Buddhism in Cambodia
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Buddhism in Cambodia dates back to at least the 5th century A.D.. Buddhist legends say that Buddhism was originally introduced into Suvannabhumi, or the "Golden Peninsula" by King Ashoka the Great, the Buddhist Emperor in India during the 3rd century B.C..
"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 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 misison may be legendary, it points to a thruth that Buddhism has been present in Southeast Asia for along time. Various Buddhist sects and schools, including Tantrism, vied or coexisted with a dominant Brhamanism and indigeneious animistic faiths for centuries before the rise of the classical Southeast Asian empires beginning in the 9th century A.D. Through in part 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." [1]
The history of Buddhism in Cambodia spans nearly two thousand years, across a number of successive kingdoms and empires including Oc-Eo, Funan, Chenla, Angkor, and present day Cambodia. The Angkor Empire at its high point extended into southern Thailand, as far as Burma in the west, Changmai and Vientianne in the north, and into central Veitnam in the east.
Buddhism entered Cambodia through two different streams. The earliest forms of Buddhism entered Oc-Eo and Funan along with Hindu influences of Hindu merchants. In later history, a second stream of Buddhism entered Khmer culture during the Angkor empire when Cambodia absorbed the various Buddhist traditons of the Mon kingdoms of Dvaravati and Haripunchai.
For the first tousand years of Khmer history, Cambodia was ruled by a series of Hindu kings with an occasional Buddhist king, such as Jayavarman of Funan, and Suryvarman I. A variety of Buddhist images co-existed peacefully throughout Cambodian lands, under the tolerant auspices of Hindu kings, and in neighboring Mon-Theravada kingdoms.
Brahmin priests flourished in large urban temples. While Buddhist monks tended to live in rual, rustic settings in closer contact with the peasaon folks.
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[edit] Suvannabhumi
King Asohka sent missionaries to the land of Suvannabhumi, which has generally been identified as the mainland souteast Asian region of the Mon kingdoms of southern Thaton in Burma, central Thailand and Issan. The Edicts of Ashoka and the Dipavamsa of Ceylon mention these missions.
[edit] Funan
In the period between 100 B.C. and 500 A.D, the Kingdom of Funan in the present-day Mekong Delta established a flourishing sea-faring trade between China, Indonesia, and India. This kingdom was Hindu, with the kings of Funan sponsoring worship of Vishnu and Shiva. Buddhism was already present in Funan as a secondary religion in these earliest times.
An India Sanskrit inscription from 375 A.D 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. [2]
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.[3]
Buddhism was clearly beginning to assert its prsence from about year 450 A.D. onward, when the Chinese explorer I-tsing, toward the close of the seventh century, wrote the celebrated Records of the Buddhist Religion.
[edit] Chenla
The Kingdom of Chenla replaced Funan and endured from 500-700 A.D. Chenla extend 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 long relic of Buddha's hair." [4]
Buddhism was weakened in the Chenla period, but survived, as seen in the inscprition of Sambor Prei Kuk (626 A.D.) and those of Siem Reap dealing with the erection of statues of Avalikotesvara (791 A.D.). Some pre-Angkorean statuary in the Mekong Delta region indicate the existence of Sanskrit-based Saravastavada Buddhism.[5]
Khmer-style Buddha images are abudant from the period of 600-800 A.D. Also many Mahayana Buddhist images, such as bodhisattvas, are found in Cambodia, dating from this period, alongside the predominant Hindu images of Shiva and Vishnu.
An inscription from Ta Prohm temple in Bali province, dated about 625 A.D., states, that the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha are in a flourishing condition. [6]
[edit] Angkor
The transition from Hindu god-king to Mahayana Buddha-king was probably gradual and imperceptible. The cult of Shiva and Vishnu gradually blended and morphed into the cult of the Bodhisattva. The prevailing cult of Brahmanism worship of Vishnu and Shiva gave way to the worship of Buddha and Avilokitsvara.
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.
Jayavarman, as a young man, had lived in the court of Java and had visited Sumatra, and for many years lived and studied in the Mahayana Buddhist empire of Sailendra dynasty of Srivijaya. When he returned to Cambodia, he proclaimed himself a god-king according to Khmer traditions, identifying himself with Shiva. Nevertheless, he was increasingly friendly to and supportive of Mahayana Buddhist influence throughout his kingdom. [7]
The Buddhist Sailendra dynasty of Srivijaya-Sumatra exercised suzerainity over Cambodia as a vassal state during the end of the eighth and the beginning of the ninth centuries.
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 increasinly 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 Tantrik mysticism (that may have revived portions of pre-Aryan norhteastern Indian cults) 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 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." [8]
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 numer 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 duirng this period. The Sang Hyang Kamahayanikan, consisting of Sanskrit versus expalined by an Old Javanese commentary, professed to teach the Mahayana and Mantrayana." [9]
Tantra blended Sivaism with Mahayana Buddhism.
