One of the reasons it is so hard to learn them is that their names are sooooo long from a Western point of view ... Getting past that is the first step to understanding the Khmer Empire
First: Kingdoms and Empires
The really really simplified version is:
First there was Funan. Then Chenla. Then the Khmer Empire of Kambuja.
Funan (68 AD – 627 AD) was a Kingdom dominated by a great Empire to the South in what is now Indonesia and Malaysia named Srivijaya (SriviJaya, to make it easier to read). Funan, like Srivijaya, was a Hindu kingdom with many close ties to India ... which explains (a) their script (b) their language (c) their architecture and (d) their love of long names!
The Kingdom of Chenla (or Zhenla if you're a Chinese scholar)
Yes, they overlap for 77 years as Funan died and Chenla rose ... so much for clear timelines.
Chenla (550 AD – 802 AD), too, was a vassal state under Srivijaya ... and was constantly getting into trouble with their neighbours to the East, the Kingdom of Champa (later known as South Vietnam .. oh, btw: Northern Vietnam and Southern Vietnam were already two cultures a thousand years ago - the Southerners were the Kingdom of Champa, the Northerners just the southernmost part of the Chinese Tang Empire)
The King Jayavarman II (so, the second Jaya, of the Varman Dynasty) climbed up onto the sacred mountain of Kulen (Phnom Kulen) in 802 AD and declared a unified Empire under the many smaller Khmer entities, founding in effect, the Khmer Empire, and its capital, Angkor, which was the capital of a region of what is today Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, parts of China, parts of Vietnam, parts of Myanmar, parts of Malaysia ... this thing was big. And its capital Angkor became one of the largest cities in the world (for a while even THE largest city in the world) for over 600 years – from 802 AD until 1431.
The Khmer Empire did not call itself The Khmer Empire
or "Empire of the Khmer People" or whatever ... they called their country Kambuja ... which Westerners called Kambucha, which explains why we today call the heart of this Empire Cambodia.
The name Kambuja, btw, comes from the name of Queen Kambujarajalakshmi of Chenla (Kambuja-Raja-Lakshmi, or what basically boils down to Kambuja, Queen Consort (Raja) and personification of the Hindu Mother Goddess Lakshmi) who reigned around 580ish AD.
Champa. or the Kingdom of the Cham in the East and later the Thai Kingdoms that arose in the West both attacked and, at some time or another, ransacked Angkor: the Cambodians of today have not completely forgotten this!
The Khmer Kings - a few of the most notables ones
The current King is the the 116th King, if I counted correctly ... The first 21 Kings were Kings of Funan, then came 6 Kings plus a bunch of turmoil and regional rulers splitting apart under Chenla, then Kings 28 through 66 of the Khmer Empire of Kambuja.
So, we start with Jayavarman II, founder of the Khmer Empire and of Angkor. Myths surround this leader ... he is a name to remember!
He reigned 802 AD – 850 AD. as King number 28 in total, or number 1 of the Khmer list.
Next: Indravarman I. Jayavarman II founded Angkor, but Indravarman I made it great:
His very extensive building programs included the complex irrigation system and reservoirs that captured the water of the monsoon and released it during the dry season, allowing for (get this:) FOUR crops of rice per year!
He was also the one that started the custom of having Nagas (sacred serpents, comparable to Chinese dragons) on all bridges and stairs in Khmer architecture (the sacred seven-headed Naga was the divine creature that stayed by Buddha and protected him from a great storm during his meditation by covering him with his seven-headed cobra hood).
He reigned 877 AD – 899 AD. as King number 30 in total, or number 3 of the Khmer list.
Next: Yasovarman I. This guy had to fight his brother for the crown and, because his father favoured his brother, he claimed rule via maternal lines dating back to Chenla and Funan ("who cares who my father was – look at my Mom"). This guy was the great builder of Angkor, a city which could now blossom due to Indravarman's canal- & irrigation projects.
Another amazing fact: he did all of this despite having leprosy. Yes, this was the famous Leper King of Angkor ... disabled and thus underestimated, he wiped out his father's and brother's lines to take over and fix the mess ... kinda a Khmer version of Caligula.
He reigned 889 AD – 910 AD. (yeah: again overlap until he dealt with the father problem) as King number 31 in total, or number 4 of the Khmer list.
Jump to Suryavarman I: a Buddhist King himself, but in a still Hindu-dominated Kidom ... he basically began the transition of Kambuja to Buddhism.
He reigned 1006 AD – 1050 AD as King number 40 in total, or number 13 of the Khmer list.
Let's now jump to Jayavarman VII.
This King introduced Buddhism as the official religion of the Khmer Empire, and his declared aim was to "alleviate the suffering of his people". He built temples, like the Kings before him – but this guy had over 100 hospitals constructed for his people!
He reigned 1181 AD – 1218 AD. (yeah: again overlap until he dealt with the father problem) as King number 50 in total, or number 23 of the Khmer list.
Shortly thereafter, the downfall of the Khmer Empire began: Kings 52–59 were vassals of the once vassal Kingdom of Lopburi (what would later become Thailand) ... Kings 60–66 vassals of the Kingdom of Ayutthaya (which conquered Lopburi and is considered the birthplace of the modern Thai Kingdom).
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