Before the God-Kings: The Dawn of the Khmer Civilization

Chapter One: The Genesis of the Khmer: Origins of the People and Early Austroasiatic Migrations Before the first god-king raised a temple to the heavens, before the Sanskrit prayers of Brahmin priests echoed in the court, and even before the land was known as Kambuja, a people with a deep and ancient heritage were shaping the fertile plains of the Mekong. The story of the Khmer people does not begin with the grandeur of Angkor, but thousands of years earlier, in a complex and epic story of migration, settlement, and cultural fusion. To trace the origins of the Khmer is to uncover the bedrock of Southeast Asian history itself, revealing a people whose linguistic and genetic roots make them one of the most ancient indigenous inhabitants of the entire region. This is not a story of a single, dramatic arrival, but of a slow and steady process, a great peopling of the land that unfolded over millennia. The evidence lies not in grand inscriptions, but in the very language the people speak, in…