Jayavarman VII

Jayavarman VII drove a Cham occupying army out of Cambodia, took the throne in 1181 and, in a reign of almost four decades, carried the Khmer Empire to its greatest reach. A devout Mahayana Buddhist and a tireless builder, he left works ranging from the walled city of Angkor Thom and its Bayon temple to roads, rest houses and a network of hospitals. Historians generally rank him as the most powerful of the Angkor monarchs.

He was born around 1122, to judge from the later inscriptions, a son of King Dharanindravarman II and Queen Jayarajacudamani. When his father's reign ended in 1160, Jayavarman was absent, and the throne passed instead to Yashovarman II, who was then overthrown by Tribhuvanadityavarman, usually regarded as a usurper. His first wife, Jayarajadevi, and after her death her sister Indradevi, are thought to have strengthened his Buddhist devotion.

In 1177, according to the usual account, King Jaya Indravarman IV of Champa sent a fleet up the Mekong and across the great lake, the Tonlé Sap, sacked the Khmer capital of Yasodharapura and killed its king; the historian Michael Vickery, however, doubted the Chinese sources behind this date and event. The Cham occupation lasted about four years. Jayavarman, by then in his fifties, led the Khmer resistance, including a naval battle later carved on the walls of the Bayon and of Banteay Chhmar. Finding the capital torn by faction, he restored order and was crowned in 1181.

Early in his reign he probably repelled another Cham attack and put down a revolt in the vassal kingdom of Malyang, around modern Battambang, greatly helped by a Cham exile, Prince Sri Vidyanandana. In 1190 and 1191 Khmer armies took revenge on Champa, conquering it and holding it as a dependency for some thirty years. Khmer authority also reached north up the Mekong as far as Vientiane, in today's Laos, and south down the Kra Isthmus. Inscriptions record Buddha images he set up in 23 towns, including places in modern Thailand such as Lopburi and Ratchaburi.

Jayavarman's inscriptions present him as a ruler who suffered his people's pains more than his own. He is credited with 102 hospitals and 121 rest houses spaced along raised highways, as well as reservoirs. He dedicated Ta Prohm to his mother in 1186 and Preah Khan to his father; one inscription says Ta Prohm alone had 80,000 people assigned to its upkeep. His greatest project was Angkor Thom, a new walled capital with the Bayon at its centre, a temple of many towers that mixes Buddhist and Hindu imagery. Its reliefs show not only battles but daily life: soldiers' families on the march, cooks, hunters and market women trading with Chinese merchants. The scale of this building also demanded the labour of many thousands and went with a strongly centralised state.

He died around 1218 and was succeeded by Indravarman II. Under a later king, Jayavarman VIII, a devotee of Shiva, many of his Buddhist images at Angkor were removed or defaced, and Buddha statues were recut as Hindu lingas. His portrait bust is now a treasured piece in the National Museum of Cambodia and a popular national image.

Our 1200 map shows the Khmer Empire at its height under Jayavarman, covering much of mainland South-East Asia, with Champa under Khmer control.