archaeology

For hundreds of years, the lost city of Angkor was itself a legend. Cambodian peasants living on the edge of the thick jungle around the Tonle Sap lake reported findings which puzzled the French colonialists who arrived in [Map] Indo-China in the 1860s. The peasants said they had found "temples built by gods or by giants." Their stories were casually dismissed as folktales by the pragmatic Europeans. Yet some did believe that there really was a lost city of a Cambodian empire which had once been powerful and wealthy, but had crumbled many years before.

Henri Mahout’s discovery of the Angkor temples in 1860 opened up this `lost city’ to the world. The legend became fact and a stream of explorers, historians and archaeologists came to Angkor to explain the meaning of these vast buildings. The earliest of these scholars could not believe that Angkor had been built by the Cambodian people, believing the temples to have been built by another race who had conquered and occupied Cambodia maybe 2,000 years before. Gradually, some of the mysteries were explained, the Sanskrit inscriptions deciphered and the history of Angkor slowly pieced together, mainly by French scholars in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Legends still remain. This once great city which had slept for so long still posed many questions. The foundation of the original Kingdom of Cambodia, Funan, supposedly came about by the union of a fairy princess and an Indian brahmin (or Brahman: A Hindu priest).

The kingdom went through many changes in the first 1,000 years of its existence. Funan was added to Chenla and eventually became the Kingdom of Kambuja under King Suryavarman I (c. AD800 to AD850). The way in which Suryavarman became king is told in the legend of Zagab. It is about a wise Indonesian king who chose Suryavarman as Kambuja’s new ruler in order to replace his boastful predecessor.

Some of the individual temples also have legends attached to them. The Phimeanakas Temple, built by Rajendravarman (AD944 - AD968) was said to be visited every night by a snake princess, on whom the prosperity of the kingdom depended. Local guides and villagers will undoubtedly tell visitors more about the legends surrounding the once lost city of Angkor.

THE LEGEND OF THE FOUNDATION OF FUNAN:
A charming story and an element of truth and have produced the legend of the foundation of Funan which has been handed down from generation to generation in Cambodian folklore.

The story centers around an Indian youth called Kaundinya or Kambu, who travels from India across the sea to the Indo-Chinese coast. As he explores the new country, he comes across a beautiful fairy queen named Willowleaf, who rules a tiny kingdom. She initially challenges him but quickly capitulates and becomes his wife, and together they found the Kingdom of Funan.

Undoubtedly, the legend was based on some fact. We know that one of the earliest kings of Funan was an Indian brahmin, possibly named Kambu, who gave his name to the kingdom, which later became known as Kambuja. Fou Nan (or Funan) was the name given to the kingdom by the Chinese, derived from the Cambodian word `phnom.’

LEGEND OF THE PHIMEANAKAS TEMPLE AND THE SNAKE PRINCESS:
This legend came from the text of the Chinese historian, Chou Ta-Kuan, who visited Angkor in 1296/7 and wrote a detailed report about all aspects of life there.

He believed that the Phimeanakas was a palace, not a temple. He reported that every night the king climbed to the top of the highest central tower of the Phimeanakas to sleep. When the rest of the occupants of the palace had gone to bed and the entire city was quietly asleep, a sacred naga came to the king’s chamber and transformed itself into a beautiful woman. She spent every night entertaining the king, and in the morning he would wake up and find her gone.

The legend goes that if the king missed one single night with his snake-lady, the entire kingdom would suffer a terrible famine, and worse, if she did not appear, this signaled the eve of the king’s death.

The Phimeanakas was certainly a temple not a palace. Only temples were made of stone. All the Khmer palaces were made of wood and have not survived to the present day. However, the legend remains firmly attached to this temple. 

THE LEGEND OF ZAGAB:
Towards the end of the eighth century, a young and impetuous king ruled the throne of Kambuja. In a rash moment of boastfulness, he told his courtiers that he wanted the head of the Javanese king, Zagab.

Zagab was a powerful ruler of a great dynasty and when he heard what the young Kambujan king had said, he decided to teach him a lesson. However, he did not believe in punishing a whole people for the words of their irresponsible king. He therefore invaded Cambodia, took the capital city and instead of sacking the city, he simply demanded the head of the young king.

Zagab returned to Java with the head of the young Khmer king, leaving the rest of the kingdom undisturbed. The story ends with Zagab choosing a new ruler, the wise young man who became King Jayavarman II, after taking him to Java to train him in the art of kingship.

The spirit of this legend is based on truth, even if not all the actual facts are true. The Saliendra Dynasty which ruled Sumatra, Java and Malaya was extremely powerful in the eighth and ninth centuries and made regular raids on Annam and Champa. They too were influenced by Indian traditions and society. They seem to have had much control over Cambodia during the later eighth century, especially after the Khmer Kingdom of Chenla began disintegrating. It is highly likely they occupied Chenla during the ninth century. Jayavarman II spent some time in the Javanese court and was certainly influenced by Javanese theories of kingship.