Encyclopedia of Buddhism Volume One A -L Robert E. Buswell

C
CAMBODIA
Cambodia in the twenty-first century understands itself
as a THERAVADA Buddhist nation. While this selfconscious
identification as a Theravada nation is fairly
recent, the history and development of Buddhism in
the region that constitutes present-day Cambodia extend
back nearly two millennia. During this time numerous
transformations occurred that led scholars to
suppose that the Khmer Buddhism of today is markedly
different from Khmer Buddhism even two centuries
ago, before the rise of modern Buddhist institutions in
Cambodia. Certain major continuities are also evident
in the past two millennia: the intertwining of Buddhist,
brahmanist, and spirit practices and understandings;
the close ties between religion and political power; and
the important role of Buddhist ideas in the articulation
of social and ethical values.
The region known today as Cambodia was inhabited
two thousand years ago by Khmer-speaking peoples
who appear to have congregated in small chiefdoms referred
to as Funan by the Chinese. Archeological evidence
suggests that Indian merchants, explorers, and
monks imported Buddhism into this region at least as
early as the second century C.E. The exact manner of the
importation of Buddhism, along with other Indian
ideas, into Southeast Asia, a process called Indianization,
is not fully understood. A consensus has emerged
among many historians, however, that Indians probably
never established a political and economic process
akin to modern colonization by Europeans in Southeast
Asia; nor is there thought to have been a large-scale
movement of Indian emigrants to Southeast Asia.
Rather, many aspects of the language, arts, and literature,
as well as philosophical, religious, and political
thought of Indians, were adopted, assimilated, and
transformed by Southeast Asians during the first centuries
C.E., possibly through a combination of economic,
diplomatic, and religious contacts both with India and
Indians directly, and also through the cultural medium
of other Southeast Asian courts and traders.
Buddhist and brahmanic practices coexisted and became
intertwined with local animist traditions and
spirit beliefs in the Khmer regions from the second century
onward. Buddhist missionaries and pilgrims were
active during this period, which may have contributed
to the introduction of Buddhism into Southeast Asian
courts. Chinese histories indicate that at least one Buddhist
from Funan, a monk named Nagasena, traveled
to China in the sixth century. Chinese monks traveling
to India by sea stopped en route to visit many sites in
present-day Southeast Asia. While no indigenous Buddhist
texts from this early period remain, items discovered
by archeologists at the site of Oc-Eo (a port city
during the Funan era) include Buddha images associated
with the MAHAYANA tradition. Chinese records
from the period describe Buddhist, Śaivite, and spirit
cults and practices among the Khmer, with the central
court rituals seemingly concerned with devotion to
Śiva, especially through the worship of Śiva-lingam.
Epigraphic evidence for the Buddhist presence begins
to appear in the seventh century, during the period
referred to as pre-Angkor, when the Khmer
regions were apparently dominated by a group of
chiefdoms or kingdoms referred to in Chinese records
as Chenla. It is difficult to characterize the nature of
religious life during this period. Recent historiography
on the pre-Angkor period resists the tendency of
older scholarship to overinterpret limited epigraphic
evidence or conflate European or Indian models of
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