Jayavaraman II

Jayavarman II (; – 850, reigned –850) was a Khmer prince who founded and became the ruler of the Khmer Empire after unifying the Khmer civilization. The Khmer Empire was the dominant civilization in mainland Southeast Asia from the 9th century until the mid-15th century. Jayavarman II was a powerful Khmer king who declared independence from a polity inscriptions named "Java", which most probably refers to the island of Java in the Indonesian archipelago. Jayavarman II founded many capitals such as Mahendraparvata, Indrapura, Amarendrapura, and Hariharalaya. Before Jayavarman II came to power, there was much fighting among local overlords who ruled different parts of Cambodia, and much of the area fell under the orbit of the Shailendra dynasty of Srivijaya. As a child, Jayavarman II had been held in captivity or exile in Java, and was installed as Java's vassal around 800. By starting off with small weak kingdoms, he built himself up from there eventually leading to the Khmer Empire. No inscriptions by Jayavarman II have been found. Later kings of the Khmer Empire described him as a warrior and the most powerful king from that time frame that they could recall. Historians formerly dated his reign as running from 802 CE to 835 CE.

Universal monarch

Mahipativarman, the king of Chenla, expressed his desire before his courtiers, to see the chopped head of the king of Zabag which is identified with Java. This information was known to Dharanindra, the king of Java, so he conquered the Water Chenla and beheaded Mahipativarman. And then, the king of Zabag installed a new king, Jayavarman II, on the throne as his vassal. Jayavarman first remained subordinate to Java for some time and thereafter declared independence. Jayavarman II became King consort of Sambhupura by marrying her.

Jayavarman II is widely regarded as the king that set the foundation of the Angkor period in Cambodian history, beginning with the grandiose consecration ritual he conducted in 802 on Mount Mahendraparvata, now known as Phnom Kulen. At that ceremony, he was proclaimed a universal monarch (Kamraten jagad ta Raja in Khmer) or devaraja (ទេវរាជ in Khmer). An inscription from the Sdok Kak Thom temple recounts that at Mahendraparvata, Jayavarman II took part in a ritual performed by the brahmin Hiranyadama, and his chief priest Lord Sivakaivalya, which consecrated him as a chakravartin, or Lord of the universe. Various other details are recounted in inscriptions: he married a woman named Hyang Amrita; and he dedicated a foundation at Lobok Srot, in the southeast. The inscription states "When His Majesty Paramesvara came from Java to reign in the royal city of Indrapura...Sivakaivalya, the family's purohit, was serving as his guru and held the post of royal chaplain to His Majesty," using the king's posthumous name. In a later passage, the text says that a brahmin named Hiranyadama, "proficient in the lore of magic power, came from Janapada in response to His Majesty's having invited him to perform a sublime rite which would release Kambujadesa [the kingdom] from being any longer subject to Java." The text also recounts the creation of the cult of the devaraja, the key religious ceremony in the court of Jayavarman and subsequent Khmer people.

Interpretations on Java (800-802) The word in the inscription that has often been translated as "Java" has caused endless debate. Some early scholars, such as George Coedès and Lawrence Palmer Briggs, have established the notion that it refers to the island of Java in present-day Indonesia. The mythical stories of battles between the Khmers and Javanese correspond in their view to the Shailendra dynasty that ruled both Java and Sumatran Srivijaya.

Later scholars such as Charles Higham doubt that the word refers to the island. Michael Vickery has re-interpreted the word to mean "the Chams", the Khmers' neighbors to the east, described a chvea.

Claude Jacques likewise located it in the northern part of the Malay Peninsula, and other scholars like Takashi Suzuki suggest that "Java" is on the Malaysia Peninsula instead, or particularly Kedah which has been the center of Srivijaya's realm under Sailendra.

Further proposals place the name in the interior of the mainland. Tatsuo Hoshino suggested a principality far up the Mekong, while Hiram Woodward identified it with Wen Dan, the polity known to the Tang court as Land Chenla, whose last recorded embassy to China in 798 falls four years before Jayavarman II's accession; Michel Ferlus reached the same identification independently. Vickery, who had earlier proposed the Cham reading, subsequently rejected it and raised the possibility that the whole tradition is a later myth, in which case the island of Java would again become a candidate.

Historical assessment

More broadly, debate continues as to whether Jayavarman II's rule truly represented a seminal turning point in Khmer history, the creation of an independent unified state from small feuding principalities, or was instead part of a long process toward that end. Inscriptions indicate that later Khmer kings treated him as the august first in their line and font of their own legitimacy, but Hindu civilization had existed already for centuries in the region; the fact that Jayavarman was the second monarch to carry that name is a sign that there was already long line of kings of significant states in the region.

Posthumous name Jayavarman II died in 850 CE and received the posthumous name of Parameshwara, "the supreme ruler", an epithet of Shiva. After him, the throne was held by his son Jayavarman III and two other kings of the family into which he had married. He was formally honored along with these two kings and their wives in the Preah Ko temple in Rolous, built by King Indravarman I and inaugurated in 880 CE.

Legacy Saloth Sâr ("Pol Pot"), viewed the achievements of Jayavarman II and the Angkorian civilization as proof of the inherent greatness of the Khmer people. The Khmer Rouge ideology was a blend of Marxism-Leninism and intense nationalism, aiming to restore the perceived former glory of the Khmer Empire associated with Jayavarman II. Adoped on 5 January 1976, the flag of Democratic Kampuchea (DK) featured a yellow, three-towered temple—representing Angkor Wat, incorporating Angkorian imagery into the regime's national symbolism. However, the political and religious system of Jayavarman II's era was fundamentally different from the ideology of the Khmer Rouge.