KHMER BUDDHIST HISTORY: A NOTEBOOK
Buddhism, under a variety of forms,
existed in Southeast Asia for two thousand years or perhaps even longer.
Buddhist legends say that Buddhism was originally introduced into Suvannabhumi,
or the “Golden Peninsula”, by King Asoka, the great Buddhist Emperor in India,
during the 3rd century BC.
For the first Thousand years, Theravada,
Saravastavada and Mahayana Buddhism co-existed throughout Southeast Asia,
including the lands of present day Cambodia. These Buddhist traditions were
practiced under the dominant Hindu religion of the region, which consisted
primarily in the worship of the God-king, Shiva, embodied in the human king.
Saravastavada Buddhism was Hinayana tradition, virtually identical with the
present day Theravada, except it was based in a Sanskrit literary tradition,
rather that Pali language tradition. The doctrinal teachings and the monastic
practices were the same as Theravada. Theravada Buddhism was present also,
evidence by Pali inscriptions from this period. Saravastavada Buddhism was the
predominant form of Buddhism in Southeast Asia from the earliest days until
Mahayana Buddhism became ascendant with the rise of the Angkor Empire from
about 800 – 1200.
Mahayana Buddhism became increasingly
influential until it eventually replaced Hinduism as the official state
religion under King Jayavarman VII.
At the height of the Angkor Empire, after
the death of King Jayavarman VII, a “Theravada Revolution” occurred, and
Theravada Buddhism became ascendant as the official state religion, which it
has remained for past 800 years. Buddhism coexisted with the predominant Hindu
Shiva worship for about one thousand years, until Buddhist religion became
officially established about one thousand years ago, first with the establishment
of Mahayana Buddhism of King Jayavarman VII, and then the ascendancy of
Theravada Buddhism.
300 BC
Buddhism, according to legend, came to
Southeast Asia as early as 300B.C. by way of missionaries dispatched by the
renowned Indian Emperor Ashoka.
“Unconfirmed Singhalese sources state that
Buddhism was introduced to Suvannabhumi, or the ‘Golden Peninsula’, as mainland
Southeast Asia was once referred to, in the 3rd century BCE under the reign of
King Asoka, the great Buddhist ruler. According to these sources, two monks,
Sona and Uttara, were sent to propagate the doctrine of the Master in this
region following the great council of 247BCE held in Ashoka’s capital
Patalipitta, India. While this mission may be legendary, it points to a truth
that Buddhism ahs been present in Southeast Asia for a long time. Various
Buddhist sects and schools, including Tantrism, vied or coexisted with a
dominant Brahmanism and indigenous animistic faiths for centuries before the
rise of the classical Southeast Asian empires beginning in the 9th century CE.
Through in part Indian merchant traders, Indian cultural influence was
pervasive in this early period. In Funan (1st to 5th century CE), the first
organized Khmer polity, the Khmer people embraced not only the diverse
Brahmanic and Buddhist religions but also the social customs and mores of
India.” [“Notes of the Rebirth of Khmer Buddhism” Radical Conservativism,]
FUNAN: 100 BC – 500 AD
Certainly there were Buddhists in Cambodia
by 100BC.
In the 100BC-500AD the Kingdom of Funan in
the present-day Mekong Delta established a flourishing sea-faring trade between
China, Indonesia, and India. Hindu, principally Vishnu and Shiva religious
practices were established in Funan.
An Indian Sanskrit inscription from 375
documents that an Indian claming descent from Scynthian line ruled as King of
Funan. “He may have been responsible for establishing the worship of Surya, the
sun god, who appears in many sculptures of this period. A second Indian, a
Brahmin, succeeded him. Then other kings with Indian names appear in the
inscription. One, Kuandinya Jayavarman (478-514) cultivated Buddhism, and sent
a Buddhist mission complete with Funanese images [carved in coral] to the
Emperor of China…” [The Art of Southeast Asia, Philip Dawson, p21]
[“Another early dated inscription of
Kamboja (586-664) the Wat Prey Vier Sanskrit inscription is also definitely a
Buddhist record, speaking of two Bhikkhus, Ratnabhanu and Ratnasimha, who were
born of the same mother. That in Kamboja, Buddhism flourished already in the
last half of the fifth century AD is also attested to by Chinese texts which
have yielded to M Pelliot the important information that in 484 AD Jayavarman
(king of Founan, who is also referred to in the inscription discovered at Ta
Prom, cited above) sent the Indian monk Nagasena to present a memorial in the
Chinese Imperial court which began with a panegyric of the Emperor a one of the
patrons of Buddhism, in whose empire the Dharma flourished.” [Sanskrit Buddhism
in Burma, Nihar-Ranjan Ray, 1936.]
Buddhism was clearly beginning to assert
itself from year 450 onward, when the Chinese explorer I-tsing, toward the
close of the 7th century, wrote the celebrated Records of the Buddhist
Religion, based on extensive travels in India, Sri Lanka, the Indonesian
archipelago, “he found that the islands of Southeast Asia, the
Mulasarvastivada-nikaya had been universally accepted, except in Malaya where
there were a few being Mahayana.” [Sanskrit Buddhism in Burma, Nihar-Ranjan
Ray, 1936]
There was some interaction between Funan
and Indonesia and India during these early centuries. As Funan declined in
influence around 500AD, the southeast coast of Sumatra gained importance as a
sea route from China to Indonesia and India, the central power between Java,
Malaysia, and Chaya in southern Thailand.
CHENLA: 500 – 700 AD
In the year 500-700, a proto-Khmer
civilization was established in Chenla near the Mekong and Sap rivers. These
people spoke Mon and worshiped Shiva. The Mon-Khmer languages are connected.
The Mon people were known as Dvaravati,
and were established in Central and northeast Thailand [Muang Fa Daet] and in
Chang Mai. The Mon Dvaravati had embraced Theravada Buddhism from the earliest
times. Many inscriptions from this early strata of Theravada Buddhism have been
recovered from the ruins of the towns.
Buddhas seated in the European style,
known as Palai Buddhas, have been found throughout the Dvaravati areas. Also
sima stones and clay votive tablets bearing images of Buddha and inscribed in
Pali and Mon script have been found widely distributed throughout the Angkor
Empire, in present day Thailand, Laos, southern Vietnam.
“According to Ma Touan-Lin, a 13th century
Chinese chronicler, there were ten monasteries of Buddhist monks and nuns
studying the sacred texts in the 4th and 5th centuries CE [in Funan/Chenla –
Cambodia]. He stated that two monks from Funan traveled to China in this period
at the request of the Chinese emperor, to translate the Sanskrit Tipitika into
Chinese. A passage from the History of Leang, a Chinese chronicle written in
502-556 CE, tells us that King Rudravarman sent a mission of monks to China in
535 under the direction of an Indian monk, Gunaratana. The delegation arrived
in China in 546 CE, accompanied by 240 palm leaf manuscripts of Mahayana
Buddhist texts. Evidence of a cult of Buddha’s relics was seen in Rudravarman’s
request of the Chinese emperor for a 12 foot long relic of Buddha’s hair.”
[“Notes of the Rebirth of Khmer Buddhism”, Radical Conservativism]
“Although weakened in the Chenla period,
Buddhism of the Mahayana tradition survived as seen in the inscription of
Sambor Prei Kuk (626CE) and those of Siem Reap dealing, for example, with the
erection of a statue of Avalikotesvara (791CE). Some pre-Angkorean statuary in
lower Kampuchea and Kampuchea Krom attests to the existence of Sanskrit-based
Theravada Buddhism. Additionally, fragments of Pali inscriptions dating from
the 5th to 7th centuries have been discovered in the lower Burmese Mon region (Prome,
or Crikshetra) and most recently in Prachinburi, Thailand (Dong Si Mahapot).”
600-800
Abundant evidence exists indicating the
establishment of Buddhism in Chenla during these centuries. Khmer-style Buddhas
and Buddhist images are abundant from this period. Mahayana Buddhism had
developed doctrines in which transcendent personages (bodhisattvas) played a
major part. The bodhisattvas were living Buddhas, or people who were qualified
for enlightenment but out of universal compassion decided to remain in the
world to help other people escape from suffering. The bodhisattva’s spiritual
states enabled them to perform all kinds of miracles, and more at will
throughout the universe. The presence in Chenla of images of the bodhisattva
alongside the images of Hindu deities suggests that these were more than one
dynasty in the country with claims to royal sovereignty, in a situation also
known in India. Some of these kings were Buddhist. In Khmer times the cult of
Lokeshvara attained great importance. The bodhisattva images of Lokeshvara of
Chenla existed both in stone and bronze. Their hair is done up in a carefully
arranged chignon of rope-like locks, reminiscent of the long hair of Shiva
images. At the front of the chignon is a small seated figure of the Buddha who
is the bodhisattva’s spiritual authority.
Many Buddhist statues from 500 on were
created in Cambodia. These indigenous Khmer images included both sitting
Buddhas, and the standing with bent leg walking-Buddha. “There is one Buddha
head, supposed to be the earliest, from Ran lok which is often said to recall
the style of 3rd century Buddhas of Amarvati, on India’s Southeast coast. It is
this resemblance which authorizes the assumption of its early date. There is
indeed resemblance; but there are also marked differences. For this Ran lok
head is a distinctively Cambodian work, with the marks of the sophisticated
Cambodian style.” [The Art of Southeast Asia, Philip Rawson]
“A number of inscriptions and temple
foundations are ascribed to King Bhavavarman III who ruled before 639 to after
656. It seems that, although the King’s patron deity was probably Shiva, the
religion of Mahayana Buddhism suddenly spread in the kingdom. A number of
Mahayana images were made in a distinctive style, which was centered in Prei
Kmeng, and was probably contemporary with that of Sombor, continuing during the
Prasat Andet and Kampong Preah epoch. The most characteristic images of this
Mahayana group are the bodhisattva and images of one type of Bodhisattva in
particular, known as Lokeshvara, “Lord of the World.” It is more than likely
that such images represented a Buddhist form of royal pattern. When a Hindu
king would derive his royal authority form a Hindu deity, a king who was
Buddhist would find it difficult to derive similar authority from the Buddha
himself, who was a humble mendicant.” [The Art of Southeast Asia, Philip
Rawson]
One of the earliest inscriptions of the
ancient kingdom of Founan discovered at the monument of Ta Prohm in the
province of Bali, dated about 625, states, among other things, that Buddha,
Dharma and Sangha are in a flourishing condition; “and through the purpose of
the inscription is not clear it can be surmised that it recorded the foundation
of a Buddhist monastery. This inscription studied along with other early
inscriptions of Kamboja, particularly with the Visnuite inscription of Prince
Gunavarman, found among the ruins of the monuments of Prasat Pram Loven on the
hill of Thap-musi, reveals the interesting fact that in contemporary Kamboja as
in Borneo, Brahmanism and Buddhism existed side by side.”
The transition from Hindu god-king to
Mahayana Buddha-king was probably imperceptible gradual and imperceptible. The
cult of Shiva and Vishnu gradually blended and morphed into the cult of the
Bodhisattva. The prevailing cult of Bhahmanism was Vishnu. Shivism was the
dominant form of Hinduism in Angkor in the earlier period of the 9th and 10th
centuries. Vishnuism became dominant in the 11th century. The image of Buddha
of Tuol Prah Theat, standing straight legged, Khmer art, imitates the dignity
of a Hindu god. This indicates the blending of Buddhist and Hindu imagery
prevalent in Cambodia at this time.
SILENDRA
What caused the ascendancy of Mahayana
Buddhism throughout Southeast Asia at this time? I think it was the ascendancy
of the Silendra dynasty, which arose to power in central Java. These may have
been Khmer royalty who escaped the Funan Empire as it disintegrated. Both Funan
and Silendra are known as “kings of the mountain”. These are the folks who
built Borbudur in central Java in the 8th and 9th centuries. In other words,
the Khmer royalty of Chenla may have migrated to Sumatra as their kingdoms
disintegrated, bringing with them the Hindu-influenced Mahayana Buddhist world
view. Mahayana Buddhism was greatly enhanced and intensified in the Silendra
dynasty, which had close ties to the Mahayana Buddhist Pala Dynasty of Bengal.
Both the Pala and Silendra dynasties were greatly influenced by the Mahayana
Buddhist learning, Nalanda University, the vortex of Buddhist learning at the
time. The Nalanda University in northern India radiated enormous influence
throughout the world, under the patronage of the Pala kings.
