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Theravada Buddhism is the state religion of Cambodia, which has been present since at least the 5th century.

Suvannaphum

King Ashoka sent missionaries to the land of Suwannaphum, which has sometimes been identified as the mainland southeast Asian region of Mon (now a state in Myanmar, the state of Mon) and Khmer (now Cambodia) people. The Mahavamsa, a Sinhalese Pali chronicle, mentions these missions.^[1]

"Unconfirmed Singhalese sources state that Buddhism was introduced to Suvannaphum, or the 'Golden Peninsula', as mainland Southeast Asia was once referred to, in the 3rd century B.C. under the reign of King Ashoka, 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 274 B.C. held in Asoka's capital Pataliputta, India. While this mission may be legendary, it indicates that Buddhism has 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 A.D. In part through Indian merchant traders, Indian cultural influence was pervasive in this early period. In Funan (1st to 5th century A.D.) 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."^[2]

Funan Kingdom

In the period between 100 BCE and 500 CE, the Kingdom of Funan in the present-day Mekong Delta established a flourishing seafaring trade between China, Indonesia, and India. This kingdom was Hindu, with the kings of Funan sponsoring the worship of Vishnu and Shiva. Buddhism was already present in Funan as a secondary religion in these earliest times.

A Sanskrit inscription from 375 documents the presence of Buddhism in Funan. King Kuandinya Jayavarman (478-514) cultivated Buddhism and sent a Buddhist mission complete with Funanese Buddhist images, carved in coral, to the Emperor of China.^[3]

Another early inscription in Sanskrit dated 586–664 at Wat Prey Vier notes that two Buddhist monks named Ratnabhanu and Ratnasimha were brothers. Chinese texts attest that Buddhism flourished in Cambodia in the last half of the 5th century, and that King Jayavarman sent the Indian monk Nagasena to present a memorial in the Chinese Imperial court.^[4]

Buddhism was clearly beginning to assert its presence from about year 450 onward, and was observed by the Chinese traveler I Ching toward the close of the seventh century.

Chenla Kingdom

The Kingdom of Chenla replaced Funan and endured from 500 to 700. Chenla extended from the Mekong Delta, and along the lands surrounding the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers.

"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. 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, 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, 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 (3.7 m) long relic of Buddha's hair."^[5]

Buddhism was weakened in the Chenla period, but survived, as seen in the inscriptions of Sambor Prei Kuk (626) and those of Siem Reap dealing with the erection of statues of Avalokitesvara (791). Some pre-Angkorean statuary in the Mekong Delta region indicate the existence of Sanskrit-based Sarvastivada Buddhism.^[5]

Khmer-style Buddha images are abundant from the period of 600–800. Many Mahayana bodhisattva images also date from this period, often found alongside the predominantly Hindu images of Shiva and Vishnu.

An inscription from Ta Prohm temple in Bali province, dated about 625, states, that the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha are flourishing.^[4]

Angkor Kingdom

The transition from Hindu god-king to Mahayana Buddha-king was probably gradual and imperceptible. The prevailing Vaishnavite and Shaivite faith traditions gave way to the worship of the Gautama Buddha and the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara.

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 Wat.

The Buddhist Sailendra kingdom exercised suzerainty over Cambodia as a vassal state during the end of the eighth and the beginning of the ninth centuries. As a result, Jayavarman, as a young man, had lived in the court of Java and had visited Sumatra. When he returned to Cambodia, he proclaimed himself a god-king (deva-raja) according to Khmer traditions, identifying himself with Shiva. Nevertheless, he was increasingly friendly to and supportive of Mahayana Buddhist influence throughout his kingdom.^[6]

When King Jayavarman II returned to Cambodia from Java, he built three capitals in succession: Hariharalaya, Amarendrapura, and Mahendraparvata. One of these, Amarendrapura, identified with Banteai Chmar, was a Mahayana Buddhist city presided over by Avalokitesvara, the Buddhist bodhisattva of compassion.

Mahayana Buddhism therefore became increasingly established in his empire. The form of Mahayana Buddhism that was propagated in the Srivijaya lands was similar to the Pala Dynasty Buddhism of Bengal, and of the Nalanda University in northern India.

