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Suryavarman I

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Suryavarman I
សូរ្យវរ្ម័នទី១
Emperor of Kambuja
Reign1002-1050
PredecessorJayavarman V
SuccessorUdayadityavarman II
Died1050 (1051)
Posthumous name
Nirvanapada
ReligionMahayana Buddhism
Ruins of Suryavarman I's capital at Phimeanakas

Suryavarman I (Khmer: សូរ្យវរ្ម័នទី១; posthumously Nirvanapada) was king of the Khmer Empire from 1002 to 1050.[1]: 134–135  Suryavarman usurped King Udayadityavarman I, defeating his armies in approximately 1002. After a protracted war with Udayadityavarman's would-be successor, Jayavirahvarman,[2] Suryavarman I claimed the throne in 1010. His own inscriptions do not derive his title from his predecessors. K.275 states that he was born into the family of Indravarman I, and K.380 and K.660 that his queen Vīralakṣmī belonged to the line of Harṣavarman I and Īśānavarman II, while K.136 and K.161 concede that he had no claim by descent from the kings who immediately preceded him and took the kingdom by battle.[3]: 137–138  Proposals that he originated instead in a ruling family in what is now Thailand or on the Malay Peninsula have been described by Michael Vickery as ingenious speculation for which convincing proof is lacking.[3]: 138  The best known of those proposals, that he was the son of a king of Nakhon Si Thammarat, was Cœdès's own, and rested on the Tamnan Mulasasana, the Jinakalamali and the Cāmadevivaṃsa; in the study he published with Jean Boisselier in 1965, translated into Thai by Subhadradis Diskul, he no longer held it, and treated Lopburi art as descended from Dvaravati work rather than imported from Cambodia.[4]: 2, 7  Suryavarman was a Mahayana Buddhist[1]: 134  who was also tolerant of the growing Theravada Buddhist presence in the Khmer kingdom.

Biography

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Suryavarman I established diplomatic relations with the Chola dynasty of south India (Tamilnadu) around 1012.[1]: 136  Suryavarman I sent a chariot as a present to the Chola Emperor Rajendra Chola I.[5] It seems that the Khmer king Suryavarman I requested aid from the powerful Chola Emperor Rajendra Chola against the Tambralinga kingdom.[6][7] After learning of Suryavarman's alliance with Rajendra Chola I, the Tambralinga kingdom requested aid from the Srivijaya king Sangrama Vijayatungavarman.[6][8] That eventually led to the Chola Empire coming into conflict with the Srivijiya Empire. The war ended with a victory for the Chola dynasty and the Khmer Empire, major losses for the Sri Vijaya Empire and the Tambralinga kingdom.[6][9]

His reign lasted some 40 years, and he spent much of that time defending it. Known as the "King of the Just Laws," he consolidated his political power by inviting some 4000 local officials to the royal palace and swear an oath of allegiance to him. The oath survives in six inscriptions cut in 1011, at the close of the nine-year war of succession.[3]: 138  Suryavarman favored Buddhism but allowed the people to continue practising Hinduism. His palace was situated in the vicinity of Angkor Thom, and he was the first Khmer ruler to protect his palace with a wall.

In the inscription at Tuol Ta Pec, Suryavarman is said to have known of the principles of the six Vedangas.

Suryavarman expanded his territory to the west to Lopburi, including the Menam basin in Thailand, and east into the Mekong basin.[1]: 136–137  The western campaign is recorded in the inscription K.1198 of 1014, which sets out the career of his general Lakṣmīpativarman. It states that the king charged him with the government of Rāmanya, a form of Rāmañña denoting the Mon "who occupy the western region", and its verses describe Lavapura as reduced to jungle and its long-abandoned western districts as awaiting restoration and resettlement. U-tain Wongsathit, Kangvol Katshima and Chatupohn Khotkanok read the text as a single march from Angkor by way of Phanom Rung and Phanom Wan, where a rebellion by two local families was suppressed in 1011, to Lavapura, and regard the regulations issued at Lopburi in 1025 (K.410) as a consequence of that campaign.[3]: 138–141  Walailak Songsiri rejects the chain of identifications that reading rests on. The earliest attested Mon form, rmeñ, occurs in an inscription of Kyansittha of Pagan dated 1102, nearly a century after Suryavarman, and the Middle Mon rman was probably taken from Pali by way of Haripuñjaya, while the ramañ of the pre-Angkorian Prasat Bassac inscription (K.71) is a slave's name.[4]: 3  She adds that K.1198 calls the region Madhyadeśa, that Lakṣmīpativarman's family came from the Mekong basin in the east, that inscriptions at Lavo about ten years later record accommodation between Brahmanical and Mahayana practice, that none describes a war leaving the country deserted, and that no Angkorian inscription of the whole period records a western campaign on the scale of the wars with Champa.[4]: 2–3  She also notes where the stone was found. It came not from the west but from the Chong Chom – O Smach pass through the Dangrek, between what are now Kap Choeng district in Surin province and Samraong district in Oddar Meanchey, a crossing that faces the towns of Surin and Sisaket; she cites the stone as K.1198/Ka.18.[4]: 2  Evidence of his reign in present-day Thailand is not confined to the Menam basin. An inscription of 1016, K. 232, is cut on the door frame of Prasat Khao Lon in what is now Sa Kaeo province.[10]: 7  Patcharaporn Ngernkerd and colleagues place the frontier between the Dvaravati and Khmer spheres in eastern Thailand further west from the early 11th century, and attribute the shift to his reign.[10]: 1, 14 