“The Bengal University of Nalanda in
Megadha (now Behar) was the theological center of Mahayana Buddhism under the
protection of the Pala Dynasty [750-1060]. Shivaist (specifically Pashupata)
interpretations of Buddhism, tinged with Tantrik mysticism (that may have
revived portions of pre-Aryan northeastern Indian cults) were worked out in
Megadha and then were exported throughout insular and peninsular Southeast
Asia, particularly to Java. Yashovarman I, who ruled form the vicinity of
Roluous in the late ninth century, seems to have been a Shivaist Buddhist
influenced by Nalanda syncretism. His successors (notably Jayavarman IV)
dedicated themselves to Vishnu and Brahma, as well as to Shiva, with whom they
continued to be identified by hereditary families of priests. Rajendravarman II
studied Buddhism intensely.” [Angkor Life, Stephen O Murray]
Srivijaya, capital of Sumatra, became an
empire of neighboring islands in the Malayasian-Indonesian archipelago around
675-700. The inscriptions from this time document that Mahayana Buddhism was
emerging as a dominant social force. By 750 Srivijaya extended its influence to
Java and other surrounding islands. An inscription here in Java records the
erection of three brick temples dedicated to Sakyamuni Buddha, Padmapani and
Vajrapani in 775. The earliest inscription from Java is also a Mahayana Sanskrit
document, the Kalasan inscription dated 778, which records a dedication of a
temple to Tara, by the king of Srivijaya. This temple of Kalsan still stands
today near the Barabudur.
A Sailendra dynasty copper-plate
inscription from 875-900 says Balaputradeva of the Sailendra dynasty granted
some villages for the upkeep of Nalanda University, revealing the devotion of
the Mahayana Buddhist kings. The Sailendra dynasty also built the fantastic
Mahayana Buddhist temple Barabudur in Java about this same time. This may have
been the inspiration for the later fabulous Angkor building projects in
Cambodia. The celebrated Bengali Buddhist monk, Atisha (980-1053) visited the
city of Srivijaya, the capital of the Sailendra dynasty Sumatra, center of
Mahayana Buddhism. The zeal of the Silendra’s for Mahayana Buddhism of Nalanda
radiated its influence throughout the neighboring countries. This influence
apparently spread at least until the eleventh centuries, explaining Jayavarman
VII’s embrace of this form of Mahayana Buddhism, and launching the tremendous
building projects of Angkor, in imitation of the tremendous efforts of
Barabudur.
This rising Mahayana influence eclipsed
the other Hinayana (Theravada and Saravastavada) forms of Buddhism that had
flourished in Southeast Asia for the past 800 years. This new, intensified,
robust Mahayana Buddhism was then reintroduced into Cambodia, with the rise of
the Angkor Empire, under the patronage of the Silendra Dynasty of Java, who was
probably themselves Khmer. Theravada Buddhism continued to exist throughout
Cambodia and Southeast Asia, primarily as a forest tradition, practiced by
hermits and anchorites in rural settings.
In Cambodia, an inscription from 782
refers to the dedication of a temple to Bodhisattva Manjusre (Manjugosa).
Images of Maitreya are also found.
800-850
King Jayavarman II (802-869) is the first
real Khmer king of the Angkor Empire. He proclaimed himself God-king and began
to establish the capital of Angkor (Rolous) near present day Angkor. Jayavarman,
as a young man had visited Java-Sumatra and for some years lived and studied in
the Mahayana Buddhist empire. He returned to Cambodia to proclaim himself god
king (devaraja), according to Khmer traditions, clearly identifying himself
with Shiva. Even though he maintained the ancient Hindu traditions of Cambodia,
he was increasingly friendly to Mahayana Buddhist influence.
In Indian Cultural Influences in Cambodia,
B R Chatterji said that the Sailendras of Srivijaya-Sumatra, towards the end of
the eight and the beginning to the ninth centuries, exercised some sort of
suzerainty over Cambodia as a vassal state.
When King Jayavarman II returned in
Cambodia, he built three capitals in secession: Hariharalaya, Amarendrapura,
and Mahendraparvata. Amarendrapura, identified with Banteai Chmar, has been
found to be essentially a Mahayana city presided over by Avalokitesvara.
“The founder of Angkor-period dynasty,
Jayavarman II had spent many years in the ardently Mahayana Buddhist kingdom
Zabeg (the Arab name for a Kingdom of the Southern Sea, including Java,
Sumatra, and much of the Malay peninsula). In the late-eighth century a Zabeg
maharaj had sent a fleet for the head of a young Khmer (Zhenla) king who had
rashly spoken of wishing the Zabeg maharaj decapitated. It is unclear whether
Jayavarman II was in Java at the time, or soon there after the Zabeg maharaj
had demonstrated his greater claim to being divinely powerful ( and just: he
did not despoil the kingdom but had its kings’ head removed, embalmed, and
returned to Zenla for the new king to remember). It is fairly certain that the
Zabeg maharaj approved the Khmer council’s choice of a new king. It is also
fairly certain that Jayavarman II moved inland at least partly form knowing how
easily the Zabeg fleet had captured the Zhenla capital and taken away his
predecessors head.”
“Jayavarman II had a Brahman priest
consecrate his miraculous lingam on the highest mountain-top of Phnom Kulen
(northeast of Angkor) as Prameshvara .ie the Supreme Lord, and ratify his
capital as being Mahendra, the appropriate place for Shiva to reside. In turn,
Jayavarman II made the family of Sivakaivalya the perpetual hereditary chief
priest and royal chaplain….” [Angkor Life, Stephen O Murray]
The priests were court functionaries who
helped chose and approve the new king. A new king would seek the approbation of
the priests to divinize and legitimize his reign. The Theravada Sangha serves a
similar purpose in Thailand, and modern Cambodia.
Tantra in Cambodia
This form of Buddhism was similar to
Tibetan Buddhism of the Buddhist monks of Magadha and Bengal during the Pala
dynasty:
“…the prevalence of Tantrayana in Java,
Sumatra and Kamboja, a fact now definitely established by modern researches
into the character of Mahayana Buddhism and Sivaism in these parts of the
Indian Orient. Already in Kamboja inscription of the ninth century there is
definite evidence of the teaching of Tantric texts at the court of Jayavarman
II. In a Kamboja record of the 11th century there is a reference to the
“Tantras of the Paramis”; and images of Hevajra, definitely a tantric divinity,
have been recovered form amidst the ruins of Angkor Thom. [A Hevajra image was
also found in Sumatra]. A number of Kamboja inscriptions refer to several kings
who were initiated into the Great Secret (Vrah Guhya) by their Brahmanical
gurus; the Saiva records make obvious records to Tantric doctrines that had
crept into Sivaism.”
“But it was in Java and Sumatra that
Tantrayana seems to have attained greater importance. There Mahayana Buddhism
and the cult of Siva, both deeply imbued with tantric influences, are to be
seen often blending with one another during this period. The Sang hyang
Kamahayanikan, consisting of Sanskrit versus explained by an Old Javanese commentary,
professed to teach the Mahayana and Mantrayana….”
Tantrayana blended Sivaism with Mahayana
Buddhism. According to Nepalese accounts from this period, Brahma, Vishnu and
Shiva are emanations of the Dhyani-Buddha Vairocana. The Kawa poem, the
Nagarakretagama show that Kretanagara, the ruler of Singasari, was given to
tantric practices: “A statue of this king has been found in a cremation ground
which is a certain proof of his profession of Tantric doctrine; [it states that
the king] had gone through the ten ceremonies of purification and the eight
processes of initiation and that the carried out with scrupulous care the five
makaras ‘free from all sensuality.’ The inscription engraved on the pedestal of
his statue in the robes of a monk records that after his initiation on the
cremation ground, he was supposed to be identified with Akshobya….”
The presence and influence of Buddhism
continued to grow under successive kings. In 877-889, Indravarman I creates a
unified Khmer Empire and begins the great irrigation systems that gave rise to
the authentic Angkor Empire.
In 889-910, King Yosavarman succeeded
Indravarman I and reigned for about ten years. He built several temples
according to Mahayana Buddhist specifications, representing Mount Meru, the mythical
Buddhist axis of the world. The largest of these temples is Phnom Kandal or
“Central Mountain” which lies near the heart of the Angkor complex. He also
built temples to Shiva, Vishnu and Buddha. Buddhism was having significant and
growing influence at this time.
King Rajendravarman II (944-968) “studied
Buddhism intensely. Although he decided to remain a Shivaist, he appointed a
Buddhist, Kavindrarimathana, chief minister. Kavindrarimathana built shrines to
Buddha and Shiva. Jayavarman V (son of Rajendravarman) also remained a devotee
of Shiva. He, too, permitted his own chief minister, Kirtipandita, to foster
Mahayana Buddhist learning and divination.” [Angkor Life, Stephen O Murray]
King Jayavarman V (968-1001), was a
Shivast, but very strong patron of Buddhism, which exerted increasing influence
on the royal court of Angkor.
Surayvarman I (1002-1050), the next
successor after Jayavarman V, was a patron of Buddhism. His is probably the
most outstanding Buddhist King except only Jayavarman VII.
King Surayvarman I was a Tamil-Malay
(Srivijaya) “usurper” to the throne, who claimed legitimate succession to the
throne through his Khmer mother. His father was king of the Buddhist kingdom of
Tambralingam on the Malay peninsula. He publicly venerated Shiva or Rama, but
was officially a Mahayana Buddhist king.
A strong proponent of Mahayana Buddhism,
he nevertheless did not interfere with the growing prominence and dissemination
of Theravada Buddhism during his reign. “Indeed, inscriptions indicate he sought
wisdom from wise Mahayanists and Hinayanists and at least somewhat
disestablished the Sivakaivalya family’s hereditary claims to being chief
priests (purohitar). Suryavarman’s posthumous title of Nirvanapada, ‘the king
who has gone to Nirvana’ is the strongest (though not incontrovertible)
evidence that he was a Buddhist.” [Angkor Life, Stephen Murray]
King Udayadityavarman II (1050-1065), was
the successor to Suryvarman I. Udayadityavarman II “restored Shivaism (and
especially how own Shiva-lingam of gold in the Baphuon) though he did not
restore the Brahmin priests, the Sivakivalya clan, as the court chaplains.
King Dharanindravarman II (1152—1160),
appears to be a devout Buddhist King. He was father of the greatest of all
Khmer Buddhist kings, Jayavarman VII.
JAYAVARMAN VII
In 1177, the Chams sacked Angkor, creating
a sense of trauma and crisis throughout the Angkor Empire by attacking and
looting the capital.
King Jayavarman VII (1181-1219), ascends
to the throne in the sense of crisis that had descended on the Khmer empire.
Jayavarman VII studied the doctrines of Mahayana Buddhism, rather than
Theravada. His Mahayana faith was the source of his attempt to be a
Dharma-king, a bodhisattva, through service and merit making, to liberate
himself and his kingdom. Why did he officially establish himself as a Buddhist
king, turning his back on the old Hindu deities? Perhaps he and his people had
become disillusioned with the Hindu gods, because of their failure to protect
the Angkor Empire from being sacked by their enemies, the Cham. Jayavarman VII
may have rejected Hinduism because the Cham sacked Angkor, and he may have
thought that Shiva failed the Khmer people. The Cham themselves were Hindu, and
he may have felt an instinctive revulsion or disgust for the religion of his
enemies. He had practiced Buddhism for a long time, and naturally began to
accentuate the Mahayana Buddhist aspect of the tantric god-king religion that
had long held sway in Khmer dynasties. He withdrew his devotion from the old
gods, and began to identify more openly with the Buddhist traditions. His
regime marked a clear dividing line with the Hindu past.
Before 1200, art in the temples mostly
portrayed scenes from the Hindu pantheon such as Vishnu reclining on a lotus
leaf, or the churning of the primeval sea of milk of primal creation. After
1200, scenes from the Buddhist Jatakas, and life of the Buddha, along with
scenes of the Ramayana began to appear as standard motif.
Jayavarman VII was elderly, perhaps 60,
when he became king. He worked feverishly to accomplish his works in saving the
Khmer people and establishing a Buddhist empire, in a race against time.