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 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.
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." [10]
[edit] King Surayvarman I
Surayvarman I (1002-1050) is considered the greatest of the Buddhist kings, excepting only Jayavarman VII.
Surayvarman was from present-day southern Thailand in the kingdom of Sri Dhammarat. He was a Tamil-Malay (Srivijaya) "usurper" to the Khmer 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 according to his official traditions, but was also a devout Mahayana Buddhist king.
A strong proponent of Mahayana Buddhism, he did not interfere or obstruct the growing presence 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). Surayvarman's posthumous title of Nirvanapada, 'the king who has gone to Nirvana' is the strongest evidence that he was a Buddhist." [11]
[edit] Jayavarman VII
Jayavarman VII (1181-1215) was the greatest of all Khmer Buddhist kings. Jayavarman VII worked tirelessly to establish Buddhism as the state religion of Angkor.
He was already an elderly man, perhaps 60, when he ascended the throne. Before becoming king, he had devoted his long life to meditation and tantra.
Sensing his mortality he worked feverishly to accomplish his works in "saving" the Khmer people and establshing a Buddhist empire in a race against time.
In 1177, the Cham Kingdom of central Vietnam had invaded and sacked Angkor, creating a sense of trauma and crisis throughout the Khmer Empire by attacking and looting the capital. King Jayavarman VII ascended the throne in a climate of crisis, and war.
Jayavarman VII was a Mahayana Buddhist, and he regarded himself to be a Dharma-king, a bodhisattva, whose duty was to "save the people" through service and merit-making, liberating himself in the process.
Scholars speculate why Khmer royalty rejected Hinduism and embraced Buddhism definitively at this time. Perhaps, they suggest, Jayavarman 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. The Cham themselves were Hindu and worshiped Shiva, and the Khmer may have therefore felt an instinctive revulsion at the religion of their enemies.
Jayavarman witchdrew his devotion from the old gods and began to identify more openly with Buddhist traditions. His regime marked a clear dividing line with the old 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 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.
As a "bodhisattva king" Jayavarman VII was considered to be a living Buddha, or bodhisattva who turned his back from the brink of enlightement to redeem or save his people from suffering; he imagined himself in a role similar to that of the present day Dalai Lama of Tibet.
Images of Jayavarman portray him in the ascetic pose seated in meditation with a serene, enlightened expression. He built numerous public works to serve the people, including waterworks, hospitals, temples, hospices for travelers.
Stone 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 them 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.'"
Profound psychological change was underway in Jayavarman VII's reign. There was a shift away from the cult of devaraja god-king, toward the cult of the Sangha, the cult of monks. In former times, great effort and resources were invested into building temples for elite brahman priests and god-kings. Under Jayavarman, these resources were redirectred to building libraries, monastic dwellings, public works, and more "earthly" projects accessible to the common people.
His temple, the Bayon in Angkor Thom, is the first temple built without walls, indicating its openness to all the people, not exclusive to the god-king and his brahmin priests. The walls of the Bayon are decorated with scenes from the daily life of the people fishing, eating, gambling and cock-fighting, rather than the heroic deeds of gods and kings.
King Jayavarman considered the Bayon as his masterpiece, his "bride." A stone 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 purpose of this mystical marriage of King and people, the inscription goes on to say, was the "procreation of happiness throughout the universe."
The building projects commissioned by Jayavarman were redolent with tantric Buddhist symbolism. The word "bayon" means "ancestor yantra" - a magic symbol of geometric shape of tantric Buddhism. In the center of the Bayon temple was a Buddha image of Buddha-Mucalinda, sitting on a seven-headed cobra. The serpent's hood is unveiled above the Buddha as protection from the elements. The Buddha image has the features of Jayavarman VII himself.
The haunting faces of the spires of the Bayon, looking into the four directions, crowned with a blooming lotus, represent the universal compassion of the Buddha.
Jayavarman other major temple projects included Preah Khan, Ta Prohm.
While Jayavarman VII himself was Mahayana Buddhist, the presence of Pali Theravada Buddhism was increasingly 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 southern insular reaches of the region, spread as a popularly-based movement among tehpeople. Apart from inscriptions, such as one of Lopburi, there wer other signs that the religious venue of Suvannabhumi were changing. Tamalinda, the Khmer monk believed to be the son of Jayavarman VII, took part in an 1180 Burmese-led missioin to Sri Lanka to study the Pali canon and on his return in 1190 had adepts of the Sinhala doctrine in his court. Chou Ta-Laun, who led a Chinese mission in to Angkor in 1296-97 confirms the significant presence of Pali Theravada monks in the Khmer Capital." [12]
[edit] Theravada Kingdom
After the 13th century Theravada Buddhism became the official state religion of Cambodia.
