Les Yasodharàsrama, marqueurs d'empire et bornes sacrées : conformité et spécificité des stèles digraphiques khmères de la région de Vat Phu

Estève, Julia; Soutif, Dominique

doi:10.3406/befeo.2010.6137

Cited by 8 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 3 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…These were places of great power, and pilgrimages to deities of all backgrounds thus created a wide range of religious diversity in the landscape. The heterogeneity and reverence of local gods is clearly illustrated through the work of Yaśovarman I, who at the end of the 9th century claims to have built 100 āśramas on sites where powerful and renowned gods had already existed for a long time (Estève and Soutif 2011). The later Pre Rup inscription tells us that under king Rājendravarman in the 10th century, there was a pre-existing cult of '30 self-created gods (svayambhū)' (K. 806, IC I, st. CCLXX).…”

Section: Local Cults Sacred Places and The Web Of Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

Gods and Temples

Estève¹

2023

The Angkorian World

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The ProblemOur understanding of religion in the Angkorian World was initiated by Indianists and Khmerologists more than one century ago. The standard academic narrative developed from this work focused on the Khmer kingdom's adoption of Indian religions (Hinduism, Buddhism) around the beginning of the Common Era (Chatterjee 1964(Chatterjee [1927; Bareau 1976). At this time, the long-standing maritime exchanges between South and Southeast Asia germinated and created the hypothesis of a 'natural' impregnation of peninsular and insular Southeast Asian cultures by Indian models (Pollock 1996, 239). A first wave of Indianisation swept over the peninsula into Cambodia, then known as Funan, spreading South Asian habits and customs and thereby ensuring a particularly strong diffusion of their religion(s) (Coedès 1989(Coedès [1948). Śaivism and Vais . n . avism became deeply integrated within the local milieu, with Buddhism also being adopted, though to a lesser degree (Briggs 1951;Coedès 1953). An important part of this religious package, the Khmer temple, first appeared around the 5th-6th centuries CE and would eventually become the apex symbol of Angkor's political, religious, and economic power.Scholars recognising these obvious connections to India soon came to consider Angkorian religion as a classic example of syncretism, a label originating in mid-19th-century Indian scholarship (Burnouf 1876(Burnouf [1845; Senart 1883; Lévi 1896). Hinduism and Buddhism were seen as being intertwined throughout their histories, most dramatically in the formation of Buddhist Tantra. Given the intellectual influence of this research in Cambodia, it is perhaps unsurprising that syncretism was also discovered within multiple domains of Angkorian religion within Hinduism (Śaivism and Vais . n . avism), between Śaivism and Buddhism, and also between the Indian religions and local chthonic belief systems (Barth 1889;Finot 1901;Briggs 1951). How well these interpretations reflect local realities of Angkorian religious organisation is not yet clear, especially since Indic gods were absorbed into the Khmer cultural substrate with its own collection of landscape-based tutelary spirits (Mus 1933). This chapter suggests that viewing Angkorian religion as pluralistic, not syncretic, more accurately represents the diversity of faiths-exogenous and local-that Angkorian kings, brahmins, and commoners practised than does syncretism. Key to this view is the recognition that Angkorian religion stems from inherently indigenous manifestations linked to a particular Cambodian landscape. This discussion also evaluates the nature of religious practice and seeks to explain how and why Śaivism was selected as the primary focus of Angkor's Brahmins and elites.

show abstract

Section: Local Cults Sacred Places and The Web Of Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

Gods and Temples

Estève¹

2023

The Angkorian World

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Scholars have proposed that these sites were a type of neighborhood (Carter et al 2018). Archaeologists have also identified the habitation of other more specialized religious communities such as asramas, in which people may have been organized around religious study and practice (Chea 2018;Estève andSoutif 2010-2011;Pottier 2003). Investigations of non-temple enclosure residential spaces at Angkor have identified some pockets of long-lived habitation in the area dating from to the 9th-17th centuries AD (Brotherson 2019;Heng et al n.d.).…”