Jayavarman VII was a “bodhisattva king,” a
Buddha-king, something like the Dalai Lama. “He was considered to be a living Buddha,
or bodhisattva, turning back from the brink of enlightenment to redeem his
people (a new concept in itself) from suffering. By redeeming others in this
way, it was thought, a king redeemed himself.” [A History of Cambodia Chandler]
He had a sincere earnest belief of his
destiny as a bodhisattva whose path in life was to deliver his people from
suffering. The people were objects of his compassion, an audience for his
merit-making, his redemption. Images of Jayavarman portray him in the ascetic
seated meditation posture with a serene, enlightened expression.
He built numerous public works to serve
the people, including, water works, hospitals, temples, hospices for travelers,
far beyond any other Cambodian king. Chandler calls him the “most otherworldly
of Cambodia’s kings.” Inscriptions say he “suffered from the maladies of his
subjects more than from his own; for it is the public griefs that make a king’s
grief, and not his own.” Another inscription reads: “Filled with a deep
sympathy for the good of the world, the king swore this oath; ‘All beings who
are plunged in the ocean of existence, may I draw then out by virtue of this
good work. And may the kings of Cambodia who come after me, attached to
goodness…attain with their wives, dignitaries and friends, the place of
deliverance where there is no more illness.” One sign of the change underway
was the building of many monastic buildings, including monasteries (vihara) and
libraries. Whereas in former times, all effort had been focused on building the
massive temple-mount of the devaraja, now more resources were invested into
building monastic residence. There was a shift away from the cult of the king
to the cult of the Sangha, which was more “earthly”, in direct contact with the
people.
The Preah Khan was example of Jayavarman
VIIs building projects. An 1191 inscription at the temple documents the
residence of a community of 97,840 people associated with the monastery. The
central Buddhist sanctuary contained a beautiful statue of Lokesvara, the bodhisattva,
sculpted in the image of Jayavarman’sVII father. Today, a stupa stands there.
Shrines dedicated to Vishnu and Shiva are also in the Buddhist temple, showing
Jayavarman VII’s continued inclusiveness in supporting Hindu tradition. “Preah
Khan housed a portrait statue of Jayavarman VII father, Dharanindravarman, with
the traits of Lokesvara, the deity expressive of the compassionate aspect of
the Buddha. The symbolism is relentlessly appropriate, for in Mahayana Buddhist
thinking the marriage of wisdom (pranja) and compassion (karuna) gave birth to
enlightenment, which is to say, the Buddha himself, the enlightened one.”[?]
The Preah Khan, Ta Prohn and Bayon are representative of this layout. The
Bayon, with the faces looking out in the four cardinal directions, represents
the Buddha himself: Jayavarman VII.
Jayavarman VII also built the temple Ta
Prahm to honor his parents in 1186. His mother was worshiped there as
Pranjaparimita, the Goddess of Wisdom, the mother of the Buddhas. The temple
also contained many shrines, including an image of his Kru (guru). The resident
monks of the temple were Buddhist, Shivite and Vishnuite.
He considered his city, Angkor Thom, and
this temple, The Bayon, to be his “bride”. An inscription says “the town of
Yosadharapura, decorated with powder and jewels, burning with desire, the
daughter of a good family…who married by the king in the course of a festival
that lacked nothing, under the spreading dais of his protection.”
The object of the marriage, the
inscription goes on to say, was the “procreation of happiness throughout the
universe” – a worthy objective for a Buddha-king.
The building projects commissioned by the
Buddha king were redolent with tantric Buddhist symbolism. The word “bayon”
means “ancestor yantra” – yantra is a magical, geometric mandala shape. The
central image of the of the temple was a Buddha, a portrait of Jayavarman VII
himself, sheltered by an enormeous hooded snake.
The haunting faces of the Bayon, looking
into the four directions, crowned with a blooming lotus, represent the four
Brhamaviharas – love of a Buddha: Loving kindness, compassion, joy, and
equanimity looking over the Angkor Empire, and the universe. The trinity of
Avilokitshvara, Pranjaparimita and Buddha was central to his thinking and
manifest in the projects he commissioned in his lifetime
He constructed the Bayon at Angkor Thom,
and established the rising influence of Mahayana Buddhism, after thoroughly
defeating the threat of the Champa.
“By the mid-tenth century, the temple
mountains each king built to house the lingam representing his potency were
becoming mausoleums after his death. Each new king who reigned long enough to
build a temple mountain had his lingam installed in it. After his death his
ashes or corpse was deposited there, which his spirit lived on in the image of
a god.” “In writing about Borobodur (the Javanese Angkor) Paul Mus explained
that the temple-mountain was less a magnificent shelter for eh dead than an
architectural body, where the magic soul lived on – shifting from a human body
to a stone body. The Mahayanist Buddhism of Jayavarman VII permitted such
personal cults. Such self-glorification was anathema to the Theravada Buddhism
of post-Angkor Cambodia.]
“Villages were assigned responsibility to
provide for the maintenance of temples (not only of reigning kings and their
dead ancestors, but of some living men of signal eminence too). Multitudes of
Khmer peasants ‘contributed’. Ta Prohm had 3,140 villages with 79,000
individuals working to support it; Preah Khan had 5,324 villages and nearly a
hundred thousand persons in its service.” [Angkor Life, Stephen Murray]
The peasants and the public rarely or
never saw or entered the temples they supported, along with the huge colleges
of priests.
“Most scholars considered that the cult of
the god-king was quite removed from everyday life. Devaraja was probably a
burden without being felt to be much of an inspiration or blessing to those
producing the rice surplus that made a religious elite and royal temple building
possible. Surely the king inspired awe….” [Angkor Life, Stephen Murray]
Suryavarman II, 1112-1152 was publicly
devoted to Vishnu. Angkor Wat was his temple. He believed himself to be Vishnu
incarnate. Even though Hindu worship was reinstated, the momentum for the
ascendancy of Buddhism continued as a sort of popular revolution as the people
increasingly abandoned the failed and burdensome ways of the Devaraja.
From the reign of Jayavarman VII onward,
Buddhism was the ascendant religion of the Cambodia, except for a brief period
at the end of the 13th century when there seems to have been a brief revival of
Hinduism, responsible for he defacement of some of the Buddhist images of
Jayavarman’s reign.
Images of Buddha carved into niches in
along the path lining a processional way at the Preah Khan, for instance, were
crudely removed and defaced in a determined effort to transform the Buddhist
complex into a Hindu one in the thirteenth century.
[In legends and literature, Jayavarman VII
is sometimes obliquely referred to as the “Leper King” – and Khmer folk legends
continue the tradition that a great, king leper king lived in seclusion within
the temple palaces. What is that about?]
MAHAYANA TO THERAVADA SHIFT
The conversion of Cambodian elite to Theravada
Buddhism occurred shortly after the reign of Jayavarman VII. All the great
building projects came to an end at his death, marking the virtual end of
classical Angkor.
“During the Angkor Empire (9th to 13th
centuries) the Khmer kingdoms and outlying principalities were loosely unified
under the Khmer Rulers who based their powers on Hindu (devaraja, or god-king)
and Mahayana Buddhism (Buddharaja, or Buddha-king) cosmological theories of
order and political authority. Although several kings and ministers professed
the Buddhist way, Suryavarman I and Jayavarman VII were Buddharajas of
distinction who built numerous religious foundations of distinction (hospitals,
sanctuaries, statuary, temples) in many parts of the realm. It is interested to
note that Jayararman’s Buddhism had strong tantric features.”
“But the presence of Pali Theravada
tradition was increaseingly evident. This Singhalese-based Theravada Buddhist
orthodoxy was first propagated in Southeast Asia by Taling (Mon) monks in the
11th century and together with Islam in the 13th century in the southern
insular reaches of the region, spread as a popularly-based movement among the
people. Apart from inscriptions, such as one of Lopburi, there were other signs
that the religious venue of Suvannabhumi were changing. Tamalinda, the Khmer
monk believed to the be son of Jayavarman VII, took part in an 1180 Burmese-led
mission to Sri Lanka to study the Pali cannon and on his return in 1190 had
adepts of the Sinhala doctrine in his court. Chou Ta-Laun, who led a Chinese
mission to Angkor in 1296-7 confirms the significant presence of Pali Theravada
monks in the Khmer Capital.” [“Notes on the Rebirth of Khmer Buddhism” Radical
Consrvativism, Peter Gyallay-Pap]
TAMALINDA
During the time Tamalinda was studying in
Sri Lanka (1180-1190) at the famous Mahavihara, a dynamic type of Theravada
Buddhism was being preached as the “true faith” in Sri Lanka. This
pilgrimage-embassy to Sri Lanka included five monks including Tamalinda,
accompanied by the monk Chapata, and
These monks spent ten years in Sri Lanka,
becoming Theras who could perform ordination on their own authority after
returning to their respective countries in Burma, Thailand (Mon regions), and
Cambodia. The form of Theravada Buddhism in which they were educated was a
particularly militant, resilient brand, due to centuries of struggle for
survival against the Tamil oppression that nearly obliterated Buddhism in Sri
Lanka, and did extinguish Buddhism in southern India.
Theravada Buddhism almost completely
disappeared from the world in the 9th and 10th centuries. It remained active
only in a few centers in southern India, Ceylon, lower Burma and central
Thailand.
“By the ninth century, Buddhism of all
schools was very much in retreat in its homeland India. From the ninth to
eleventh centuries, Hindu Tamils waged continuous attacks against those
kingdoms in southern India and Ceylon where Buddhism continued to exist. In
southern India, Buddhism was finally extinguished; it was almost extinguished
in Ceylon as well. Early in the eleventh century, the Singhalese had been
forced by the Tamils to leave their old capitals of Anuradhapura and Polonaruva
and to take refuge in the mountains country of southern Ceylon. In the middle
of the elevenths century, the Singhalese king Vijaya-Bahu I was able to rally a
significant force and in 1065, he succeeded in reconquering the country. He
found that Buddhism had practice ally disappeared form the kingdom; monasteries
had been destroyed and sacked, the order of nuns had completely disappeared,
and there were not even sufficient monks left to perform a higher ordination.
In order to reestablish the religion, he sent to Burma for some monks.” [The
Golden Peninsula, Charles Keyes.]
When Buddhism was reestablished in Sri
Lanka, it was a deliberately orthodox form. In the 13th century, wandering
missionaries from the Mon-language parts of Siam [semi-Khmerized monks of lower
Menam valley], Burma, and from Sri Lanka played an important part in this
process. In addition, increasing numbers of pilgrims and monks from Cambodia
traveled to India and Sri Lanka, to study Theravada Buddhism and obtain
authentic ordination lineages.
Tamilinda and his colleagues, upon their
return to Cambodia, Burma and Mon country, aggressively propagated this new,
resilient “true faith” which insisted that monks strictly adhere to the rules
of the monastic traditions (vinaya), and strongly emphasized pure ordination
lineages which could be traced back to the Mahavihara in Ceylon. They also
insisted on orthodoxy and rejected Mahayana “innovations.” This orthodox
version of Theravada Buddhism was promoted not only in oral teaching and
sermons, but also through compassion of texts.
[Note: “Chapata…was the author of a series
of works in Pali, notably the grammatical treatise Suttaniddesa and the
Sankhpakannana, a commentary on the compendium of metaphysics and
Abhidhammathasangaha.
“Another monk of the same sect,
Dhammavilasa…was the author of the first collection of laws composed in the Mon
country, the Dhammavilasa Dhammathat, written in Pali….” The Golden Peninsula,
Charles Keyes]
WHY THERAVADA?
By the thirteenth century a full fledged
mass conversion to Theravada had been achieved throughout Cambodia, permanently
disestablishing any other from of institutional religious practice. For the
past thousand years, most Theravada Buddhists throughout the Angkor-Khmer
Empire had lived unobtrusively as forest ascetics, meditating in the forests
and jungles, living in quiet contact with the rural folks in the remote and
withdrawn areas of the empire. These monks acted as a leaven over the
centuries, spreading education, building up local folk traditions through
ceremonies, story-telling and rituals.
How to explain this massive conversion to
Theravada Buddhism, which amounted to a nonviolent, irrevocable in the
foundations of civilization as it had been practiced for centuries?
