Andrew Harris

A growing body of scholarship exploring Cambodia’s cultural- environment
alongside reinterpretations of ancient Angkorian epigraphy has illuminated the enduring sacredness of Cambodia’s ancient religious places and objects. This assertion comes despite apparent dissociation of these elements from their original ascribed identities (Brahmano-Buddhist) and disuse as focal points of politico-religious congregation at some point in the past. Although documented within Cambodian archaeological studies since the 20th century, fieldwork conducted at ancient Theravāda Buddhist monasteries (vihāra/prah ̣ vihār) within the Khmer civic-ceremonial center of Angkor Thom between 2017 and 2023 have substantiated that these ancient statues and holy spaces continued to serve as equivalently spiritual, highly localized arenas of ancestral animist practices and cultural-historical negotiation over time. This paper assesses several categories of these archaeological data within the framework of reidentification, reuse, and transformation beyond initial discard, including the deposition of statuary and acts of place-making in the vicinity of older ruins.

This paper assesses the placement, artistry, and distribution of sima boundary markers (nimitta) surrounding the surviving stone substructures of Theravada Buddhist prayer-halls (prah vihar or “Buddhist Terraces”) within Angkor, the urban-ritual center of the Khmer Empire (c. 802-1431 CE) centered on the walled citadel of Angkor Thom. Sima demarcate the cardinal and subcardinal boundaries of Buddhist ordination spaces and collectively comprise one of the last standardized religious innovations within Angkor coinciding with the spread of Theravada (Sinhalese) Buddhism within Cambodia during the 13th – 14th centuries. The styles and manufacture of boundary markers found at Angkor are both reflective centralized production and local stylistic replication, and clearly illustrate continuous Thai-Khmer cultural exchange on Cambodia’s northwestern frontier alongside the later mid-14th century expansion of the Kingdom of Ayutthaya (1351-1767 CE). Three seasons of survey and site clearance between 2017-2019 have verified the construction of over sixty prah vihar sites surrounded by sima within Angkor Thom alone, representing one of the largest yet most sparsely researched collections of religious structures standing within the ancient Khmer capital. This paper consequently consolidates and expands previous studies of Angkorian sima/nimitta through the establishment of four major stylistic categories of boundary markers, each reflective of evolving artistic trends during this late Angkorian Period and the re-envisioning of Angkor Thom and other monuments within Central Angkor as a Theravada Buddhist landscape.

The population of the Cambodian Angkorian Empire (802–1431 CE) and its namesake capital underwent a collective, gradual religious transition from Brahmano-Buddhism (Hindu and Mahayana practice) to Theravada Buddhism beginning in the mid/late-13th century CE. Marked by a material shift from temple-mountains to smaller prayer halls ((preah vihear or “Buddhist Terraces”) as the primary focal points of politico-religious organization, the initial “Theravadization” of Angkorian society primarily took place within the confines of the 12th century walled civic-ceremonial center of Angkor Thom. Within which, upwards of seventy Buddhist Terraces have thus far been identified, representing one of the most significant yet undocumented religious building programs in Angkorian history. Our study synthesizes the results of three field seasons (2017–2019) of Buddhist Terrace survey and excavation within Angkor Thom, and through radiometric and stratigraphic analysis we suggest that the dissemination of preah vihear began in earnest at Angkor during the 14th century. We also assess the structure and placement of Buddhist Terraces across Angkor Thom in relation to identified urban-spatial patterns and emerging sequences of site occupation, and contextualize this era of Theravada monastic dissemination within existing studies of Brahmano-Buddhist temple conversion at Angkor, the geopolitical decline of Angkor, and its aftermath.

This paper serves as the first focused study since 1918 exploring the sub-structural remains of Theravāda Buddhist monasteries, known to scholarship as »Buddhist terraces«, at the Cambodian Khmer capital of Angkor Thom. Thought to have been constructed between the late 13th-16th centuries, prayer halls (vihara or praḥ vihar) and other Theravāda buildings are seen by traditional scholarship to be the products of an officially undocumented but visible religious transition from the Khmer Brahmano-Buddhist royal cult, manifested through the construction of universal temple-mountains and esoteric religious practices, to a more socially-inclusive monastic tradition which abandoned epigraphy, the deification of kings, and large-scale religious building. Data acquired from two seasons of site investigations within Angkor Thom has revealed an expansive collection of over seventy »Buddhist terraces« demarcated by sīmā boundary stones, suggesting not only a notable Theravāda building campaign within this cosmologically designed Mahāyāna Buddhist urban space but also the conversion and incorporation of Brahmano-Buddhist monuments as landmarks of the new religion. The interaction of Buddhist monastic architecture with non-religious urban infrastructure, too, most notably the road-grid of Angkor Thom previously mapped through LiDAR and GIS, has revealed intriguing patterns of construction that appear to match a configuration with the southerly temple of Angkor Wat, heavily restored as a royally patronized Theravāda sanctuary in the mid-16th century. Understanding the significance of this shift is necessary to understanding the re-appropriation of the vast urban ritual landscape of Angkor, and in turn serves as a valid study for further understanding the significance and retransformation of ritual space transcending specifically-delineated historical epochs.

This paper is based on the study of four late to middle to late Tang Dynasty (781–
907 CE) and one Song Dynasty (907–1279 CE) Buddhist sites which are set within a
kilometre of one another to the south of the ancient centre of Rongxian (荣县),
Zigong, Sichuan. The question addressed is whether these five religious sites could
have existed as distinct entities, or if over time they became part of a unified whole.
Traditionally such sites are considered as independent works of art divorced from
their landscape and social context. Since the connections demonstrated in this
paper indicate a unity of purpose we suggest that a more holistic approach to the
study of such monuments is worthwhile. This paper proposes that although these
sites were originally distinct entities during the Tang, they came to be connected
by a pilgrimage route defined by the construction of a pagoda in the Song
Dynasty.