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Jayavarman VII (1125?-1215?) was a king of the Khmer Empire in present day Cambodia. He was the son of Dharanindravarman II (r. 1150 - 1160) and his wife Sri Jayarajacudamani. He married Jayarajadevi and that after her death, he then married her sister Indradevi. The two women are commonly thought to have been a great inspiration to him, particularly in his unusual devotion to Buddhism. Only one previous Khmer king had been a Buddhist.

Over the 30 some years of his reign, Jayavarman VII embarked on a grand program of construction that included both public works and monuments. As a Mahayana Buddhist, his declared aim was to alleviate the suffering of his people. One inscription tells us, "He suffered from the illnesses of his subjects more than from his own; the pain that affected men's bodies was for him a spiritual pain, and thus more piercing." This declaration must be read in light of the undeniable fact that the numerous monuments erected by Jayavarman must have required the labor of thousands of workers, and that Jayavarman's reign was marked by the centralization of the state and the herding of people into ever greater population centers.