Theravada Buddhism was inclusive and
universal in their outreach, recruiting disciples and monks from not only the
elites and court, but also in the villages and among the peasants, further
enhancing its popularity among the Khmer folk. The Theravada tradition under
Prince Tamalinda were aggressive in promoting and proselytizing Theravada
Buddhism. “Their messages succeeded because it provided a meaningful way of
relating to the world for many who had been marginal to the classical
civilizations of who had been seriously affected by the disruption of the
classical civilizations in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.” [The
Golden Peninsula, Charles Keyes]
“It is important to stress that whereas
Buddhism had been the religion of a small number of virtuous and a small number
of elite lay persons prior to the twelfth century, the Theravada Buddhism
introduced by those who had been to Ceylon became a popular religion whereas
prior to the thirteenth century Buddhism was practiced in thousands and
thousands of villages…” [The Golden Peninsula, Charles Keyes]
“Cambodians were ripe for conversion. The
political integrity and morality of the kingdom were thrown into question at
the time, and Cambodians converted en masse to this new faith that offered
social tranquility without striving for material gain or power. The modest
Buddhist bonzes were a welcome change from the arrogant and wealthy priests of
the kings. The new Buddhists dressed in simple saffron robes. They possessed a
sense of responsibility for all, not just the nobility. Eventually they became
as revered as the devaraja, who in turn became a Theravada Buddhist himself as
patron of the faith.” [When the War Was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rough
Revolution, Elizabeth Becker]
Scholars suggest that the classical Angkor
Empire collapsed from desertion from within and assault from without, from the
growing external threats and assaults from Saim and Vietnam.
“The post Angkor period (14th to 19th
century) saw the dramatic rise of the Pali Theravada tradition in Southeast
Asia and concomitant decline of the Brahmanic and Mahayana Buddhist religious
traditions. A 1423 Thai account of a mission to Sri Lanka mentions eight Khmer
monks who again brought orthodox Mahavirhara sect of Singhalese order to
Kampuchea. This particular event belied, however, the profound societal shift
that was taking place from priestly class structure to a village-based monastic
system in the Theravada lands. While adhering to the monastic discipline
(vinaya), monks developed their wats, or temple-monasteries, not only into
moral religious but also education, social-service, and cultural centers for
the people. Wats became the main source of learning and popular education.
Early western explorers, settlers, and missionaries reported widespread
literacy among the male populations of Burma, Thailand, Kampuchea, Laos, and
Vietnam. Until the 19th century, literacy rates exceeded those of Eur9ope in
most of not all Theravada lands. In Kampuchea, Buddhism became the transmitter
of Khmer language and culture.” [“Notes on the Rebirth of Khmer Buddhism”
Radical Conservativism,]
Indravarman III (1295-1307, established
Theravada Buddhism became once and for all the state religion of Cambodia
during his reign.
As the old Angkor Empire declined, the
center of government increasingly began to migrate to the center of Cambodia,
near present day Phnom Penh, away from the old Angkor area of Siem Reap.
Under the Angkoran kings, the common
people were virtual slaves. Chou Ta-kuan, an envoy of the court of Kubla Kahn,
left a record of visiting the Ankoran people. He described that life centered
around the palace and temples. People worked on building projects, canals,
temples, servicing the temples, serving the shrines. One such temple he
witnessed included 18 high priests, 2,740 officiants, 2,303 servants and 615
dancing girls. Ta Prohm temple housed 12,640 people and in addition required 66,625
men and women servant of the temple.
“Similarly, the people dependent on Preah
Kahn – that is to say, those obligated to provide rice and other services –
totaled nearly a hundred thousand, drawn from more than five thousand three
hundred villages. The inscription goes on to enumerate people who had been
dependent on previous temple endowments. Drawn from thirteen thousand five
hundred villages, they numbered more than three hundred thousands. The
infrastructure needed to provide food and clothing of the temples – to name
only two types of provisions. – must have been efficient and sophisticated.
Coedes estimated that the annual rice consumption by people in religious
foundations came to 38,000 tons.” [Chandler, A History of Cambodia]
Jayavarmans hospitals were
staffed/supported by “the services of 838 villages, with adult population
totaling approximately eighty thousand people. The services demanded appear to
have been to provide labor and rice for staffs attached to each hospital, or
approximately a hundred people and their dependents.” [Chandler, A History of
Cambodia p 61]
The Theravada revolution was a grassroots
movement of the common people in resistance of, or rejection of, the oppressive
burden of maintaining the god-king religion of Mahayana Buddhism and Hinduism.
The great temples of Hindu and Mahayana had thousands of slaves attached to
them, to supply the monks in their elite lifestyles. The people paid dearly for
the merit making works of the king and the temples connected to his court and
worship. Wm Shawcross notes: “[Theravada Buddhism] unlike almost all the
previous religions of the country, its doctrines were not imposed from above
but were preached to the people. It was simple, required no expensive
priesthood or temples and little ceremonial. Its missionaries practiced
austerity, solitude, humility, and poverty. Their example and their direct
contact with the people started to undermine the old state religion and the
monastery which rested upon it. Theravada Buddhism remained the great belief
and comfort of the Khmer people until 1975. “[Sideshow] The people then gently
rejected the corruption of the elite system that excluded them, and turned to
the gentle, poor, humble Theravada path.
Theravada Buddhism was a “relief from the
burdens of the glory of Sanskrit-writing priests and the monarchs they deified.
Between the Hinayanist evasion and the depredation of increasingly bellicose
Thais, the Angkor civilization devolved.” [Angkor Life, Stephen O Murray]
RURAL BUDDHISM
Some insight into the nature of the
rural/forest nature of the Theravada Buddhist monasticism that swept across
Southeast Asia and the Khmer empire is revealed in the Sukothai Thai
inscription of King Ram Khamhaieng of 1292. Sukothai was originally founded in
the 12th century as a Khmer outpost of the Angkor Empire, with mainly a Thai
population administered by its own “chiefs” (cao). “In the 1220s two of these
Tai chiefs rebelled against the Khmer and established an independent Tai
kingdom, the first Tai state in what is today central Thailand….” “The
inscription of King Ram Khamhaieng of Sukhothai is the earliest document still
extant written in Tai language (as distinct from Sanskrit or Khmer or Mon)….The
inscription says the king made kathina robe offerings to the monks – “What is
significant in this act is that the king traveled in a procession to a
monastery some two kilometers away from the walled city itself. It was at this
monastery, where monks were what is known as ‘forest dwellers’ (arannavasi),
the senior monk of the kingdom, the ‘Mahatheara Sangharaja, the sage who has
studied the scriptures form beginning to end, who is wiser than any other monk
in the kingdom.’ The fact that the senior monk of the kingdom dwelt outside the
city walls reflects a separation of religion and power that had not existed in
the classic cities of mainland Southeast Asia.” [The Golden Peninsula, Charles
Keyes, p263]. These monks were therefore abandoning or undermining the old
elite social order that was centered in the great cities of Angkor. The
inscription goes on to say that the “magical and spiritual center of the
kingdom” of Sukhothai was the “Great Relic” (Mahadhatu) shrine in the center of
the royal city. The Great Relic shrine had statues of Buddha, including
“statues eighteen cubits in height” and it was the residence for “city
dwelling” monks (nagaravasi).
Zhou Daguan (Chou Ta-Kuan), a Chinese
emissary from the court of Timur Khan, Emperor of China, lived in Angkor Thom
for a year in 1296-97 and wrote a small book about his observations. He
described Theravada monks who shaved their heads, wore yellow robes, leaving
one shoulder bare, walked barefoot. Their temples were simple, containing one
image of Sakyamuni; they called Pol-lai (Preah). The image was draped in red
cloth Buddhas on the towers were bronze. There were no bells, drums, cymbals or
banners visible. The monks ate meat or fish but did not drink wine. They ate
only one meal a day. They did not cook in the temple, but lived on alms food.
“The books they recited from were very
numerous. These were made of neatly bound palm leaves covered with black
writing.” Zhou wrote. “Some of the monks were royal counselors, and therefore
had the right to be conveyed in palanquins with gold shafts accompanied by
umbrellas with gold or silver handles. There were no Buddhist nuns.” [Angkor
Life, Stephen O Murray]
[Zhou also described observing the
presence of Brahmins, and Shivaists (Taoists) all living peacefully together.]
THAI POWER
Another factor in understanding the the
overthrow of the old social order was the ascendance of Thai power, filling the
power-vacuum of the disintegration of the Angkor Empire. The Thais first
attacked Angkor in 1296, taking slaves and pillaging the capital. Then in
1352-1430 the Kingdom of Ayutthaya attacked and looted Angkor four times,
enslaving and imprisoning many Khmer. Angkor was finally abandoned in 1441,
when the center of government moved to Phnom Penh area.
When Angkor was abandoned by the king in
the 15th century, (the chronicles of Ayutthaya say the final siege of 1431
lasted for seven months), some of the Angkor temples and ruins, such as Angkor
Wat, continued to be maintained by Theravada Buddhist monks. Louis Finot wrote
in 1902 that he believed the Khmer peasants may have even welcomed the collapse
of the Angkor Empire: “There is no evidence that the Khmer people resisted the
Thai aggression with vigor. They perhaps even looked on it as deliverance. They
had been forced not only to supply labor to construct enormous monument, the
size of which still staggers us, but to maintain innumerable temples [in which
they could not worship]…They did not defend these rapacious Gods or the slave
drivers and tithe-collectors with much ardor. The conqueror, in contrast,
offered them a gentle religion of resignation, well suited to exhausted and
discouraged people, and demanding far less: its ministers were pledged to
poverty, content with alms of rice. This moral religion stressed peace of the
soul and social harmony. We can understand why the Khmer people readily
accepted it and happily put aside the burdens of their former glory.”
The disintegration of Angkor Empire was
gradual decline and depopulation over along period of time.
[ What were the effects of the revolution?
1) the monks were simple and poor, in contrast to the elite, indulged priest
class of the big mountain-temple palaces; 2) they lived in contact with the
people, dependent on daily alms, in contrast to the temple priests who were
remote, living on taxes; 3) they “un-deified” the God-king, and the Mahayana
Buddha-king, abandoning his royal court, and centering themselves in the
forests as “outsiders” and marginal people; 4) they did not support pursuit of
early glory or gain, especially that of taking lives or causing suffering; 5)
the Theravada religion readily de-emphasized the things of this world, thereby
undermining the authoritarian, militaristic state and the massive
empire-enterprise needed to uphold the state; 6) they undermined Khmer Imperial
glory; 7) peasants persisted in the Imperial ruins; 8) civilization falls
apart.
BUDDHIST MIDDLE AGES
Phnom Penh was probably a small riverside
market center. The founding legend says a lady named Penh discovered a Buddha
floating down the river on trees and enshrined it at Wat Phnom. The new
Theravada kingship was more accessible to the people, like the model of the Mon
and Thai kings, traceable to the Davaravati Mon kingly traditions which had
practiced Theravada Buddhism for more than a thousand years.
COLONIALISM
Theravada Buddhism has proved
astonishingly resistant to any foreign attempt to convert the people.
In 1556 the Portuguese missionary Gaspar
de Cruz spent about a year in Cambodia and visited the capital Lovek where King
Cham reigned. The missionary was disappointed about his inability to convert
the Khmer people, and blamed is failure on the Khmer loyalty to the Buddhist
monks and the Theravada king
He described the monks in typical
Christian chauvinist terms: The monks are “exceedingly proud and vain…alive
they are worshiped for gods, in so that the inferior among them do worship the
superior like gods, praying unto them and prostrating themselves before them;
and so the common people have great confidence in them, with great reverence
and worship; so that there is no person that dare contradict them in
anything….[It] happened sometimes that while I was preaching, many round me
hearing me very well, and being very satisfied with what I told them, that if
there came along any of these priests and said, ‘This is good but ours is better,’
they would all depart and leave me alone.” [A History of Cambodia, Chambers,
p82]
When Western merchants and missionaries
first made contact with Kampuchea they discovered three tiered society,
consisting of royalty-nobility, the common people who were mainly rice farmers,
and the Buddhist Sangha of monks who were custodians and repositories of Khmer
culture and identity.
The lives of the common people, peasants
and farmers, have generally been overlooked and disregarded by historians, who
tend to view history as a chronicle of elites and of war. Theravada Buddhism is
a common people’s religions. Theravada Buddhism is a sort of spontaneous mass
movement of the peasants. It accumulates momentum undetected by the attention
of the elites, who generally disregard activities of the peasant class as
irrelevant. In Theravada, the people are subatomic particles which eventually
become manifest in atomic behavior. This invisibility of momentum is what gives
the sense of “timelessness” and “paradise” that people often attribute to
Theravada Buddhist countries, where centuries and ages pass with stability (the
highest value of the poor peasant class), ages passing without apparent change.
NINETEENTH CENTURY
What was Buddhism like in Cambodia in the
19th century?
