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. 273) with its inventory of the temple's villages, staff and treasure; the Preah Khan stele of 1191 (K. 908), which lists the king's foundations across the empire, the 23 Jayabuddhamahanatha images sent to provincial cities, the roads and rest houses, and the dependencies from the Menam to Champa; the hospital edicts of 1186 found from Say Fong in Laos to the Khorat plateau; and the Phimeanakas stele of Queen Indradevi, a eulogy of the king and his first queen composed about 1200. These give the reach and the institutions of the empire on 1 January 1200; they say nothing of the king's wars after 1191 except in panegyric, and the Cham campaigns of the 1190s and 1203 are known from the Cham side.
About this source
- Title
- Inscriptions du Cambodge
- Author
- Various (the Khmer kings and their officers), edited by George Coedes
- Author's dates
- Coedes 1886 to 1969
- Written
- inscriptions of the 6th to 14th centuries; edited 1937 to 1966
- Language
- Sanskrit and Old Khmer, with French translations
- Covers
- the whole Khmer epigraphic corpus to about 1330; this entry is for the records of Jayavarman VII, about 1181 to 1220
- Kind
- Inscriptions
Persee could not be reached in this task, so the BEFEO article links are not given; they exist and are free. An unofficial complete upload of the eight volumes is on the Internet Archive and is not linked here because the work is in copyright until 2040. The Khmer-language inscriptions of the reign are fewer than the Sanskrit ones. Dates are in the Saka era.
Where to read it
Editions
- G. Coedes, Inscriptions du Cambodge, 8 vols (Hanoi and Paris, EFEO, 1937 to 1966); in copyright, not freely online; the EFEO distributes PDF editions of vols. 6 and 8 through its publications service
- G. Coedes, La stele du Prah Khan d'Angkor, BEFEO 41 (1941), and La stele de Ta-Prohm, BEFEO 6 (1906); on Persee (links not verified in this task) (not freely online)
- G. Coedes and H. Parmentier, Listes generales des inscriptions et des monuments du Champa et du Cambodge (Hanoi, 1923), the K. numbering