"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 interpretations of Buddhism, tinged with Tantric mysticism (that may have revived portions of pre-Aryan northeastern Indian faith traditions) were worked out in Megadha and then were exported throughout insular and peninsular Southeast Asia, particularly to Java. Yashovarman I (889-910), who ruled from the vicinity of Rolous in the late ninth century, seems to have been a Shivite 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."^[4]

The Sailendra dynasty also built the fantastic Mahayana Buddhist temple Borobudur (750-850) in Java. Borobudur appears to have been the inspiration for the later fabulous Angkor building projects in Cambodia, particularly Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom.

The primary form of Buddhism practiced in Cambodia during Angkor times was Mahayana Buddhism, strongly influenced with Tantric tendencies.

"The prevalence of Tantrayana in Java, Sumatra and Kamboja [Cambodia], 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 9th 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 from amidst the ruins of Angkor Thom. 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 Shaivism, 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 verses explained by an Old Javanese commentary, professed to teach the Mahayana and Mantrayana."^[6]

The presence and growing influence of Buddhism continued as the Angkor empire increased in power. King Yosavarman built many Buddhist temples in 887–889, representing the mandala of Mount Meru, the mythical axis of the world. The largest of these temples is Phnom Kandal or "Central Mountain" which lies near the heart of the Angkor complex.

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 devote of Shiva. He, too, permitted his own chief minister, Kirtipandita, to foster Mahayana Buddhist learning and divination."^[6]

Decline of Angkor & the Emergence of a Theravada Kingdom

After the 13th century, Theravada Buddhism became the state religion of Cambodia.

King Jayavarman VII had sent his son Tamalinda to Sri Lanka to be ordained as a Buddhist monk and study Theravada Buddhism according to the Pali scriptural traditions. Tamalinda then returned to Cambodia and promoted Buddhist traditions according to the Theravada training he had received, galvanizing and energizing the long-standing Theravada presence that had existed throughout the Angkor empire for centuries.

During the time Tamalinda studied at the famous Mahavihara Monastery in Sri Lanka (1180–1190), a new dynamic type of Theravada Buddhism was being preached as the "true faith" in Sri Lanka. This form of Buddhism was somewhat militant and highly disciplined in reaction to the wars with the Tamil that nearly destroyed Buddhism in Sri Lanka in the 9th and 10th centuries. As Theravada Buddhism struggled for survival in Sri Lanka, it developed a resiliency that generated a renaissance throughout the Buddhist world, and would eventually spread across Burma, Chang Mai, the Mon kingdoms, Lana, Sukothai, Laos, and Cambodia.^[7]

In the 13th century, wandering missionaries from the Mon-Khmer-speaking parts of Siam, Burma, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka played an important part in this process.

When Prince Tamalinda returned after ten years of ordination, he was a Thera, a senior monk, capable of administering ordination into this vigorous Theravada lineage, which insisted on orthodoxy and rejected Mahayana "innovations" such as tantric practices.

Some scholars have argued that the transition from Mahayana to Theravada was more gradual than it was generally believed. French scholar Nicolas Revire has studied an Angkor stele, now at the Bangkok National Museum, depicting as late as the 13th or 14th century the Mahayana image of Buddha's birth where Buddha emerges from his mother's side at the moment of delivery. Revire believes this suggests that a kind of Mahayana “leftover ‘behavior’” persisted even after the institutional transition to Theravada had been completed.^[8]

Buddhist nun. Bayon Temple, Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia (January 2005).

The mass conversion of Khmer society to Theravada Buddhism amounted to a nonviolent revolution every all level of society. All monumental building projects that had characterized the Angkor empire came to a sudden end. Scholars struggle to account for this sudden and inexplicable transformation of Khmer civilization.

Theravada Buddhism succeeded because it was inclusive and universal in its outreach, recruiting the disciples and monks from not only the elites and court, but also in the villages and among the peasants, enhancing its popularity among the Khmer folk.

"Their message succeeded because it provided a meaningful way of relating to the world for many who had been marginal to the classical civilizations or who had been seriously affected by the disruption of the classical civilizations in the 13th and 14th centuries."^[7]

Journalist Elizabeth Becker explained the phenomenon: "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."^[9]

Other scholars suggest that the classical Angkor Empire collapsed from desertion from within and assault from without, from growing external threats and assaults from Siam and Vietnam which were both in ascendancy at the time.

"The post-Angkor period 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 Mahavihara 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 Theravada lands. While adhering to the monastic discipline, 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 Europe in most if not all Theravada lands. In Kampuchea, Buddhism became the transmitter of Khmer language and culture."^[3]

The Theravada revolution was therefore a grassroots movement of the Khmer people rejecting some of the oppressive practices of the god-king religion of Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism.