Section: Communities In An Urban Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Building from the Ground Up: The Archaeology of Residential Spaces and Communities in Southeast Asia

Carter

2022

J Archaeol Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Despite the ethnographic importance of the Southeast Asian house and household, an explicitly Southeast Asian "household archaeology" is still in its infancy. Nevertheless, archaeologists in Southeast Asia have undertaken excavations within habitation areas and residential spaces, identifying domestic debris, the partial remains of house structures, and activity areas. As a result, archaeologists of Southeast Asia have addressed many topics of relevance to those who use a household archaeology approach, including the identification and description of houses and household activities; the domestic economy; domestic ritual; diversity and variability both within houses as related to questions of identity, specifically gender and age, and between houses, especially as related to status; and identification of supra-household communities. In this review, I consider how archaeologists have addressed these themes using examples from a diverse set of geographic locations and time periods in mainland and island Southeast Asia. I conclude with suggestions for future research directions to continue building an archaeology of residential spaces and communities in Southeast Asia.

show abstract

“…There is a great deal that is remarkable about Yaśovarman's bold plan of social engineering by decreeing the creation of a hundred āśramas across his kingdom when he came to power in 889 CE (we do not know whether they were all created, as Estève and Soutif note), 72 but one thing that stands out is its conscious »ecumenism«, if we may borrow this Christian term into the realm of classical religions of Indian origin. 73 In his capital, four such āśramas were constructed 74 around the huge tank that bears his name, the Yaśodharataṭāka, and their largely identical charter-inscriptions reveal that they were Vaiṣṇava (K. 701, vaiṣṇavāśrama), Buddhist (K. 290, saugatāśrama) and Śaiva (K. 279, brāhmaṇāśrama, and K. 1228, māheśvarāśrama). 75…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sectarian Rivalry in Ninth-Century Cambodia: A Posthumous Inscription Narrating the Religious Tergiversations of Jayavarman III (K. 1457)

Goodall¹,

Hun²

2021

medievalworlds

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article provides an edition and translation of an inscribed two-sided stela (K. 1457), discovered during the construction of a road in the northwest of Cambodia in 2019, that commemorates the endowment of a Viṣṇu temple during the reign of the ninth-century king Jayavarman III. The inscription, in Sanskrit verse except for a few lines in Khmer prose that give details of the grants made, is undated, but uses the posthumous name of Jayavarman III, namely Viṣṇuloka, whose death cannot have occurred later than 877 CE. »Syncretism« is a label often bandied about in connection with ancient Khmer religious life. In counterpoise, this epigraph alludes to Jayavarman III having attempted to drive out Buddhists and to convert his subjects into Śaivas, before being himself won over to Vaiṣṇava devotion, after his Śaiva chaplain was struck dumb and died during a debate with a priest of the temple of Cāmpeśvara, once the most famous Viṣṇu temple in the Khmer religious landscape, whose location can no longer be determined with certainty. A second faith-inspiring drama is also sketched after the first endowment: a wife of the king entered Viṣṇu's temple while menstruating and began to bleed from her breasts. K. 1457 adds nuance to our picture of the interrelations between the classical Indian religions among the Khmers, and confirms the recognition at that time of three principal religionists: Buddhists, Vaiṣṇavas, and Śaivas. Comparison with evidence for religious rivalry specifically between Śaivas and Vaiṣṇavas in different parts of the Indian sub-continent (particularly Nepal and the Tamil-speaking South) enables us to set the Cambodian evidence in a relevant context.

show abstract

Les Yasodharàsrama, marqueurs d'empire et bornes sacrées : conformité et spécificité des stèles digraphiques khmères de la région de Vat Phu

Cited by 8 publications

References 3 publications

Gods and Temples

Gods and Temples

Building from the Ground Up: The Archaeology of Residential Spaces and Communities in Southeast Asia

Sectarian Rivalry in Ninth-Century Cambodia: A Posthumous Inscription Narrating the Religious Tergiversations of Jayavarman III (K. 1457)

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About