The first Khmer kingdom, known as Chenla, adopted the entire culture of Funan for itself. Chenla did not have a strong government, though; it prospered in the 7th century, but in 706 it split into two states, known as "Land Chenla" (Laos) and "Water Chenla" (Cambodia). Land Chenla retained some measure of unity, but constant intrigues for the throne shattered Water Chenla into no less than five smaller states. At the end of the 8th century all of Water Chenla came under the domination of one of Java's Sailendra monarchs.

The incident that caused the Javan conquest also started the Khmers on the road to greatness. It involved a rash young king, whose name we do not know. According to the Arab traveler who provided this account, one day the young king and his prime minister were discussing what to do about Java, the strongest naval power in the region. The king said, "I have one desire I would like to satisfy." "What is this desire, O King?" his councilor asked. "I want to see before me on a plate the head of the king of Java."

When the king of Java heard about the Khmer monarch's wish, he led a fleet of a thousand ships up the Mekong River and routed the Khmers defending the capital. Capturing the young king, he said, "You have manifested the desire to see before you my head on a plate. If you had also wished to seize my country or only ravage part of it, I would have done the same thing to Khmer. As you have expressed only the first of these desires, I am going to apply to you the treatment you wished to apply to me, and I will then return to my country without taking anything belonging to the Khmers. . .My victory will serve as a lesson to your successors." He then lopped off the king's head and said to the Khmer prime minister, "Look now for someone who will make a good king after this fool, and put him in the place of the latter."

The new king picked by the prime minister was an excellent choice: Jayavarman II, a distant relative of the late king who had been living in Java to escape the troubles at home. In the course of his long reign (795?-850), he reunited Water Chenla and gave it a new name: Kambujadesa (the origin of the modern names Cambodia and Kampuchea). Despite his success he seems to have been an insecure monarch; he waited until 802 to have his coronation, and before 819 he changed the location of his capital no less than five times. At his last capital, he finally found peace of mind by taking part in a sacred Hindu ceremony that consecrated him as an avatar of the god Shiva and declared him and his kingdom independent of any foreign power, especially Java.

The next important Khmer king was Yasovarman I (889-900). A few miles north of the Tonle Sap he built a new city, called it Yasodharapura, and it became Cambodia's capital for the next five centuries (now it is called Angkor, meaning simply "city"). Most of Angkor's impressive buildings were built later on, but Yasovarman left his mark by constructing an excellent system of canals and reservoirs around the city, using the technology perfected in the age of Funan. Those canals would later be used to feed the large number of laborers used in Angkor's massive building projects. Fortunately for historians, Yasovarman was a great braggart (all Khmer monarchs were), and he left numerous inscriptions boasting of his achievements: "The best of kings. . .unique bundle of splendors", and "In all the sciences and all the sports. . .in dancing, singing, and all the rest, he was as clever as if he had been the first inventor of them." Then came the ultimate boast: "In seeing him, the creator was astonished and seemed to say to himself, `Why did I create a rival for myself in this king?'"

*Posted by Berosus on Jan. 22, 2001