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889-900 CEReputable source · 2 sourcesWell documented

Yasovarman I Moves the Capital and Founds Angkor

Yasodharapura, the City that Maintains Glory, becomes the capital for the next six centuries

On the timeline · around 889-900 CE · Jayavarman II and the Founding of AngkorJayavarman II and the Founding of AngkorYasovarman I Moves the Capital and Founds Angkor850 CE875 CE900 CE925 CE

Quick facts

King
Yasovarman I, r. 889-910 CE
New capital
Yasodharapura (Angkor)
State temple
Phnom Bakheng
Reservoir
Eastern Baray, c. 7.1 x 1.7 km

What happened

Between 889 and 900, Indravarman I's son Yasovarman I moved the Khmer capital northwest from Hariharalaya to the plains near the hill of Phnom Bakheng, founding a new city he called Yasodharapura, City that Maintains Glory, later known simply as Angkor, meaning Capital City. A raised causeway connected the new capital back to the old one. Yasovarman crowned his new city with a state temple on top of Phnom Bakheng itself, using the natural hill as the base for a temple-mountain representing Mount Meru, and completed the Eastern Baray, a reservoir measuring roughly 7.1 by 1.7 kilometers that dwarfed his father's Indratataka.

Why it matters

Angkor would remain the seat of Khmer power, with brief interruptions, for roughly the next 500 years. Every king who followed, from the builders of Angkor Wat to Jayavarman VII, expanded a city Yasovarman I laid out on this spot rather than founding a new one.

How we know

The move is dated through temple inscriptions at Phnom Bakheng and the Roluos group naming Yasovarman I, cross-referenced with the archaeological sequencing of the East Baray's construction against the earlier Indratataka.

Sources

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Part of a timelineThe Khmer Empire28 events · How a trading kingdom on the Mekong became a temple-building empire that vanished into the jungleView all →
Yasovarman I Moves the Capital and Founds Angkor · The Khmer Empire · SourcedStory