By the 19th century, Thailand exercised
some type of authority over Cambodia, Issan, and Laos, Chang Mai and Chang Rai
– though these outlaying kingdoms were relatively autonomous and paid tribute
to the Thai court in Bangkok.
Chandler says, “Little is known about he
sangha in nineteenth century Cambodia, and it could be misleading to assert
that conditions were the same as those in Siam or Burma. There is no evidence,
for example, that the sangha played a political role vis-à-vis the royal
family, although monks and ex-monks were active in the anti-Vietnamese
rebellion of 1821. By and large monks were widely respected and were
repositories of merit, as sources of spiritual patronage, and as curators of
Cambodia’s literary culture. They occupied a unique and therefore mysterious
place in Cambodian life because they had abandoned – temporarily at least –
agriculture, politics, and marriage.” [A History of Cambodia, Chandler, p106]
The 1821 uprising Chandler mentions
occurred at approximately the same time in Cambodia, while in the Kingdom of
Vientiane rose up (1825) against the authority of Siam. Siam ruthlessly crushed
the rebellion and completely destroyed the kingdom of Vientiane, except for a
few Buddhist temples which remained standing. The Thai took the Vientiane king
back to Bangkok as a slave. The Vietnamese, who were also attempting to control
Cambodia at this time, had encouraged the Vientiane uprising, evoking the fear,
loathing and suspicion of the Thai, perhaps explaining the ruthless overreaction
to the insubordination of the Vientiane kingdom.
KHMER INDEPENDENCE - NATIONALISM
The French inadvertently helped create
Khmer independence and nationalist movement. How id it happen?
First, the French dispelled the political
power of the old enemies of the Khmer, the Thai and the Vietnamese.
Second, the French helped recover Khmer
identity through restoration, study and anthropology of Angkor Empire,
generating national-ethnic identity.
Third, the French established a Buddhist
Institute that generated a Khmer-language renaissance, and fostered nationalist
and ethnic self awareness and pride.
The Thai and the Vietnamese had repeatedly
invaded Cambodia to compete for power and control over the country. The Thai
invaded, Cambodians appealed to Vietnam for help. Then the Vietnamese sought to
subdue the Cambodians and they would turn to the Thai for help. Again and again
this process continued for centuries. The Vietnamese finally got the upper hand
in the early 1800s century. The Cambodian king was compelled twice a month to
visit the Vietnamese temple in Phnom Penh and prostrate to the name of the
Vietnamese emperor, while wearing Vietnamese ceremonial robes. The Vietnamese
tried to suppress Theravada Buddhism, and impose Confucianism and Mahayana
Buddhism on the Cambodians in an effort to “civilize” them. In 1820-21 the
Cambodians rose up in a rebellion against the Vietnamese. The insurrection was
led by a former monk named Kai, who was recognized as a “holy man” with
supernatural powers. He organized his revolt from Ba Panom, a holy mountain in
southeast Cambodia, the old capital of Funan and the place where the Buddhist
King Jayavarman II landed when he returned from Java to establish the Angkor
Empire. These monks and former monks embolden the peasants and Khmer populace
in a general uprising my using charms and Buddhist incantations which would
make them invulnerable to the enemy’s weapons. According to Khmer chronicles of
these events, however, when the Khmer killed their enemies, the Vietnamese
invaders, the nonviolent enchantment of the Buddhist charms was broken – and
they were slaughtered in a terrible defeat.
During these insurrections, the Cambodian
king was a vassal of the Vietnamese emperor, and was therefore duty bound to
put down the uprising; yet he could not bring himself to fight against the
insurrection led by Kai, whom he probably knew as a monk in Phnom Penh, and
whom he would have revered as a holy man with great supernatural powers. The
Vietnamese historians refer to the king as “extremely superstitious.”
This incident gives an insight to the
popular Buddhism of the time. These “holy men” were greatly revered Buddhist
leaders in Khmer society.
The Vietnamese regarded the Khmer as
“uncivilized” barbarians and tried to “civilize” the Khmer – i.e. force them to
adopt Vietnamese civilization, worldview, and religion. Part of their project
involved suppression of Theravada Buddhism and the attempt to impose
Vietnamese-style Confucianism and Mahayana Buddhism on the people – out of good
intentions that nevertheless had terrible consequences for the Khmer people who
were loyal to their own traditions.
The Khmer rebelled again in 1837-1839; and
in yet another major uprising in September-October 1840. The Vietnamese were
shocked by the repeated rebellions of these “barbarians” whom they regarded as
ignorant beasts incapable of coordinated action. The Vietnamese called them
“rats and mice” and said, “The Cambodians are so stupid, we must frighten them.
Ordinary moral suasion has no effect.” The Thai, ensconced with 35,000 soldiers
in Batambang, used the insurrection of 1840 as an opportunity to intervene, and
establish suzerainty over Udong, the Khmer court. According to Thai histories,
they viewed this intervention as a defense of Theravada Buddhism. In 1847, the
Thai helped reestablish a Theravada king, Duang, in Phnom Penh, and reestablish
Theravada Buddhism as the state religion. One record states that King Duang:
“leveled the [Vietnamese] fortifications at Phnom Penh and hauled away the
bricks to build and restore… [seven] Buddhist monasteries near Udong. Broken
Buddha images were recast, and new ones carved. Monks were encouraged to live
in monasteries again, and people were encouraged to respect them.” [A History
of Cambodia, Chandler, quoting an original source]. The return of the king with
regalia and the reestablishment of Theravada Buddhism provided legitimacy to
the king.
DHAMMAYUTTIKA
Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries,
Theravada Buddhism in a weakened Kampuchea and Laos received sustenance from
the Thai court and Sangha. Thailand was attempting to socialize and assimilate
Kampuchea and Laos into their sphere of influence, and to undermine Vietnamese
or the new European influence.
In 1855, King Duang invited the
Dhammayuttika sect into Cambodia, in order to help spread the reformed,
standardized, centralized Thai version of Buddhism throughout Kampuchea. The
Dhammayuttika were founded by King Mongkut (Rama IV) in order to strengthen and
raise the standard of education of Theravada monks, to withstand the effects
western influence at Christian missionary activities. “The coronation of Ang
Duang in 1847 also marked the beginning of a rebirth and change for Khmer
Buddhism that was only arrested by the impact of western-type modernization
after WWII. Paradoxically, the French colonial rule and its secular industrial
development goals served as a foil through which the sangha and the symbolic
aspects of the Khmer court were revitalized from below. The monks led the
people’s passive resistance to Frances ‘civilizing mission’ and succeeded in
retaining control over their temple-based school system. Although the process
of creating a new governing elite began with the French based secondary school
system in the early 20th century, many well intentioned French reformers to
‘modernize’ the country were quickly ignored by the people, monks, and
pre-World War II indigenous elites. It was not until after WWII that Cambodian
elites in Phnom Penh became westernized and transformed the country form a
Buddhist polity into a secular, western-type nation state.” [“Notes on Rebirth
of Khmer Buddhism,” Radical Conservativism]
King Duong next turned at this time to the
French as a counterpoint to Thai influence, in an effort to secure autonomy and
independence from the Thai and Vietnamese powers. King Duong was open to the
French influence, because of his friendship with a French Catholic missionary,
Monseigneur Jean Claude Miche, whose mission headquarters was located in Udon
and who encouraged the king to resist the Thai and establish connections with
the French. King Duong thought that by making overtures to the French he might
be able to regain control of the Mekong Delta and other land that the French
were controlling in Vietnam.
It was at this time that King Duong sought
help from the French to keep the Thai and Vietnamese in check, leading to the
French protectorate, and ultimately to the colonization of Cambodia by the
French. The Khmer people were largely unaffected by the French protectorate in
the early years. The common folk were happy as long as they could have the
land, Buddhism, and the king. These were the elements that provided stability
in their lives. The problem arose later with the French Protectorate, in their
attempt to impose Roman Catholic faith through aggressive missionary activity,
repeating the assault on Theravada Buddhism that the Vietnamese had imposed.
MILLENARIAN REBELLIONS
With the growing imposition of French
control, the Khmer people again rose up in insurrections and rebellions in the
late 1800s. In 1867, an ex-monk, Pou Kombo, led a rebellion claiming that he
had better right than King Norodom to be king.
Another huge nationwide rebellion, lasting
about 18 months broke out in 1885.
“Some monks had opposed the French from
the start. Before the uprising of 1885, two monks had preached against the
French in the countryside, calling upon Cambodians to defy colonialism in favor
of what the French said was a wrong memory of Cambodia’s ancient past. A
contemporary French report said: “These two adventurers belong to this category
of prophets who, adorned with supernatural influence, dreamed of restoring the
Kingdom of Cambodia to its ancient splendor.” Other anti-French monks followed.
At one point the monks fielded an army of 5,000 peasants, but they were
defeated as much by the royal family as by the French. In 1867, the last
Buddhist rebel leader was captured by the French, who cut his head off, mounted
it on a slate, and brought it to Phnom Penh for public display.”
“The monks quieted down but they never
gave their full support to the French….” [When the War was Over, Elizabeth
Becker, p 42]
KHMER LANGUAGE RENAISANCE
Nevertheless, the French did contribute to
the sense of Khmer nationalism in a variety of unintended ways. The French
“discoveries” and exploration of Angkor helped to begin the reawakening of
Khmer nationalism, and ethnic pride and identity. From 1906 onward for the next
50 years, the French began restoring, studying, and recovering Angkorean ruins
and history. Under French power the Khmer province of Batamgang which Siam had
seized earlier in the century, was resotred to Cambodia. Angkor Wat, in the
Batambang Province, was restored to Cambodia in 1906. This was an important
milestone in Cambodian Buddhist history, and in the ascendancy of Khmer
nationalism. Angkor Wat was the cradle of Khmer civilization and identity. In
1907, great ceremonies of rejoicing were held all across Cambodia, marking
restoration of the Batambong Province. The people “thanked the angels”
(thevoda) for the return of the district, and local officials assigned to the
region came to Phnom Penh to pay homage to the king.
“In 1909 a copy of the Cambodian translation
of sacred Buddhist writing, the Tripitaka, was deposited in a monastery on the
grounds of Angkor Wat; and for another sixty years Cambodian monarchs
frequently visited the site and sponsored religious ceremonies there.” [A
History of Cambodia, Chandler, p 150]
Modernization in Cambodia moved very
slowly, because the monks, the royalty, and Khmer officials, the people held in
most respect, resisted institutional change. In 1909 automobiles and
typewriters were introduced into Cambodia, speeding up communication and
transportation.
“While the Khmer Sangha in western eyes
served as a conservative force, it was by no means a dormant or unimaginative
institutional opposition to colonialism. The sangha also embarked on its own
program of modernization in the first half of the 20th century that developed
more rational ways of understanding the teaching of Buddhism. The Dhammayuttika
reform movement spurred a renewed orthodoxy and higher academic standards and
was in part responsible for a new emphasis on scripture and the study of Pali.
The first schools of Pali were opened in Angkor in 1909 and at the Royal Palace
Wat in Phnom Penh in 1915, both of which emerged into the Higher School of Pali
in 1922. Its goal was to “favor and develop the study of Buddhist theology
through a rational teaching of the ancient sacred languages Pali and Sanskrit,
and the knowledge indispensable to the understanding and explication of the
religious texts.” [Notes on Rebirth of Khmer Buddhism,” Radical Conservatism]
These initiatives led to the opening,
beginning in 1933, of Pali elementary schools through the kingdom. By the
1960s, nearly one half of the wat schools taught at least the first three
levels of Pali. “These developments coincided with the reform of the wat elementary
schools that began in 1924 with a monk teacher-training program in Kampot
province. While the French succeeded in supplanting the indigenous
Confucian-based school system with secular schools in Vietnam, they were able
only to strike a partial compromise with the Buddhist school system in
Kampuchea. The Khmer monks retained control over primary education and saw it
in their interest to incorporate some western teaching methods and curricula
into what became known as “renovated” temple schools. In conjunction with this,
the Kampot teacher training program developed into several “Applied Schools for
Monks,’” whose purpose was to ‘place at the disposal of the monkhood practical
methods of pedagogy oriented to the reform (renovation) of its mode of teaching.”
[“Notes on Rebirth of Khmer Buddhism,” Radical Conservatism]
The wat schools were not replaced by
secular state schools until the 1950s and 1960s.
The Buddhist Institute also served as a
vehicle for a budding Khmer nationalism in the 1930s.
