History - Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Northern Thailand - page 979

Enter Sandstone Man
Suryavarman II had brought Champa to heel and reduced it to vassal status. In 1177 the
Chams struck back with a naval expedition up the Mekong and into Tonlé Sap lake. They
took the city of Angkor by surprise and put King Dharanindravarman II to death. A year
later a cousin of Suryavarman II gathered forces and defeated the Chams in another naval
battle. The new leader was crowned Jayavarman VII in 1181.
A devout follower of Mahayana Buddhism, Jayavarman VII built the city of Angkor
Thom and many other massive monuments visited by tourists around Angkor today. Im-
mortalised in sandstone and on T-shirts, Jayavarman is deified by many Cambodians as
their greatest leader, a populist who promoted equality, and a socially conscious leader
who built schools and hospitals for his people.
The Fall
Some scholars maintain that decline was on the horizon at the time Angkor Wat was built,
when the Angkorian empire was at the height of its remarkable productivity. There are in-
dications that the irrigation network was overworked and slowly starting to silt up due to
the massive deforestation that had taken place in the heavily populated areas to the north
and east of Angkor.
Following the reign of Jayavarman VII, temple construction effectively ground to a
halt, largely because public works quarried local sandstone into oblivion and the popula-
tion was left exhausted. The state religion reverted to Hinduism for a century or more and
outbreaks of iconoclasm saw Buddhist sculpture vandalised or altered.
The Thais grew in strength and made repeated incursions into Angkor, finally sacking
the city in 1431. During this period, perhaps drawn by the opportunities for sea trade with
China and fearful of the increasingly bellicose Thais, the Khmer elite began to migrate to
the Phnom Penh area. Angkor was abandoned to pilgrims, holy men and the elements.
'Among the Asian nations, the Kingdom of Siam is the greatest. The magnificence of the Ay-
uthaya court is incomparable.'
Engelbert Kaempfer, 1690