The Empire of Stone and Water: A History of Angkor

Chapter One: The King from the Water: Jayavarman II and the Birth of the Angkorian Empire At the close of the 8th century, the land of the Khmer was a fractured realm. The old kingdom of Chenla had splintered into competing principalities, a patchwork of territories without a unifying center of power. The southern heartland, the rich delta region once known as Water Chenla, languished under the humiliation of foreign suzerainty, dominated by the powerful seafaring kings of "Java" (likely the Sailendra dynasty of Java or the Srivijayan empire of Sumatra). It was a time of division and vassalage, an age that cried out for a leader of extraordinary vision and ambition. That leader was Jayavarman II. He was a prince who emerged from this period of foreign domination not as a vanquished subject, but as a revolutionary thinker armed with a powerful new conception of kingship. Through a combination of political acumen, military strategy, and profound religious innovation, Jayavarman …