Kharara

  The Rise and Fall of the Khmer Empire_ Kingship, Water, and Transformation in Angkorian Cambodia-By Dr. Rahul S. Kharat Abstract The Khmer Empire, centred on Angkor in present-day Cambodia, was one of the largest and most sophisticated polities of premodern Southeast Asia. From the consecration of Jayavarman II in 802 CE to the abandonment of Angkor as a royal capital in the fifteenth century, Khmer kings built a system of temple-mountains, reservoirs, canals, and roads that organised the economic and religious life of a vast territory. This article surveys the empire’s origins in the earlier kingdoms of Funan and Chenla, traces its political history from the ninth to the fourteenth centuries, and examines its society, economy, religion, and hydraulic landscape. It then reviews the principal explanations for Angkor’s decline — Tai expansion, religious change, institutional strain, shifts in maritime trade, and climatic instability — and argues that the “fall” of Angkor is b...