With the rise of Siam in the west and Vietnam in the east, the classical Angkor empire disappeared and the beginning of present-day Cambodia began. The center of government began to migrate away from Angkor to a more central location in the center of Cambodia, in the regions near present-day Phnom Penh.

Cambodia became from this time forward a Theravada Buddhist nation. "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."^[10]

Zhou Daguan, a Chinese visitor to the Royal Court of Cambodia at this time wrote of the presence of Theravada Buddhist monks in the latter days of Angkor.

Zhou Daguan was an emissary from the court of Timur Khan, Emperor of China. Daguan lived in Angkor Thom for one year 1296-7 and wrote a small book about his observations in which he described Theravada monks with shaved heads, yellow robes and one shoulder bare, walking barefoot throughout Cambodia. Their temples were simple, he said, containing one image of Sakyamuni Buddha. The image was draped in yellow cloth.

The Theravada 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. 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."^[6]

Middle Ages

The Jinakalamali gives an account of the cultural connections between Cambodia and Sri Lanka in the fifteenth century. It states that 1967^{(1967?? Perhaps 1697)} years after the Mahaparinibbana of the Buddha, eight monks headed by Mahananasiddhi from Cambodia with 25 monks from Nabbispura in Thailand came to Sri Lanka to receive the umpasampada ordination at the hands of the Sinhalese Mahatheras.

As Angkor collapsed under the advancing jungles, the centre of power of the Theravada Cambodia moved south toward present day Phnom Penh. Phnom Penh was originally a small riverside market center where the Mekong River and the Tonle Sap River converge.

Phnom Penh was founded when Lady Penh found a "four-faced Buddha" floating down the river on a Koki tree during the flooding season. She retrieved the Buddha image and had the Wat Phnom constructed to house the image. The four-faced Buddha [Buddha facing the four directions] is important in Khmer Buddhist iconography, signifying the establishment of the kingdom of the Buddha of the Future, Maitreya, who is often identified with the Buddha-king of Cambodia.

After 1431 when the Cambodian kings permanently abandoned Angkor due to a Siamese invasion, the royal court was located on Udon Mountain, a few kilometres north of Phnom Penh. Siamese incursions from the west and Vietnamese invasions from the east weakened the Khmer empire. The Vietnamese invaders attempted to suppress Theravada Buddhism and force the Khmer people to practice Mahayana Buddhism. The Siamese, on the other hand, would periodically invade Cambodia and attempt to drive out the "unbelievers" in an attempt to protect the Theravada religion. This power-struggle between the two ascendant powers continued until the arrival of the Europeans in the 16th century.

Buddhism continued to flourish in Cambodia in the sixteenth century. King Ang Chan (1516–1566), a relative of King Dhammaraja, was a devout Buddhist. He built pagodas in his capital and many Buddhist shrines in different parts of Cambodia. In order to popularize Buddhism, King Satha (1576-1549), son and successor of King Barom Reachea, restored the great towers of the Angkor Wat, which had become a Buddhist shrine by the sixteenth century.

When Western merchants and missionaries first made contact with Cambodia, they discovered a three-tiered society consisting of the nobility, the common people (who were primarily rice farmers), and the Buddhist monks who were custodians of Khmer culture and identity.

Each successive wave of European influence was accompanied by Catholic missionaries, but Theravada Buddhism proved surprisingly resistant to foreign attempts to convert the Khmer people.

In 1556, the Portuguese missionary Gaspar de Cruz spent about a year in Cambodia and visited the capital at Lovek where King Cham reigned. The missionary complained bitterly of his inability to convert the Khmer people to Christianity, and blamed the Buddhist monks for his failure: The monks, he said, 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.'"^[11]

Colonial Era

During the colonial period, the peace was periodically breached by outbreaks of religiously motivated violence. Periodic millenarian revolts, often led by charismatic monks or self-proclaimed holy men. In 1820–21, a Millennial uprising was led by a former monk named Kai, who was recognized as a holy man with supernatural powers. He organized a revolt against the Vietnamese overlords from his hideout in Ba Phanom.

