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1113-1150 CE (reign of Suryavarman II)Reputable source · 2 sourcesWell documented

Hindu Devotion Reaches Southeast Asia at Angkor Wat

A Khmer king builds the largest religious complex in the world and dedicates it to a Sanskrit god

On the timeline · around 1113-1150 CE (reign of Suryavarman II) · Puranic and Bhakti HinduismPuranic and Bhakti HinduismHindu Devotion Reaches Southeast Asia at Angkor Wat800 CE900 CE10001100120013001400

Quick facts

Builder
Suryavarman II, r. 1113-1150 CE
Original name
Vrah Visnuloka, "sacred dwelling of Vishnu"
Scale
420 acres, central tower 213 feet (65 m) high
Rededicated Buddhist
1300s CE

What happened

Under the Khmer emperor Suryavarman II, who reigned from about 1113 to 1150 CE, the Angkor Wat temple complex was built in present-day Cambodia as a grand Hindu temple originally called Vrah Visnuloka, "sacred dwelling of Vishnu," and dedicated to three Hindu deities, Vishnu, Shiva, and Brahma, though Vishnu was Suryavarman's personal protector-god and the temple's namesake. Covering 420 acres with a central tower rising 213 feet, Angkor Wat ranks among the largest religious buildings ever constructed, second in scale only to the Temple of Karnak in Egypt by some measures. National Geographic notes that a religious shift from Hinduism toward Buddhism was intensifying across the Khmer lands even as the temple was completed, and that Buddhism coexisted peacefully with Hinduism there for generations before Angkor Wat was formally rededicated as a Buddhist site in the 1300s, at which point its Hindu relief carvings were left intact rather than replaced.

Why it matters

Angkor Wat is the clearest physical evidence that Hindu religious culture, carried by trade and diplomatic contact rather than conquest, took root far beyond South Asia and produced monumental architecture on a scale that rivaled anything built in India itself, and its peaceful transition to Buddhist use shows the same syncretic coexistence between the two religions that played out repeatedly across South and Southeast Asia.

How we know

Angkor Wat survives as a datable, extensively studied stone monument with inscriptions naming Suryavarman II and its original dedication; its religious transition from Hindu to Buddhist use is documented in surviving reliefs, added Buddhist statuary, and the site's continuous occupation history studied by archaeologists and art historians.

Sources

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Part of a timelineHistory of Hinduism26 events · Hymns memorized for three thousand years without writing them down, a philosophy that a self and the universe are the same thing, and a religion with no founder that became the world's third largestView all →
Hindu Devotion Reaches Southeast Asia at Angkor Wat · History of Hinduism · SourcedStory