Officers: prévôtés, bailiwicks, seneschals · The Khmer empire of Jayavarman VII · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Battambang and the north-west march

West of the Tonle Sap lies the broad flood plain of the Sangker, the best rice ground in Cambodia.

Whoever holds it feeds Angkor, and every later power that takes Cambodia takes this first. The settlement pattern is villages and village temples (Wat Ek Phnom with its baray, Phnom Banan on its hill with five towers and a long stair, the only defensible height on the plain), not a walled town: the dot is the district. At Sisophon the road west from Angkor divides, north to Banteay Chhmar and the Dangrek passes, west across the Sa Kaeo plain towards the Chao Phraya.

The Pursat country to the south and the Cardamom hills beyond are forest the king never governed.

Who he is

Title
Governor of the Battambang plain and the north-west road
Since
not known
Born
not known
Family
not known
Confidence
low

No source we read names a governor. The campaign board describes the plain as the best rice ground in Cambodia with a scatter of temples and no walled town; English Wikipedia (Banteay Chhmar) calls the walled temple city a garrison-temple on the north-west side.

Overlord

Angkor; the king's sons hold the memorial city of Banteay Chhmar (see the sons' record).

What it holds

  • The rice plain of the Sangker and its villages
  • Phnom Banan and Wat Ek Phnom
  • The junction at Sisophon and the road to Sa Kaeo
  • The mouth of the road to the Dangrek passes

How things stand that morning

Secure and productive; no sign of trouble on the north-west side in 1200.

Wealth

Rice and the toll of the western road.

Places of note

  • Phnom Banan: Five sandstone towers on a hill, 11th century.
  • Wat Ek Phnom: 11th century temple with a baray.
  • Sisophon junction: Where the road west divides.

Where the sources disagree

  • The campaign board entry battambang-rice-plain (13.096, 103.202) agrees with the gazetteer Battambang (13.103, 103.198).
  • The campaign board entry wat-ek-phnom (13.164, 103.219) lies about 3 km east of the English Wikipedia coordinates (13.1628, 103.1883); we use the Wikipedia point.

Evidence: Monuments and geography only.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

On the map: A block round the plain; the Cardamom foot is in the belt record.

Primary sources for Khmer empire

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

  • The Abridged History of Viet, Anonymous (attributed by some to Su Hy Nhan) (about 1377, probably as an abridgement of Le Van Huu's lost history of 1272). The oldest surviving Vietnamese history, a century older than the Complete Annals and in places fuller for the Ly dynasty, which fills its second and third books.
  • The Complete Annals of Dai Viet, Ngo Si Lien, drawing on Le Van Huu's Dai Viet su ky (1272) and Phan Phu Tien; continued by Pham Cong Tru and Le Hi (1479; printed 1697 in the standard Chinh Hoa edition). The main narrative source for Dai Viet in 1200, compiled in 1479 from Le Van Huu's lost history of 1272. Read online
  • The later Tai, Lao and Mon chronicles of the north, Ratanapanna (Jinakalamali); Bodhiramsi (Chamadevivamsa); anonymous monks and court scribes (the Chamadevivamsa about 1410; the Jinakalamali 1516 to 1528; the Chiang Mai Chronicle in its surviving form 1827; the Nithan Khun Borom 16th to 17th century). There is no text of 1200 for the Mon kingdom of Haripunjaya, the Tai muang of Ngoenyang (Chiang Saen), Chiang Rung, the Yom and Nan valleys, or the Lao middle Mekong.
  • History of Song, chapters 488 and 489: Jiaozhi, Dali, Champa, Zhenla, Pagan, Srivijaya, Java, Brunei, Chola and Tambralinga, Toqto'a (Tuotuo) and the Yuan history office, from the Song court records (1343 to 1345, from Song veritable records and court diaries). The Chinese court's record of its southern neighbours, compiled from Song archives. Read online
  • History of the Song, the chapters on Xia and on foreign states, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345). The Song court's accounts of its neighbours, each arranged as an annal of embassies and wars. Read online
  • Corpus of the Inscriptions of Campa (EFEO and ISAW), Various (the Cham kings and their officers), edited by Arlo Griffiths, Amandine Lepoutre, William Southworth and Thanh Phan (inscriptions of the 4th to 15th centuries; the online corpus from 2012). The online edition of the Cham inscriptions, with photographs, texts and translations, keyed to the C. numbers. Read online
  • The Inscriptions of Cambodia, Various (the Khmer kings and their officers), edited by George Coedes (inscriptions of the 6th to 14th centuries; edited 1937 to 1966). The Khmer empire of 1200 is known almost entirely from the great foundation stelae of Jayavarman VII (reigning from 1181), which Coedes edited: the Ta Prohm stele of 1186 (K. Read online
  • The Sanskrit inscriptions of Cambodia and Champa (ISCC), Various (Khmer and Cham kings), edited by Auguste Barth and Abel Bergaigne (inscriptions of the 7th to 12th centuries; edited 1885 to 1893). The founding edition of Khmer and Cham Sanskrit epigraphy, public domain and online, which Coedes's later corpus supersedes but does not replace. Read online

5 more in the sources library for Mainland Southeast Asia.

Sources and studies

  1. English Wikipedia, Banteay Chhmar
  2. OMNIA board notes for the Khmer and Lao area (a lead, not a source)

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.