“The development of Khmer Buddhism in the
20th century was also reflected in the increased number of wats and monks in
Kampuchea. Although the increase in population was slightly larger, the number
of wats increased from approximately 1,000 in 1870 to 2,600 in 1940 to 3,326 in
1969. Of the later figure, only 124 wats and less that 1500 monks belonged to
the elite Dhammayuttika sect; which in spite of its small numbers enjoyed the
advantage of the royal patronage. Before the 1970-75 civil war, there were slightly
more than 65,000 monks and novices in a country of 7 million inhabitants.
During the rainy season or period of Kathin, the number of monks in robes
approached 100,000. While no statistics are available to us, the number of
nuns, or female lay devotees (yay or mae chii) who take the eight precepts
shave their heads and wear white robes, was also considerable.”
“The quantative growth and academic
orientation of the Khmer Sangha in the 20th century accompanied, critics would
say paid for, by a decline in the quality of Buddhist practices in the decades
following WWII. Rituals, ceremonies and festivals became increasingly
anachronistic and bereft of meaning in the context of westernized cultural and
governing elite in the capital. Meditation (vipassana), which had never been a
signature of Khmer Buddhism, was not promoted in the Khmer sangha with the same
intensity as the Pali language and scripture, now transmitted through the
relatively new medium of print. (The Khmer sangha did not begin to use movable
type until after WWII). Finally, the Sangha was not entirely immune form the
ideological rifts that plagued Khmer society in the 1960s, as some modernist
monks took part in the political tumults that led to the society’s rupture in
the 1970s.” [“Notes on Rebirth of Khmer Buddhism,” Radical Conservatism]
“In the areas of scripture, King Monivong
(d 1941) launched the Tipitaka Commission in 1927 for the purpose of
translating the entire Pali canon into Khmer. Supplementing its own manuscripts
holding s with original texts form Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand and the Pali text
society in London, the project commenced in 1929 and continued under the
auspices of the Buddhist Institute, which was founded the following year in Wat
Unnalom. Completed in 1969 under the guidance of Ven Chuon Nath, the
translation comprised 110 volumes between 400 and 800 pages each in length.
Some outside commentators claim it is the first complete translation of the
Singhalese recession of the Tipitaka into another language.”
“Soon after its founding the Buddhist
Institute became a pivotal institute in Cambodian cultural and intellectual
life. In addition to the Tipitaka project, it published Venerable Chuon Nath’s
two-volume Khmer dictionary in 1935 and used the print media to publish and widely
disseminate thousands of Buddhist and cultural texts for the people. A sister
institute was founded in the Kingdom of Laos.” [“Notes on Rebirth of Khmer
Buddhism,” Radical Conservatism]
SUZANNE KARPALES
The Buddhist Institute was the brainchild
of the Suzanne Karpeles (d 1969) who encouraged and fostered a quiet
renaissance of Khmer, Theravada Buddhism that led and fed the Cambodian
independence movement. Karpales was an extraordinary woman whose efforts to
develop Buddhism spanned continents.
She was a gifted scholar with three
degrees from the University of Paris in Pali, Sanskrit, and Tibetan, when she
went to Southeast Asia for further studies.
In 1930, she persuaded the French
government to establish the Buddhist Institute in Vientiane, Laos and Phnom
Penh, Cambodia. For twenty years she acted as General Secretary for both
institutes. She will always be remembered in Theravada countries for having
initiated and supervised and brought to completion the printing of the
Theravada Tripitika in both Pali and in Khmer translation. In France, Karpales
was very active in the first French Buddhist Association Les Amis du Boddhisme
(Friends of Buddhism) founded by G.C. Lounsberry (an American women) in 1929.
This association had strong Theravada leanings, and in 1930s, she organized a
series of lectures in Buddhism at Sarbonne University in Paris, as well as
publishing books in French, including meditation books.
“She was attached to the Ecole Francaise
d’ Extreme Orient in Hanoi, then the worlds finest center of Oreintalism.
Karpales came to Phnom Penh to build the royal library into a repository of
irreplaceable Buddhist texts and relics and she collected both for safekeeping
and to instruct the Cambodian bonzes, or monks, in texts that had long been ignored.”
“Her mandate was to reeducate the Buddhist monks in what the French considered
their traditional faith and erase much of the ‘superstitious practices’ that
had ‘corrupted’ Theravada Buddhism in Indochina. The library established the
Buddhist Institute in 1930. The Institute was the only center based in Cambodia
that brought in students form other Indochinese colonies, largely the Cambodian
minority living in Cochin China [the Mekong Delta, or Kampuchea Krom].”
“These Cambodians form southern Vietnam, the
Khmer Krom, became part of Karpele’s larger project to revitalize Cambodian
culture, pride, and aspirations. She surveyed the Cambodian minority community
in southern Vietnam and led a crusade encouraging Cambodians to remember that
the entire Mekong Delta was once their homeland….These Kampuchea Krom
immigrants became the most ardent of nationalists in subsequent years, the
favorite recruits of both the American CIA and the Khmer Republic.”
“The Buddhist Institute quickly became the
focus of a new intellectual life in this new crucial period between world wars.
The French built only a minimal, elite system of secular schools in Cambodia.
Otherwise, they merely altered the curriculum taught by the monks in the
country’s native pagoda schools. The youth in Cambodia were largely taught by
monks, who were responsible for the high literacy rate in the country, far
higher than in Vietnam, and the Institute easily gained a position as the
fullest expression of Buddhist education in Cambodia. It also discouraged Cambodians
form traveling to Thailand for further Buddhist education; in Bangkok it was
easy for Cambodians to pick up dangerous anti-French, independent ideas from
Thai Buddhists.” [When the War was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rough
Revolution, Elizabeth Becker]
The Buddhist Institute became the first
home of anti-colonialism in Phnom Penh.
“The Buddhists were eminently qualified
for their part in brining Cambodians into the modern political era. Under the
tutelage of the French, like Karpales they had become some of the few
Cambodians introduced to the ideas of the modern world. Importantly, this was
said to be accomplished without sacrificing their identity as Khmers. Most of
Cambodia’s small aristocracy was conversant in the ways of the French, but they
were compromised by their acquiescence to colonial rule….”
“By the twentieth century the monks had
extraordinary power, despite their modest appearance. At dawn, the monks
appeared with their heads bowed and begged for food outside the village
doorways; they helped broker marriages and otherwise dictated behavior in the
profound and mundane affairs of village life. The bonzes taught the children,
raised the orphans, and set the moral and social standards of the country. N
return, the people built their pagodas and monasteries and followed their
strictures. The bonzes, who pledged their lives to poverty, filled the pagoda
coffers and became the most important source of charity in the country,
dispensing food or funds to the poorest of peasants.
“Finally, the Buddhist monks were the only
influential Cambodians in a position to question both the French and the King.
The monks had attained an independent moral standing in the community not
subject to the whims of royal beneficence. Unlike Vietnam and other countries
of the Chinese tradition, Cambodia had no powerful mandarin class, only an
aristocratic oligarchy that administered the government and whose fortunes were
largely controlled by the king. The monks were recognized as a separate group
protecting the country’s values and culture. When these holy men began
questioning French rule, their doubts struck a deep chord in the country.”
“Some monks had opposed the French form the start…” [When the War was Over:
Cambodia and the Khmer Rough Revolution, Elizabeth Becker]
[The monks] “felt French colonialism
undermined rather than preserved the Cambodian state, as the French claimed.
Buddhist agitators led protests against sending Cambodians to fight for the
French in World War I, tearing down recruitment posters in Phnom Penh. When
Suzaanne Karpales established her Buddhist Institute it was these dissidents to
whom she gave a base of operation. The Institute became home of the first
modern anti-colonial agitator in Phnom Penh.” [When the War was Over: Cambodia
and the Khmer Rough Revolution, Elizabeth Becker]
Cambodian literature in Khmer-language
consisted of Buddhist texts and 19th century epics. There were no histories, or
newspapers as Cambodian emerged into the 20th century. Literacy in Cambodia was
related to study of Buddhist texts in the temples. Cambodian literary tradition
was identical to Theravada Khmer Buddhist studies.
“Before 1936, in fact, the only
Khmer-language periodical, Kambuja Surya (Cambodian Sun) had been published on
a monthly basis under the auspices of the French-funded Institute Bouddhique.
With rare exceptions, the journal limited itself to printing folk-lore,
Buddhist texts, and material concerned with the royal family. Even Cambodian
chronicle histories in Khmer were not yet available in print.” [A History of
Cambodia, Chandler, p160]
[French anti-Thai support Khmer…]
In Phnom Penh, a small French-educated
intellectual elite emerged in the 1930s – 1950s, having been educated in
Saigon.
The French were suspicious of Thai
influence and therefore encouraged Khmer identity in an effort to inspire Khmer
nationalism and inoculate them from the subversive anti-French elements of
Siam. This enhanced and intensified Buddhist studies and Khmer Buddhist
identity.
The Buddhist Institute was the center of
this activity.
“The three key channels for Cambodian
self-awareness in the 1930s, in fact, were the Lycee Sisowath, the Institute
Boddhique, and the newspaper Nagara Vatta, founded in 1936 by Pac Chhoeun and
Sim Vac; both men, in their 30s, were soon joined by a young Cambodian judge,
born in Vietnam and educated in France, named Son Ngoc Thanh. The three, in
turn, were closely associated with the Institute Boddhique, to which Son Ngoc
Thanh was later assigned as librarian. This brought them into contact with the
leaders of the Cambodian Sangha, with Cambodian intellectuals, and with a small
group of French scholars and officials, led by the secretary of the Institute,
Suzanne Karpales, who were eager to help with the Cambodian intellectual renaissance.”
[A History of Cambodia, Chandler]
Son Ngoc Thanh was Khmer Krom, born and
raised in the Mekong Delta. His earliest education was in a Khmer-language
pagoda. “He transferred to the French system for his secondary education and
went to France for his university studies, which included one year of reading
law. As a citizen of a French colony, Cochin China, rather than the Cambodian
protectorate, Thanh received and education rare for a Cambodian of that era. He
returned to Cochin China and finally settled in Phnom Penh, where he joined the
Buddhist Institute shortly after it was founded. Thanks to his education, Thanh
became the Institute secretary.” [When the War was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer
Rough Revolution, Elizabeth Becker]
The Nagara Vatta newspaper, established in
1936, published under the auspices of the Buddhist Institute, was the voice of
the new Khmer intellectual renaissance. The word “nagara vatta” means “temple
realm” in Sanskrit, and is a play on the word “Angkor Wat” which means the same
tin Khmer.
The paper saw its mission as to “awaken”
the Cambodian people. Son Ngoc Thanh, the Buddhist Institute secretary, was
agitating for independence in the Khmer language through the newspaper,
reclaiming the culture and preserving the national integrity. It was a
“pro-Khmer” paper and promoted Khmer identity and ethnic pride.
In 1937, the paper published 5,000 copies
per issue and its readership was undoubtedly even higher. It was certainly read
avidly by Buddhist monks throughout the kingdom.
“The newspaper called for seditious
behavior but disguised it in religious language. Together Tanh and the
Buddhists initiated the first serious discussion against colonialism in Phnom
Penh. They were met with censorship and surveillance. Aware that in Burma political
Buddhism had become a problem, the French moved quickly to curtail these
activities of Phnom Penh’s budding Buddhist nationalists.” [When the War was
Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rough Revolution, Elizabeth Becker]
MONKS DEMONSTATION
As it grew more anti-French and
anti-colonial, the paper was suppressed in 1942, in circumstances leading to a
huge monk-led uprising. More than 30 Cambodians were imprisoned for long
sentences following the “Monks Demonstration.” How did it occur? The French had
put down Khmer insurrections before. The French and Vietnamese exploited the
Khmer, who paid the highest taxes in Indochina. In 1916, perhaps as many as
100,000 Khmer protested the high taxes and marched on Phnom Penh, stunning the
French who had imagined that the Khmer were passive, lazy and ignorant,
incapable of mass, coordinated action. Again in 1925 a spontaneous uprising in
which Khmer villagers killed a French government agent. But the 1942 “Monks
DemonstratIon” was unprecedented for the French protectorate.
The Japanese had entered Phnom Penh in
1941 and announced the end of the European hegemony in Asia. The Thai reacted
quickly and attacked and seized Batambang province in 1941. Angkor Wat remained
in French control. The Japanese became the new colonial power in Cambodian
during this time, and left the French to administer the country.
