Jayavarman II

Preah Ko with the central sanctuary Paramesvara (posthumous name of Jayavarman II)

Jayavarman II (* around 770; † 9th century ) is considered the founding father of the Khmer empire of Angkor in what is now Cambodia . He is possibly identical to one of the historians as Jayavarman I. [No. 2] designated ruler, who is attested by inscriptions in the years 770 and 781. In any case, he married into a local ruling family of the Angkor region, which is evident from the inscriptions of the temples Preah Ko (K. 713) of January 25, 880 and Bakong (K. 826) of 881/82 of King Indravarman I (r. 877-889). Jayavarman II himself left no written evidence.

The dating of his inauguration to the year 802/03 goes back to inscriptions of the 11th century under the kings Suryavarman I (r. 1002-1049) and Udayadityavarman II. (R. 1049-1067), when various families of the elite claimed that their ancestors have held certain offices continuously since Jayavarman II. From the inscription by Sdok Kak Thom K. 235 dated February 8, 1053, one learns about an imaginative but ahistorical prehistory of the ruler, where u. a. it is said that he freed Cambodia from the threat of a country called "Java", which is not identical to the present-day island of Java , as it is called "Yava" in all contemporary sources. Here behind “Java” hides the old name for “barbarians”, which at that time ( 11th century ) often meant the Vietnamese. The alternatively named year 790/91 as the date of his assumption of government goes back to the inscription K. 583 of the Baphuon temple from the time of King Rajendravarman II (r. 944–968), and is therefore older than the date 802/03, but but considerably younger than the inscriptions of the 9th century, which have no date at all. The only correspondence between the oldest and the later sources is that Jayavarman II settled on Mahendraparvata (on the Rong Chen Temple Mount ) in the Phnom Kulen hills north of the later capital Angkor. This - with Indrapura (Amarendrapura, location still unclear) and Hariharalaya (on Tonle Sap ) - the first capital of the Khmer Empire was discovered in 2012.

According to the Sdok Kak-Thom inscription, the cult of the patron deity Kamranteng Jagat ta Rājya (Sanskrit: Devarāja , "King of the Gods") was established there, which is also alluded to in the Preah Ko inscription from 880. The assertion that can be found in many places that Devarāja designates the earthly ruler as "God-King" must be rejected, since the statements of the inscription are clear here. Indravarman I had the "memorial temple" Preah Ko inaugurated on January 25, 880, which consists of six towers that were built for Jayavarman II and Indravarman's immediate predecessors Rudravarman and Prithivīndravarman and their wives. All of these deceased rulers and their queens were given posthumous names indicating that they were united with Shiva or his wife Parvatī. So Jayavarman II received the name Parameśvara, "supreme lord", who is also a name of Śiva.

literature

• George Coedès : Les Capitales de Jayavarman II. In: Bulletin de l'EFEO , Volume 28 (1928), pp. 113-123 ( digitized ).
• OW Wolters: Jayavarman II.'s Military Power: the territorial foundation of the Angkor Empire . In: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1973), pp. 21-30 ( JSTOR 25203407 ).
• Karl Heinz Golzio: The founding of Angkor in the 9th century. Criticism of previous attempts at dating and genealogies . In: Journal of the German Oriental Society , Volume 152 (2002), pp. 133-154 ( JSTOR 43381914 ).
• Claude Jacques: The kamarat jagat in ancient Cambodia . In: Noburu Karashima (ed.): Indus Valley to Mekong Delta: explorations in epigraphy . New Era, Madras 1986, OCLC 12808675 , pp. 269-286 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).

predecessor	Office	successor
---	King of the Khmer 802–850	Jayavarman III.