For the 10th and 11th centuries our only source of information is the inscriptions, but it was a time of growth, in size, power, and cultural sophistication. Land Chenla submitted peacefully to Angkor's rule, and it appears that the states in Thailand and Malaya did the same, during the reign of Suryavarman I (1002-50). Suryavarman's son, Udayadityavarman II (1050-66), fought an inconclusive war with the Burmese, who thought the Khmers were getting too close for comfort. Suryavarman II (1113-50) conquered Champa and campaigned against the Vietnamese; at one point there was a Khmer army in Thanh Hoa, just 80 miles south of Hanoi.

Back at home Suryavarman II built the masterpiece of Khmer civilization. This was a temple to the Hindu god Vishnu so enormous that it was known as Angkor Wat, the "temple city." Using an estimated 455 million cubic yards of stone, this structure was built with five gilded peaks to resemble the Mt. Meru, the home of the gods in Hindu mythology. The entire structure was covered with endless reliefs showing battles, scenes from Hindu epics, and events in everyday Khmer life. The central peak of the structure was also a mausoleum, where Suryavarman's ashes were placed when he died.

The cost of building Angkor Wat and fighting wars abroad drained the treasury. After Suryavarman II was gone the Chams successfully revolted, and in 1177 they sailed up the Mekong River and plundered Angkor itself. Four years of anarchy followed, but remarkably, the best years of Cambodia's history were yet to come. Royal authority was re-established by Jayavarman VII, a middle-aged prince who had refused the throne when it was first offered to him years before. Jayavarman routed the Chams, drove them back to their home, and was crowned the new king of Angkor. Champa would be a Khmer vassal, not the other way around.

A man of uncommon vigor, Jayavarman spent the rest of his reign (1181-1219, he lived into his 90s) building more monuments than all of the other Khmer kings put together. Chief among these was a remodelled capital city, now called Angkor Thom ("big city"), which was so big and elaborate that only nearby Angkor Wat could rival it. A convert to the Mahayana Buddhist sect, he erected Buddhist shrines and images all over the city (the sculptors used Jayavarman as the model for statues of Buddha), and converted the temples of his Hindu predecessors into Buddhist ones. Around the country he built and maintained 102 hospitals because, as one inscription put it: "He suffered from the sickness of his subjects more than from his own; for it is the public grief that causes the grief of kings, and not their grief."

Some historians believe that Jayavarman's building projects exhausted the kingdom. None of the kings after him built anything important; they lived in luxury, performed their god-king rites, but accomplished little. Champa declared independence as soon as it heard the news of Jayavarman's death, and in the west the Menam River valley was lost to newcomers in the region, the Thais. At the same time Theravada Buddhism became the most popular religion, undermining the god-king cult. In the middle of the 13th century the Khmer king himself converted to Theravada Buddhism, perhaps because of the success of the Thais, who were Theravadists already. In 1296 a Chinese visitor, Zhou Daguan, visited Angkor and took home a glowing report of the city; to him Cambodia was still the strongest state in Southeast Asia. Angkor remained Cambodia's glittering capital until 1431, but long before that time the political initiative passed to its neighbors.

*Posted by Berosus on Jan. 22, 2001