“French military weakness and Japanese
sympathy for certain anti-colonial movements – evident throughout southeast
Asia by 1942 – had not passed unnoticed among the [Khmer} intellectuals – many
of the members of the Sangha – who were associated with the Nagara Vatta and
the Institute Boddhique. Between 1940-1942, the paper took on increasingly
pro-Japanese and anti-colonial line. During these years, at least 32 issues of
the paper were censored. In ten issues the lead editorial was suppressed….” [A
History of Cambodia, Chandler]
For the Cambodians, the Thai invasion and
seizure of their sovereign land marked the end of their allegiance to the
French; it was the breaking point of endurance with the supposed “protection”
by the French, who had failed them.
“The French had failed in their basic
responsibility to protect Cambodia from its neighbors – the raison d’etre for
French colonial rule. The elite woke up from its delusions and saw the French
in a severe light. They were receptive when Son Ngoc Thanh of the Buddhist
Institute engineered a partnership, bridging the lower-class Buddhists with the
elite. He was a rare figure, trusted by the Buddhists who otherwise had few connections
with the French-speaking elite of Phnom Penh. The Buddhists were far too
traditional. If they spoke a foreign language it was Thai. Their supporters and
members were from the lower classes. The students they recruited form the
capital for their drive against the French generally came from the polytechnic
schools.”
“Thanh had an entrée into the upper strata
through the Friendship Association of Sisowath School Alumni [Because of his
elite French education]….”
Than helped coax the Friendship Association
of the Sisowath School Alumni toward Khmer nationalism.
“The alumni groups began sponsoring the
monks to travel around the countryside preaching against French colonialism.
The alumni association gave the Buddhists badly needed funds as well as new legitimacy.
Joined together, they represented a potent threat to the French, and
indirectly, the monarchy, as long as the king supported France. The traditional
Buddhists and the modern elite comfortable in European language and politics
began to have immediate results. But the elite were very small in numbers, and
it fell on the monks to become the visible emblem of revolt and their saffron
robes the symbol against French colonialism.” [When the War was Over: Cambodia
and the Khmer Rough Revolution, Elizabeth Becker]
This set the stage for the explosion of
1942, known as the “Monks Demonstration.”
The climax of the confrontation between
this movement of Buddhist monks and Khmer aristocracy of Phnom Penh against the
French occurred in July 1942. The French closed the Nagara Vatta and arrested
the leading monk, Hem Cheav. Venerable Hem Cheav (1898-1943) was an important
monk, revered by the peasants and honored by the elite classes of Khmer
society. He was a professor at the Ecole Superieure des Pali in Phnom Penh, and
had audaciously appealed for Cambodian soldiers to desert from the French
colonial army. “He preached nonviolence, but not exclusively, recognizing the
formidable impediment of the French army and police in his fight for
independence. One of the charges against him, and other monks, was translating
seditious materials form Thai.” [When the War was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer
Rough Revolution, Elizabeth Becker]. The French arrested him and another monk
Nuon Duong. The French committed sacrilege and desecration by manhandling a
monk, refusing to allow him to ceremonially disrobe before incarcerating him, a
grotesque violation of Buddhist and Khmer sensibilities.
When Venerable Cheav was arrested, he
reportedly said, “Sirs, you can do everything you like here. You are the
masters. You can take my life, but my spirit will continue.” On July 20, a
crowd of nearly 2,000 people, more than half monks, marched from Phnom Penh’s
principal boulevard from behind the royal palace to the French colonial office
of the resident superieur, Jean deLeus, near Wat Phnom, and demanded the
release of Venerable Hem Cheav. When the French police refused them admittance
to the official, the crowd rebelled. The French police attacked the unarmed
crowd when they became unruly. Police photographed the demonstrators, and later
arrested 200 of them, including Pach Chhoeun, the editor of the recently
suppressed Nagara Vatta newspaper, who had led the protest and presented the
petition to the French official. Buddhist leader Son Ngoc Thanh went
underground and hid in Phnom Penh for several days during the clampdown, the
escaped to Batambang, then on to Thailand, eventually making his way to Tokyo.
Meanwhile Cheav was defrocked and imprisoned in the infamous, prison island in
Vietnam, Poulo Condore, where he died in 1943.
The French continued to inflame the
Cambodians Buddhists. In 1943 the French tried to replace the Khmer alphabet
with the Roman one, as part of a “modernization” campaign. The Sangha and Khmer
intellectuals saw this is an attack on traditional Buddhist and Khmer culture.
On March 9, 1945, the Japanese displaced
the French and four days later King Norodom Sihanouk dissolved the treaties of
1863 and 1884 signed by his grandfather King Norodom, and declared the end of the
French protectorate. When in 1945 the French were weakened at the end of the
war, the Khmer alphabet was restored. The Buddhist lunar calendar was also
restored at this time, replacing the Gregorian calendar that had been imposed
by the French. On July 20, 1945 King Shinok presided over a rally celebrating
the Monks Demonstration, aligning himself with the nationalist and independence
movement of the Buddhist Institute. He was joined by the Buddhist nationalist
leaders Pach Chhoeun who was released from prison; and Son Ngoc Thanh who had
returned to Cambodia form Japan in April, to serve the new government as
Foreign Minister. The Monks Demonstration was established as a national
holiday. Son Ngoc Thanh immediately fell into disfavor when he challenged King
Norodom Shinaok, who therefore became suspicious of him. At the end of the war
in August 1945, Son Ngoc Than became Prime Minister. When the French returned
to control of Cambodia , Thanh was imprisoned as a traitor (at the request of
King Norodom Sihanok). The national holiday of the Monks Demonstration was
immediately abolished.
The Cambodians were determined to have a
degree of autonomy and self government. The French agreed to national elections
in the following year of 1946.
The Sangha played a role in turning out
votes for the Democrat party in the nation’s first election of 1946. The
occupying forces in Cambodia were always caught off guard and surprised by the
unexpected, sudden popular “eruptions” of mass movement s in Cambodia, failing
to recognize the integral role of the Buddhist Sangha that provided cohesion
and vitality to the Khmer people.
SAMDECH SANGH CHUON NATH
Samdech Sangh Chon Nath (1883-1969), the
Sangharaja or Patriarch of Cambodian Buddhism, was a leading figure throughout
the years of intensifying nationalism, independence, and Khmer pride. He was
apparently a Khmer Krom. He assisted the nationalist Khmer movement centered in
the Buddhist Institute. He is most famous for writing the Khmer dictionary,
printed under the auspices of the Buddhist Institute. The dictionary is
considered one of the cornerstones of Khmer culture.
In 1940 he was instrumental in
establishing the first Vietnamese Theravada Temple, Bau Quang Temple (Ratana
Ramsyarama) in Saigon. The Abbot Venerable Ho Tong (Vansarakkhita) was ordained
in Cambodia by Chuon Nath. Samdech Sangh Chuon Nath was a traditionalist. He
was Khmer Krom, involved in anti-colonial activities in the 1950s, and against
the Vietnamese communists who already occupied Kampuchea Krom. He concealed his
Khmer Krom origins, and claimed to be from Preah Trapeang. In 1956 he attended
the 6th Sangha Council of Buddhism in Kaba Aya Pagoda in Rangoon as the leader
of the Cambodian delegation. MahaGosananda accompanied him. (I believe he was
Venerable Gosananda’s upachaya). One testimony says: “Samdech Sangh Chuon Nath
always taught us that we have to think from the following basis: Suppose the
Cambodian central power was destroyed by our enemies, they did not exist
anymore. Hence you had to rebuild to reconstitute our nation from scratch. Take
initiative was their motto. Take initiative to solve the village problems
through consensus. Take initiative to develop the economy, education and health
care. That was the tradition rooted in the collective memory of Preah Trapaing,
the sweet home of Khmer freedom fighters.”
“Sanmdech Chon Nath always reminded us to
take care by ourselves our village, in every ways of life, especially build and
develop our civil society, by organizing ourselves the security, defense,
education, economy, public works, health, distribution of land. Act like you
are the parallel government. It will be obliged to agree with you if you are
well organized. That was the philosophy that Ven Chuon Nath taught.”
His remains are enshrined at Wat Uunalom.
Although suppressed, and underground, the
Buddhist-led independence movement continued throughout the 1950s and 1960s, as
the French returned and attempted to seize control of power in the wake of
WWII. Many of the Buddhists of the Nagara Vatta and Monks Demonstration fled to
the provinces s and many eventually cooperated with the Vietnamese communists,
becoming party members and fighting from bases in South Vietnam. Other
Buddhists fled to the northwest of Cambodia and fought the French with support
form the Thais. The Khmer Rough would eventually emerge out of these movements.
As the Vietnam War heated up in the 1950s, the French eventually realized the
colonial era was over, and withdrew from Southeast Asia. The Americans, fearing
the ascendancy of Communisms stepped in and tried to control the region.
The Pentagon conducted a 471 page study of
Cambodian in 1959, entitled Psychological Operations: Cambodia, which noted
with dismay or disgust that the Cambodians were not susceptible to being panicked
or stampeded into mass movement, their horizons being limited to their village,
Buddhist temple, and forest.
The Pentagon noted “the prototype of the
successful American might be objectionable because of the connotation of
disproportionate wealth. The economic gap is so great that Cambodians have no
understanding of the typical American version of “play’.”
“The Cambodians are polite and gentle, and
regard angers as ‘madness’.” The military report complained.
“The Buddhist Monks were another target. They
could not, unfortunately, be aroused to violence – ‘this would be asking the
clergy to be non-Buddhist’ – but ‘psy-warriors’ could play on the fact that
‘the monks are also human’ and try to persuade them that they were hated by the
intelligentsia.” [Houk, John [et.al] Psychological Operations: Cambodia:
Project PROSYMS (Operating under contract with Department of Army) Washington
D.C. USA: Special Operations Research Office, American University (AD-310.384)
1959; ix+471p. maps, biblog, indexs, 26x36cm.]
KHMER ROUGE
The convulsions of the 1970s in Cambodia
are incomprehensible, inexplicable, defying description.
The actual physical destruction of the
Sangha began during the 1970-75 and was conducted not by the Khmer Rough, but
by the American saturation bombing, and the monks were increasingly caught in
the cross fire between factions in the growing civil war within Cambodia. These
factions were not deliberately targeting Buddhism, but the effect was the same:
the killing of monks, destruction of temples, libraries, Buddhist heritage. By
1975 when the Khmer Rough came to power, the number of wats had been reduced to
2,800 and while many monks’ lives were lost, many men and boys joined the
monkhood in an effort to take refuge and protection from the intensifying and
expanding war.
The Khmer Rough had been gathering
strength throughout the 1960s and early 70s. When they seized control of
Cambodia in 1975, they purged “feudalists” which included aristocracy,
mandarins, landlords and Buddhist monks. The Khmer Rough utterly devastated and
annihilated Buddhism from the land of Cambodia, for a five year period of
genocidal orgy. “Much of the Buddhist clergy had expected to be part of the
revolution, not its victims. Encouraged by Prince Sihanouk and his appeals from
Beijing, many of the Buddhists of the countryside joined the Khmer Rough. In a
repeat of what had happened during the First Indochina War, the Khmer Rough
actively recruited monks during the first years of the war and treated them
with respect. Monks were named to ceremonial positions in the United Front
government and allowed to continue administering to the faithful in many areas
under Khmer Rough rule. Even when religions was suspended in the late war
period, the Khmer Rough promised it was a temporary emergency measure to allow
full mobilization of the people.”
“With victory, the Khmer Rough immediately
attacked the Buddhist clergy, Buddhist pagodas, statuary, relics, libraries,
and schools. The destruction was nearly complete, with more devastating
consequences for Cambodia than the Chinese attack on Buddhism had been for
Tibet.”
“The Khmer Rough murdered the top clergy
immediately, enticing the monks to hand themselves over to their executioners
with ruses similar to those used to kill off the former military officers of
the Lon Nol regime.”
“Those who were not executed were ordered
to forfeit their robes and join the people to work in the cooperatives as
common filed hands, an order that violate their religious tenets. Those who
refused were killed. Many monks were ordered to marry, which prevented them
from returning to the clergy. In some areas the Khmer Rough cadre allowed older
monks to keep their saffron robes only to be countermanded by the Center.”