During the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, Thailand's involvement in Cambodian politics extended Thai influence into religious matters as well. In 1855, King Norodom invited monks from the Thai Dhammayuttika Nikaya to establish a Dhammayuttika presence in Cambodia.^[12] Maha Pan, a Khmer monk who had studied under some of the same teachers as Thailand's Mongkut, was appointed the first sangharaja of the new Khmer Dhammayuttika tradition (usually referred to as 'Thommayut'), taking up residence at Wat Botum Vaddey, a new temple built adjacent to the palace in Phnom Penh.^[12]

The newly formed Thommayut order benefited from royal patronage, but frequently came into conflict with the existing Mohanikay (Mahanikaya) lineage.^[12] The Thommayut were sometimes accused of holding loyalty to the Thai court, rather than to the Khmer nation.^[13]

Cambodia was recognized by the West as a "protectorate" of France in 1867.^[14] Over the course of the next forty years, the territory of modern Cambodia was integrated as a colony into French Indo-China through a series of "protective" agreements with the Vietnamese, and treaty concessions from Thailand.^[15] Periodic convulsions of violence, led by Buddhist holy men, would periodically break out against the French.

During the era of French rule, significant advances were made in the education of Cambodian monks, both in specifically Buddhist topics and more general studies. In Phnom Penh, a Pali high school for monks was created in 1914, and later converted into a college.^[16] This four-year diploma granting program for monks included not only education in the Pali language and Buddhist canon, but also basic education in modern, secular topics.^[17] Beginning in 1933, elementary Pali schools were established to provide new monks with a shorter introduction to Pali.^[17] These schools eventually developed into broader monastic schools, where all monks were given basic education in the dhamma-vinaya.^[17] In 1961, a Buddhist university, the Buddhist University of Phra Sihanu-Raja began instruction.^[16]

Primary education of Cambodian children continued to take place at temple schools. Monks were also encouraged to become involved in community development projects.^[16]

Khmer Rouge Era

In 1975 when the communist Khmer Rouge took control of Cambodia, they tried to completely eradicate Buddhism and very nearly succeeded. By the time of the Vietnamese invasion in 1979, nearly every monk and religious intellectual had been either murdered or driven into exile, and nearly every temple and Buddhist temple and library had been destroyed.

The Khmer Rouge policies towards Buddhism- which included the forcible disrobing of monks, the destruction of monasteries, and, ultimately, the execution of uncooperative monks effectively destroyed Cambodia's Buddhist institutions.^[18] Monks who did not flee and avoided execution lived among the laity, sometimes secretly performing Buddhist rituals for the sick or afflicted.^[18]

Estimates vary regarding the number of monks in Cambodia prior to the ascension of the Khmer Rouge, ranging between 65,000 and 80,000.^[19] By the time of the Buddhist restoration in the early 1980s, the number of Cambodian monks worldwide was estimated to be less than 3,000.^[20] The patriarchs of both Cambodian Nikāyas were murdered or perished sometime during the period 1975–78, though the cause of their deaths is not known.^[19]

Due to their association with the Thai monarchy, monks of the Thommayut Order may have been particularly targeted for persecution.^[21]

Vietnamese Occupation

Following the defeat of the Khmer Rouge by forces of the Vietnamese government, Buddhism initially remained officially suppressed within Cambodia.^[18] Following challenges to the legitimacy of the Vietnamese-backed People's Republic of Kampuchea, policies towards Buddhism began to liberalize starting in the summer of 1979.^[22] A group of monks who had been exiled and re-ordained in Vietnam during the Khmer Rouge period were returned back to Cambodia,^[23] and in 1981 one of them, Venerable Tep Vong, was elected the first Sangharaja of a new unified Cambodia sangha, officially abolishing the division between the Thommayut Order and the Mohanikay Order.^[22] The ordination of new monks was sponsored by the government as a public show of piety and lifted restrictions on ordination.^[20]

Modern Era

Today Buddhism is struggling to re-establish itself although the lack of Buddhist scholars and leaders and the continuing political instability makes the task difficult.

Following the withdrawal of the Vietnamese military, the newly renamed Cambodian People's Party sought to align itself with the Buddhist sangha, declaring Buddhism to be Cambodia's 'state religion' in a 1991 policy statement^[24] In 1991, King Sihanouk returned from exile and appointed Venerable Tep Vong as the Sangharaja of Mohanikay Order and Venerable Bour Kry as the Sangharaja of the Thommayut Order, effectively marking the end of the unified system created under Vietnamese rule in 1981.^[25]

References