Suryavarman probably started construction at Preah Khan Kompong Svay and expanded Banteay Srei, Wat Ek Phnom, and Phnom Chisor.[11]: 95–96  The major constructions by the king were Preah Vihear, on Dangrek Mountain, and completion of the Phimeanakas and Ta Keo.[1]: 135–136  Suryavarman also started the second Angkor reservoir, the West Baray, which is 8 km long and 2.1 km wide.[12]: 371  It held more than 123 million liters of water.[13] That is the largest Khmer reservoir to survive. There is some indication that Suryavarman sent a gift to Rajendra Chola I, the Chola Emperor.[14]

During his reign, 47 cities (known as 47 pura) were under the control of Khmer Empire.[15]

Suryavarman died in 1050 and was given the posthumous title Nirvanapada ("the king who has gone to nirvana"), a nod to his Buddhist beliefs. The epigraphic record as summarised by U-tain Wongsathit and his co-authors places the death in 1049 and gives the posthumous name as Paramanirvāṇapada; the same summary names a second queen, Nṛpatīndralakṣmī, and a son, Prince Vīravardhana, from the inscription K.989.[3]: 138  He was succeeded by his sons, Udayadityavarman II, who died around 1066, and Harshavarman III (Sadasivapada), who continued the struggle against internal rebellions and fought off assaults from the Chams until his death in 1080.

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The video game Age of Empires II HD: Rise of the Rajas contains a five-chapter campaign titled "Suryavarman I".[16]

See also

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Notes

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  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Coedès, George (1968). Walter F. Vella (ed.). The Indianized States of Southeast Asia. trans.Susan Brown Cowing. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-0368-1.
  2. ↑ "Suryavarman I". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2014. Archived from the original on October 19, 2014. Retrieved February 24, 2014.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Anna Bennett; Hunter Watson, eds. (2019). Defining Dvāravatī: Essays from the U Thong International Workshop 2017 (PDF). Distributed by Silkworm Books, Chiang Mai. DASTA and BIA. Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 May 2026.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Walailak Songsiri (2025). "ในดินแดนแห่งเจนลีฟู นครรัฐที่ไม่ได้อยู่ในอำนาจทางการเมืองของพระเจ้าชัยวรมันที่ ๗ สู่ปัญหาทางประวัติศาสตร์ที่หาทางออกไม่เจอของสังคมไทย" [In the land of Chen Li Fu, a city-state outside the political power of Jayavarman VII, and the historical problem Thai society has not resolved]. Lek-Prapai Viriyaphan Foundation (in Thai). Retrieved 14 July 2025.
  5. ↑ Indian History by Reddy: p.64
  6. 1 2 3 Kenneth R. Hall (October 1975), "Khmer Commercial Development and Foreign Contacts under Sūryavarman I", Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 18 (3), pp. 318–336, Brill Publishers
  7. ↑ Society and culture: the Asian heritage : Juan R. Francisco, Ph.D. University of the Philippines Asian Center p.106
  8. ↑ R. C. Majumdar (1961), "The Overseas Expeditions of King Rājendra Cola", Artibus Asiae 24 (3/4), pp. 338–342, Artibus Asiae Publishers
  9. ↑ R. C. Majumdar (1961), "The Overseas Expeditions of King Rājendra Cola", Artibus Asiae 24 (3/4), pp. 338–342, Artibus Asiae Publishers
  10. 1 2 Ngernkerd, Patcharaporn; Shoocongdej, Rasmi; Khunsong, Saritpong (2025). "Political boundary between Dvaravati and Ancient Khmer kingdoms: The recognition of ancient frontier networks in Eastern Thailand before the 11th century CE" (PDF). Archaeological Research in Asia. 43. doi:10.1016/j.ara.2025.100647.
  11. ↑ Higham, C., 2001, The Civilization of Angkor, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, ISBN 9781842125847
  12. ↑ Higham, C., 2014, Early Mainland Southeast Asia, Bangkok: River Books Co., Ltd., ISBN 9786167339443
  13. ↑ Freeman, Michael; Jacques, Claude (2006). Ancient Angkor. River Books. p. 188. ISBN 974-8225-27-5.
  14. ↑ Economic Development, Integration, and Morality in Asia and the Americas, by Donald C. Wood p.176
  15. ↑ Hall, K. R. (2019). Maritime Trade and State Development in Early Southeast Asia. United States: University of Hawaii Press.
  16. ↑ Papadopoulos, John (December 14, 2016). "New expansion for Age of Empires II HD coming on December 19th". DSOGaming. Archived from the original on December 5, 2020. Retrieved June 26, 2023.
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