“Without monks the people could no longer practice their faith, but the Khmer
Rough was intent on erasing the faith form the country’s memory. The pagodas,
too, became targets of the regime. The nearly 3,000 pagodas in the country were
desecrated or destroyed. They were used as stables, granaries, prisons, and
execution sites. Statuary were defaced. The sacred literature was burned or
shredded.” [When the War was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rough Revolution,
Elizabeth Becker, p254.] Older more venerated and educated monks were executed,
while younger monks and novices were forced to disrobe and work in the fields.
The Buddhist Patriarch, Samdech Huot Tat,
was killed by the Khmer Rough. A statue of the patriarch which was smashed and
thrown into the Mekong River by the KR, was reassembled and is today on display
at Wat Ounalom.The highest and most recent estimate (1990) indicated that about
60,000 monks were killed and about 5,000 survived by escaping into Vietnam or
Thailand, and becoming refugees.
The Khmer Rough are thought to have
completely leveled at least 1,900 wats, mostly in the countryside. Town temples
survived because they were used for other purposes.Hang Ngor, author of A
Cambodian Odyssey, on which the movie The Killing Fields was based, wrote of
his work assignment to destroy the temple of Phum Phnom. The monks were
denounced as “parasites” he reported:
“Buddhism was the old religion we were
supposed to discard, and Angka was the new ‘religion’ we were supposed to
accept. As the rainy season began – normally the time when the youth from the
surrounding villages would shave their heads and join the monkhood – soldiers
entered the empty wat [at Tonle Bati] and began removing the Buddha statues [in
1975]. Rolling the larger statues end over end, they threw them over the side,
dumped them on the ground with heads and hands severed form the bodies, or
threw them into the reflecting pools. But they could destroy only the outward
signs of our religion, not the beliefs within. And even the, as I noticed with
bitter satisfaction, there was one statue they did not destroy. It was the
bronze Buddha, still gleaming inside the small Angkorean outbuilding….”
In addition killing monks and destroying
the temples and monasteries, part of the Khmer Buddhist literary patrimony was
permanently destroyed. Libraries were burned. Irreplaceable Buddhist sutras
were used as cigarette paper. The entire library of the Buddhist Institute was
destroyed by burning it, and throwing it into the nearby Mekong River. Among
the valuable holdings stored in the library was ethnographic and literary
research of the Commission des Moeurset Coutumes, documenting classic Khmer
cultural customs, manners, traditions and customs. All across Cambodia,
palm-leaf texts which had been preserved in village temples, were destroyed.
“Through oversight or error, some
collections were not damaged or destroyed. In the national library, 343 palm
and mulberry leaf manuscripts remained undamaged as well as 185 palm leaf
manuscripts stored in the royal palace together with a complete set of the tipitaka.
More than 100 palm leaf manuscripts were left undamaged in the museum library
along with some 700 volumes of the Tipitaka.” [When the War was Over: Cambodia
and the Khmer Rough Revolution, Elizabeth Becker.]
BUDDHIST RESTORATION
In 1979, after the overthrow of the Khmer
Rough, Buddhism was reintroduced into Cambodia by a delegation of Buddhist
monks from Kampuchea Krom in South Vietnam. The Sangha grew in numbers and
strength quickly. By 1981 there were 3,000 monks in Cambodia; in 1987, 6,700
monks and by 1990, 10,000 monks.
After 1979 there were still some
restrictions on the freedom of Buddhism in Cambodia. For example, only men over
age 50 could be ordained. Only four monks were allowed to live in a wat. Since
1988 Buddhism was fully restored. In July 1988, Radio Phnom Penh began
broadcasting Buddhist prayers and ceremonies after an absence of 13 years.Then
in 1989, Prime Minister Hun Sen officially apologized for his governments past
“mistakes” during a ceremony in Kampot Province, where he prostrated before the
head monk and asked forgiveness. In April 1990, the National Assembly
officially amended the constitution to reestablish Theravada Buddhism as the
state religion and the government decreed that “devout Buddhist followers can
be ordained as Buddhist monks as they wish.”
Appendix I
Traditional Khmer Buddhism was embodied in
a didactic poem called Trai Phum or “Three Worlds”
These outlined cbabor “laws, of
relationships, similar to Confucianism, these proverbs were memorized by every
Cambodian child. The proverbs delineated proper relations and conduct between
people. Everyone has a “place” in society, with accompanying rights and
responsibilities.
The most important relations are parents
and teachers.
This relationship insures a “transmission”
process over generations, and does not recognize “progress.”
This cerate a static, stable, sustainable
type of society emphasizing the high priority and value placed on continuity.
Appendix II
MOUNTAIN GODS
The earliest religious ideas of the
proto-Khmer people were centered on worship of a “mountain god” who was
venerated as the ancestor, and the king or patriarchal figure was identified
with the “god of the mountain” or “king of the mountain.”
This mountain has phallic symbolism and
was associated with virility, potency and fertility.
When the proto-Khmer people came into
contact with Indianized Hindu culture through sea-trade which gave rise to the
Funan culture of the Mekong Delta, they assimilated the Hindu
mountain-cosmology with their own religious cosmology and began to increasingly
accept Hindu, particularly Shiva, interpretations, and began to identify their
“king of the mountain” with the God-king, Shiva.
In Hindu cosmology, Mt Meru is the center
of the universe. The earthly temple-mountain is the symbolic center of the
empire, from which the king reigns. The temple-mountain, in which his Shiva
lingam phallic-symbol is housed and ritually worshiped, is the center and
source of the kings’ potency and fertility, which blesses the empire with
fortune and well-being. The potency-virility of the king fertilizes the earth,
earth-goddess, the people, who bring forth rice, i.e. life, abundance,
happiness, security, stability, well-being.
This is a continuous religious concept of
Khmer tradition, extending from the earliest prehistory of Cambodia, and
enduring into the present day.
Each year the king officially opens the
rice-planting season with a formal ceremony in which he personally plows
furrows in the earth, accompanied by musicians, and followed by young maidens
who walk behind and scatter rice seeds into the furrows.
Mt Meru is the center between heaven and
hell, between heaven and earth. Six circle chains of mountains surround Mt
Meru, separated by six oceans. The Ocean of Infinity encloses the entire mass.
“In Buddhism, a continent shaped like an
island lies beyond the ocean in each of the four cardinal regions of space.
Layers of heaven soar above Mt Meru. The four rulers of the cardinal directions
live in the summit of the mountain. Fantastic animals live in the forest at the
base of the mountain, which serves as a refuge for ascetics to meditate.” (1)
The temple-mountain reached its perfect
expression in Angkor Wat.
These temples were designed according to
mathematical calculations and astrology, to represent harmony between heaven
and earth, and to establish harmony in the universe.
The east represents the sun-creation; the
west represents death and destruction.
DEVARAJA – GOD KING
In the Hindu world view, the king was the
embodiment of the god, usually Shiva (the destroyers) or sometimes Vishnu (the
sustainer).
The Shiva lingam was stored in the temple
of the devaraja – the god-king. The king was the “creator” and sustainer of the
nation.
“The temples represented the mystical
Hindu golden Mount Meru, home of the gods and center of the world. Organizing
the empire in the image of the universe and the center of the capital in the
image of Mount Meru ensured harmony – and reassured Khmers that they were at
the magical center of the world. The capital, and within the capital, the
king’s palace and the mausoleum-temple in which his remains would be preserved
had great cosmological significance, beyond being the administrative and
cultural center of the country….” [Angkor Life, Stephen Murray, 1996]
In the minds of the Khmer kings, Hinduism
and Buddhism were not distinct. The Mahayana Buddhists thought of Buddha as an
avatar (manifestation) of God. The Shivite God-king (devaraja) idea blended
with the bodhisattva ideal in their minds.
“The conflation of the Buddhist bodhisattva,
Lokeshvara, and the Mahashvar may also date back to the fifth century.
Beginning in the fourth century, Champa kings were attaching the suffix -varman
(“protector”) to their names. The sixth century Buddhism king of Funan,
Rudravarman, was apparently Buddhist. Nonetheless, he was careful to have his
lingam worshiped (at Ba Phnom, east of the Mekong).” [Angkor Life, Stephen O.
Murray.]
Worshiped Avalokitashvara who is portrayed
in Angkor art. Avalokitashvara is the Bodhisattva of Compassion, known in Khmer
as Lokeshvara- “Lord of the World.”
Avalokiteshvara means literally “the lord
who looks down from above.”
The bodhisattvas appear in the stone
sculptures of the period, as a four-armed deity who carries a flask, book,
lotus and rosary and has a Buddha or lotus on his head.
Cambodian traditions tended to blend,
synthesize religious ideas. The god Harihara, for example, is a uniquely
Cambodian god who is composite of Shiva and Vishnu.
The word “varman” – “protector” – from
“armor” was used among the Pallavas and other southern and central Indian kings
in the 3rd century, suggesting a transmission and exchange of cultural
influences between Funan and Buddhist India.
Appendix III
Fundamental Beliefs of Khmer Buddhist
Cosmology
Human life is affected by variety of
factors. These factors are influential in human life, but are not ultimately
fateful, determining human destiny and depriving the individual of free will.
These energy factors are limited. Human destiny is generated by one’s personal
free, volitional action or “karma”.
Traditional Beliefs
A) In Spirits and gods (spirits below and
gods above)
B) Vital essences
C) Fate: in the stars; astrology
D) Modern science – such as germ theory
The Spirits:
The spirits cause illness, accidents,
plant and land fertility, fertility of women.
There are also group spirits, protectors,
ancestors.
These spirits must be respected and
honored, and they will protect and nurture the human being. If they are
dishonored, ignored or angered, they can be dangerous.
Vital Essence:
Winds or “vital essence” - All living
things have “vital essence” – air, breath, wind, called “pralu’n” in Khmer.
This vital essence exists in plural forms in the 19 parts of the body in Khmer
world view (32 parts of the body in Thai). The winds act as a unity in reality.
They may survive death.
Male and female energies are vital
essences. The “vital essence” is nourished by the female energy – the woman’s
body, the mother’s milk, the “rice” of the earth. The earth and rice are
feminine, goddess. Every grain of rice is part of the body of Mother Rice
(Maeae Posop) and contains a bit of her vital essence.
The essence of male energy is “potency” –
the power to fertilize the earth and fertilize woman; power to govern. Potency
is a sense of glory, a religious essence, which men have, because men can
achieve nibanna.
Fate:
Fate refers to the cosmic elements;
heavenly bodies; topography of land; elements of the body; osculation of day
and night; directions – orientation to the cosmic elements.
Disturbance can be corrected through
ritual reaction that restores, balance, reorientation of the individual to the
cosmic elements.
Modern Science:
In modern times, the Khmer people have
come to accept western scientific notations of causality such as germ theory,
chemistry, physics, etc, as influential forces affecting the course of human
life.
Karma:
Karma: all these above influences are
limited and experienced because we’re born in the human realm. They “influence”
our lives, but do not determine our destiny/fate.
Our fate is caused by Karma.
We have a great degree of freedom in
determining our future experience.
Our place in this world can change in the
course of a lifetime when karma “burns out.”
Khmer Buddhists take “precepts” or vows in
their bodies.
They must avoid demerit and perform acts
of merit.
Demerit is breaking precepts, such as
expressing greed, hatred and delusion.
Merit is accumulated through dana (giving
gifts) especially to monks, keeping precepts, ordination, listening to Dhamma,
performing acts of veneration to the three-jewels, pilgrimage, meditation
(bhavana).
Meditation by older people especially in
preparation for death is powerful merit.
Merit is also increased through “transfer
of merit” in giving it to the goddess of the earth to spread it to all livening
beings.
Chanting Buddhist sutras or “Paritti”
(Protection) and religious ceremonies are great sources of merit, creating good
karma and dissolving bad karma, by changing the mind.
“We are what we think. All that we are arises
from the mind. With the mind we create the world.”
Chanting the Buddhist sutras tends the
mind toward enlightenment and away from delusion with its accompanying
suffering.
1. Through the power of truth. The Suttas
are expressions of enlightened mind, recited by the Buddha. Recitation of the
Suttas inclines the mind toward enlightened truth.
2. Through the power of love. The Suttas
are teachings of the compassionate Buddha, and incline the mind toward
compassion and love.
3. Through the power of virtue. The suttas
are expressions of a noble being and incline the mind toward virtue,
accompanied by wellbeing and happiness.
4. Through the power of sound. The power
of sound sets off various levels of vibrations that are powerfully healing on
many levels, both physically and mentally.