Jayavarman I

Biography

He ruled from approximately 657 until around 681. Over the course of his reign, and that of his predecessors Bhavavarman II and Candravarman, the Khmer kings power was consolidated in the areas previously controlled by the Funan’s culture. However, Jayavarman left no male heirs, which led to the division of Cambodia.

The inscription K. 725 calls him a portion (aṁśa) of Śiva. Michael Vickery holds that he and his immediate successors, Śaivas like him, made real efforts to unify Chenla under their control. He also holds that it was out of this politico-religious setting that the practice of founding religious edifices as an act of puṇya, or meritorious work, was instituted in seventh- and eighth-century Cambodia.

Jayavarman I is described as the son of Chandravarman (旃陀越摩), who is mentioned 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.

Inscriptions associated with his reign are found at Tuol Kok Prah, Wat Prei Val, Prah Kuha Luon, Wat Kdei Ang, Wat Baray, and Tuol Nak Ta Bak Ka. His palace was located at Purandarapura, although Michael Vickery regards the location of his capital as unknown, notes that it appears not to have been Īśānapura, and suggests southern Cambodia or the Angkor region instead.

Two inscriptions place his authority well to the west of the Tonlé Sap. K. 447, reported to come from Wat Baset in Battambang, and K. 502, recovered in two fragments at Wat Thong Thua and Wat Chai Chumphon in Mueang Chanthaburi district in what is now eastern Thailand, together trace a corridor running from Battambang through the Watthana Gap and the so-called Mahosot Route to the sea at Chanthaburi. The Chanthaburi inscription was tied by George Cœdès to the reign of Isanavarman I, but Vickery assigns it to Jayavarman I's own time with retrospective mention of the earlier king. Charles Higham has proposed that this overland route to the sea was exploited as an alternative to the restricted or second-hand access to coastal trade available to the inland polities. He was the great-grandson of Isanavarman I. Jayavarman I's daughter, Queen Jayadevi, succeeded him as queen regnant.

His reign has been connected with a reported persecution of Buddhists. The Chinese monk Yijing recorded that Buddhists had fled a country he calls Banan (跋南), formerly Funan, after a wicked king seized power there, and Nancy Dowling identified that king with Jayavarman I. Nicolas Revire finds the argument unconvincing. Yijing never visited the country, and much of what he reported of it was second-hand and possibly out of date.