Jayavarman VII

Jayavarman VII was a king of the Khmer Empire (1181 - 1219????) in present day Cambodia. He was the son of Dharanindravarman II (r. 1150 - 1160) and his wife Sri Jayarajacudamani.

Jayavaraman became king in 1181 having driven out the Cham conquerors of Yashodharapura, the city of Angkor Wat and many other temple complexes. We know that the city had been burnt and that after his conquest Jayavarman led an almost unparalled programme of building. As a Buddhist, instead of Hindu, he did not rely on royal obesiance to the gods to protect the city. He built a huge wall around it for the first time. The wall is in place today.

His major temples include Ta Prohm, dedicated to his mother. This massive temple had at one time 80,000 people assigned to its upkeep. The first Lara Croft film was shot in Ta Prohm. Another great complex which appears also to have been a kind of administration centre is called today Preah Khan ('Sacred Sword')dedicated to his father. It was another massive set of buildings by an artificial lake.

Neak Pean (Coiled Serpent) also built by Jayavarman VII is one of the smallest but most beautiful temples in the Angkor complex, a fountain with four surrounding ponds set on an island in that artificial lake.

Angkor Thom (Big Angkor) was a new city centre, called in its day Indrapattha. At the centre of the new city stands one of his most massive achievements -- the temple now called the Bayon, a multi-faceted, multi-towered temple that mixes Buddhist and Hindu iconography. Its outer walls have startling bas reliefs not only of warfare but the everyday life of the Khmer army and its followers. These reliefs show camp followers on the move with animals and oxcarts, hunters, women cooking, female traders selling to Chinese merchants, and celebrations of common footsoldiers.

The reliefs also depict a naval battle on the great lake, the Tonle Sap, which as it shows Cham and Khmer, may well depict the retaking of Yashodharapura.

It is likely that all this building was accomplished late in his life. Some scholars say Jayavarman must have been fifty years old in 1181 and evidence suggests that he ruled well into the 13th century, though we have no firm date for his death or birth.

It is a matter of debate whether his father Dharanindravarman was ever king. We do know that he married Jayarajadevi and that after her death, he then married her sister Indradevi. The two women are commonly thought to have been a great inspiration to him, particularly in his unusual devotion to Buddhism. Only one previous Khmer king had been a Buddhist.

An inscription written by Indradevi and found on the Phimeanakas temple is fullsome in its praise of her sister Jayarajadevi's acetiscm and religious insight, as well as praise for Jayavarman's kingship. Its account of how he came to be King is poetic but ambiguous. (translation by Georges Coedes).

Jayavarman lived for a time in the lands of the Cham, in what is now middle Vietnam, though it is not clear in what circumstances. There is another Jayavarman-style temple complex very remote and hard to reach now called Preah Kahn at Kompong Svay. As portraiture of him has been found there, some people feel he may have lived there before becoming the Chakravatin, or Khmer emperor.

What is known is that King Suryavarman (Sun Shield) II, builder of the great Angkor Wat died some time in the early 1150s. He was succeeded by Yashovarman II who was himself overthrown by Tribhuvanadityavarman (Protegee of the Three Suns) assumed to be an usurper. Most dates are a matter of debate or conjecture. One date that is certain is that in 1177 the Chams who had themselves been subjected to numerous Khmer invasions, took the city of Yashodharapura in 1177. A Cham king took the title of Jaya-Indravarman. In 1181 Jayavarman VII became King after leading the Khmer forces and driving out the Chams.

He was succeed by Indravarman about whom almost nothing was written. There is only one inscription about him, one that establishes he had died by 1243. This lack of praise and pomp led David Chandler, in an influential article, to speculate that Indravarman may have been the Leper King of Cambodian legend and later record. Indravarman was succeeded by Jayavarman VIII who it is thought supported a Hindu revolt. Certainly there is evidence of enormous and organised defacing of Jayavarman VII's works. The niches all along the top of the wall around the city contained images of the Buddha. Most of these were removed. A statue of Jayavarman VII was found by excavators having been thrown down a well. Buddha images in Preah Khan were re-worked to resemble Brahmins.

When Cambodia finally did become a Buddhist country, it followed Theravada Buddhism, not the Mahayana Buddhism practised by Jayavarman VII.

Care must be taken not read European patterns of kingship, inheritance or nationhood onto the history of the Khmer empire. Sons did not necessarily inherit their father's thrones; Jayavarman VII himself had many sons, such as Suryakumara and Virakumara,who were crown princes (the suffix kumara usually is translated as crown prince). They did not inherit.

The Chams shared with the Khmer the Hindu and Buddhist religions. Both peoples used Sanskrit as a formal language. If the Bayon bas reliefs are to be believed, some Cham fought alongside the Khmers in the battles depicted on the Bayon.

Jayavarman VII remains a potent symbol of national pride for present day Cambodians. As a Buddhist King in a now Buddhist country he is regarded with great respect. He built and repaired many 'firehouses' across the Empire, which are thought of as places for travellers to rest and many buildings which are now called hospitals in translation. This has contributed to a legend of the Buddharaja, the King-Buddha, who privileged compassion in ruling. This view of Jayavarman and his reign is supported by some beautiful portrait sculpture of him in meditation.

The historical record is a mixture of the incredibly precise (we know the exact date that a temple was consecrated) and more ambiguous texts and archaelogical evidence.

There is a minority view, quite cynical, that the current biography of Jayavarman is imaginary and that the evidence could just as easily support the view that he was the usurper. What is not imaginary is the size and scale of the building programme, the fact of his Buddhism, or the unusual focus on everyday life that is found on the walls of the Bayon.

External link

• History of Jayavarman VII (http://angkor1431.tripod.com/index/id19.html)

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