King Jayavarman VII had sent his son Tamilinda 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 traditionis 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 stuidied 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 destroeyd Buddhism in Sri Lanka in the 9th and 10th centuries. [Buddhism disappeared from southern India at this time, due to these wars.] 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, Monk kingdoms, Lana, Sukothai, Laos, and Cambodia. [13]
In the 13th century, wandering missionaries from the Mon-Khmer language parts of Siam [Semi-Khmerized monks of lower Menam valley], Burma, Cambodia, and from 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.
[edit] Why Theravada
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 seirously affected by the disruption of the classical civilizations in the 13th and 14th centuries." [14]
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 tranquality 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." [15]
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 asscendency 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 traditons. 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." [16]
The Theravada revolution was therefor a grassroots movement of the Khmer people rejecting the oppressive burden of maintaining the god-king religion of Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism. The monumental temples that had countless thousands of slaves attached to them were gradually abandoned to the jungles.
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." [17]
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 sholder bare, walking barefoot throughout Cambodia. Their tempels 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." [18]
[edit] Buddhist Middle Ages
As Angkor collapsed under the advancing jungles, the center of power of the Theravada Cambodia moved south toward present day Phnom Penh. Phnom Penh was originally a 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 teh four directions] is important in Khmer Buddhist iconography, signifying the establishment of the kingdom of the Buddha of the Future, Metreya, 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 miles 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 "unblievers" in an attempt to protect the Theravada religion. This power-struggle between the two ascendent powers continued until the arrival of the Europeans in the 16th century.
[edit] Colonialism
In the 16th century, Cambodia made first contact with new foreign strangers who should shape their future, the Europeans, first the Portuguese, then the Spaniards and finally the French.
When Western merchants and missionaries first made contact with Cambodia, they discovered a three-tiered society consisting of royalty-nobility, the common people who were primarily rice farmers, and the Buddhist Sangha of monks who were custondians and repositories of Khmer culture and identity.
Each successive wave of European influence was accompanied by a missionary Catholic outreach. Theravada Buddhism proved surprisingly resistant to any foreign missionary 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 was complained bitterly of his inability to convert the Khmer people to Christianty, and blamed the Buddhist monks for his failure: The monks, he said, are "exceedingly proud and vail...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 reerence 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.'" [19]
Buddhism was integrated into the fabric of the daily life of the common people. Life in Buddhist Souteast Asia seemed to have a "timeless quality" and is often described as a "paradise", where centuries seemed to pass without apparent change.
Nevertheless, subterranean resistance movements against colonialism began to well up within the society, and periodically broke out into open rebellion and violent uprisings known as "millennial" movments. These were often lead by charismatic Buddhist monks or ex-monks and 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.
Cambodia became a "protectorate" of France, and then was integrated as a colony into French Indo-China.
Periodic convulsions of violence, led by Buddhist holy men, would periodically break out against the French.
[edit] Khmer Nationalism and Buddhism
Cambodian Buddhism was insturmental in fomenting Khmer national identity and the independence movement in the 20th century, leading to Cambodian indpendence as a sovereign state.
In their attempt to separate the Khmer people from their cultural allegiance to the neighborhing Theravada kingdom of Siam, the French "protectors" nurtured a sense of Khmer identity by emphasizing Khmer-language studies and Khmer Buddhist studies. They established Pali schools within Cambodia to keep the Cambodian monks from traveling to Siam for higher education. These Khmer-language study centers became the Cambodian nationalism
There are two branches of Buddhism in Cambodia; Mahanakaya and Dhammayute.
[edit] Notes:
1. France on the Mekong, John Tully
2. "Notes of the Rebirth of Khmer Buddhism," Radical Conservativism, Peter Gyallay-Pap.
3. The Art of Southeast Asia, Philip Dawson.
4. Sanskrit Buddhism in Burma, Nihar-Ranjan Ray.
5. Sanskrit Buddhism in Burma, Nihar-Ranjan Ray.
6. The Art of Southeast Asia, Philip Dawson
7. Angkor Life, Stephen O'Murray
8. The Art of Southeast ASia, Philip Dawson
9. Angkor Life, Stephen O'Murray
10. ibid.
11. ibid.
12. "Notes on the Rebirth of Khmer Buddhism", Radical Conservativism, Peter Gyallay-Pap
13. The Golden Peninsula, Charles Keyes
14. Ibid.
15. When the War Was Over, Elizabeth Becker
16. "Notes on the Rebirth of Khmer Buddhism", Radical Conservativism, Peter Gyallay-Pap
17. Sideshow", William Shawcross
18. Angkor Life, ?Stephen O'Murray
19. A History of Cambodia, David Chandler
[edit] See also
[edit] Further reading
Cambodian Buddhism, Ian Harris
[edit] External links
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