Bhavavarman II

Bhavavarman II (Khmer: ព្រះបាទភវវរ្ម័នទី២; ) was king of the Chenla Kingdom, the polity that preceded the Khmer Empire, from 639 to 657. He reigned between Isanavarman I and Jayavarman I.

His parentage is not settled. His inscriptions record nothing of his origins, and George Coedès concluded that he could be placed no more precisely than as a prince of the royal house. Two later readings connect him instead to Prathivindravarman of Dvaravati Si Thep and to the family of Isanavarman I. His reign is documented chiefly from what is now eastern Thailand, where members of his family held the polity of Jyeṣṭhapura and where three inscriptions are assigned to him. After his death the throne passed to Jayavarman I, whose own succession ended in the division of the kingdom.

Parentage and accession Coedès treated Bhavavarman II's parentage as unrecoverable. He observed that although the king left a considerable number of inscriptions, none records anything of his origins, so that he was neither demonstrably a son of Isanavarman I nor his designated successor.

Some scholars identify him with the Bhavavarman named in the Ban Wang Pai inscription (K. 978), found in Phetchabun Province, as the son of Prathivindravarman, ruler of Dvaravati Si Thep, rather than with Bhavavarman I (r. 580–598). The identification rests on palaeographic and stylistic features indicating that the text was composed after 627. It agrees with Tatsuo Hoshino's reconstruction, in which Jayavarman I was a son of Chandravarman rather than of Bhavavarman II, and with the description of Jayavarman I as a great-grandson of Isanavarman I rather than a grandson. Chandravarman is identified in Chinese sources as the ruler of Gān Bì, a polity that maintained dynastic relations with Xiū Luó Fēn and Gē Luó Shě Fēn, the expanded Si Thep, within the Dvaravati sphere.

The undated Wat Kut Tae inscription (K. 1150 / P.Ch. 26) gives a different filiation. It makes Bhavavarman II a younger brother of Śivadatta, svāmi or lord of Jyeṣṭhapura and an elder son of Isanavarman I. Claude Jacques takes the limited evidence for Bhavavarman II's own capital to favour Sambor Prei Kuk.

Vickery reads the reigns of Isanavarman I, Bhavavarman II and Jayavarman I as successive attempts to hold a broadly similar realm, possibly from different capitals, with relatively firm authority over what is now eastern Thailand. allied by royal intermarriage and made war on Tou Yuan to the northwest. Tou Yuan became a vassal of Dvaravati in 647. Varis Domethong reads the same Wat Kut Tae inscription, with the Wat Phra Ngam inscription from Nakhon Pathom, as recording a Chenla attack on the Dvaravati, and places the fighting in Bhavavarman II's reign.

Succession Jayavarman I succeeded Bhavavarman II and died without a male heir, after which his granddaughter Jayadevi took the throne. Her reign was disputed, and Chenla entered a period of political turmoil that ended in the division of the state into Upper Chenla and Lower Chenla.