have been found in Malaysia and the oldest human-like person found was the 500,000 year old "Java Man". Although Homo Floresiensis (aka the Hobbit) has been making headlines lately and is dated between 95,000 to 13,000 years old. The Khmer people (the original Cambodians) seem to have move down to Cambodia from South Eastern China around 1000 BCE and quickly set up organized agricultural societies harvesting rice, fish and domesticated animals, especially in the Mekong River valley. It was about this time when most people of Southeast Asia became heavily influenced by Indian traders and scholars, adapting their religions, sciences, and customs and borrowing from their languages.

The earliest known kingdom in the area, Funan, flourished from 68-550 CE. It reached its peak under Fan Shih-man in the early 3rd century, extending as far south as Malaysia and as far west as Burma. The Funanese established a strong system of mercantilism and commercial monopolies that would become a pattern for empires in the region. Fan Shih-man expanded the fleet and improved the Funanese bureaucracy, creating a quasi-feudal pattern that left local customs and identities largely intact, particularly in the empire's farther reaches.

The Khmers formed Chenla, a vassel state to Funan, in 550. The Khmer Kingdom of Bhavapura was lead by Ishanavarman who completely conquered the kingdom of Funan during 612-628. He chose his new capital at the Sambor Prei Kuk, naming it Ishanapura. The weakening of the Funan state at this time can largely be explained by distant events: the collapse of the Roman Empire and subsequently trade routes between the Mediterranean and China. After the death of Jayavarman I in 681 the kingdom broke up into many principalities.

In 802 the kingdom of Kambuja (which gave Kampuchea, or Cambodia, its name) began in the Angkor region in western Cambodia. Under Jayavarman VII (1181–ca. 1218), Kambuja reached its zenith of political power and cultural creativity. Jayavarman VII gained power and territory in a series of successful wars against its close enemies; the Cham or Vietnamese. Following Jayavarman VII's death, Kambuja experienced a gradual decline. Important factors were the aggressiveness of neighboring peoples (especially the Thai, or Siamese), chronic interdynastic strife, and the gradual deterioration of the complex irrigation system that had ensured rice surpluses. The Angkorian monarchy survived until 1431, when the Thai captured Angkor Thom and the Cambodian king fled to the southern part of the country.

The next 400 years are known as Cambodia's "Dark Ages". With the exception of a short time in the sixteenth century where they were able to establish trade with other parts of Asia and the Spanish & Portuguese "discovered" Ankor, Cambodia was a pawn in the power struggles between Siam and Vietnam. Siam started off with the upper hand, but when the Vietnamese annexed the Mekong Delta, cutting off Cambodia's access to the sea, Vietnamese absorption of the Khmer people seemed inevitable.

In 1863, King Norodom singed over Cambodia to the French where the French tried, till WWII to create a Union Indochinoise (Union of Indochina). In 1940 the Japanese displaced French authority in Vietnam. Thailand saw this as an opportunity to squeeze the weakened French for control of Cambodia, and after the French-Tai War, walked away with a couple of provinces. In 1941 the French made Norodom Sihanouk king (19 at the time), seeing him as inexperienced and easy to manipulate. While this seemed to work for a while, he took direct control of the government from June 1952 until February 1955 (shredding the constitution he ratified in 1947) where he pushed the French into letting go of Cambodia on November 9th, 1953.

During the first administration of Sihanouk Cambodia tried to have a neutral foreign policy, but by the mid '60s the Viet Cong had bases in parts of the east. In 1969 the USA bombing runs along the border and the Khmer Rouge insurgency, helped to destabilize Sihanouk's control. Eventually he was driven abroad for medical reasons in January 1970. This allowed General Lon Nol to take control with a military coup d'état. Cambodia then allies with the United States and used joint forces to try and drive out the NVA, with very little affect. On October 9, the Cambodian monarchy was abolished, and the country was renamed the Khmer Republic.
In 1972, a constitution was adopted, a parliament elected, and Lon Nol became president. But the government was to week and corrupt and Pol Pot and Ieng Sary asserted their dominance over the Vietnamese-trained communists eventually collapsing the Republic and taking control in April 1975.

Immediately after its victory, the CPK forced everyone to work as farmers in order to shape society into a model that Pol Pot had conceived. A new constitution in January 1976 established Democratic Kampuchea as a Communist People's Republic. Khieu Samphan would chair the State Presidium and Pol Pot would act as PM. Prince Sihanouk was put under house arrest. The CIA estimated 50,000–100,000 were executed and 1.5 million died from 1975 to 1979.
A December 1978 Vietnamese invasion drove the Khmer Rouge into the countryside, began a 10-year Vietnamese occupation, and touched off almost 13 years of civil war. The US tried to launch a relief effort, poring $400 million through UNICEF and the World Food Program between 1979 and 1982.

The 1991 Paris Peace Accords mandated democratic elections and a ceasefire, which was not fully respected by the Khmer Rouge. UN-sponsored elections in 1993 helped restore some semblance of normalcy under a coalition government (90% turn out). Factional fighting in 1997 ended the first coalition government, but a second round of national elections in 1998 led to the formation of another coalition government and renewed political stability. The remaining elements of the Khmer Rouge surrendered in early 1999. Some of the surviving Khmer Rouge leaders are now on trial by an UN-sponsored tribunal for crimes against humanity.

Elections in July 2003 were relatively peaceful, but it took one year of negotiations between contending political parties before a coalition government was formed. In October 2004, King Norodom Sihanouk abdicated the throne and his son, Prince Norodom Sihamoni, was selected to succeed him. Local elections were held in Cambodia in April 2007, and there was little in the way of pre-election violence that preceded prior elections. National elections in July 2008 were relatively peaceful.