Western scholars do not acknowledge that the five women being transported in palanquins in the Royal Procession in the Southern Gallery of Angkor Wat are Sūryavarman II’s queens because there is no inscription to identify them as such. And because Western scholars have set this precedent, Cambodian scholars have fallen in line with it.
So many of the scenes we see in Angkor Wat are mythical that we forget that this one was real. The queens and their retinue are on their way to a pūjā at a Vishnu temple, where they will pray for the wellbeing of the empire and its citizenry, the army, the royal house and the king, and present offerings of food.
But the figures we see in the bas relief have never been studied as people. If we put ourselves in their places, what more can we learn? Let’s put ourselves in the place of the king. From Through the Eyes of a Queen - the Women of the Royal Court at Angkor:
“Sūryavarman II was Hindu. Born into a civilization that had been Hindu for well over half a millennium. The architecture, the astronomy, the astrology, the mathematics, the law, the social order, the customs, the manner of dress, the use of Sanskrit – all tied to Hinduism in one way or another. India to the west was Hindu. The kingdoms of the Malayan Archipelago to the south were Hindu. Champa to the east was Hindu (not yet Muslim). Even China, to the north – it was Buddhist, but the Buddha is an avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu. The deity that Sūryavarman II worshipped. To him, the whole world was Hindu. And, looking at India, he must have thought that it always would be. Pūjā, and pūjā processions, were, and are, the most fundamental practice in Hindu life. Why would he ever imagine that he would need to explain one? Especially the pūjā procession of his own queens? Why would it ever have occurred to Sūryavarman II to leave behind an inscription?”
Similarly, scholars maintain that the two figures in the Preah Khan temple revered by locals as Jayavarman VII’s sister queens Jayarājadevī and Indradevī can not be identified as such because there is no inscription stating that that’s who they were. Yes, there’s no inscription. But that doesn’t mean that there never was one. Thomas S. Maxwell, who translated the Preah Khan Stele, wrote that there were inscriptions on the walls of the complex to record who the figures in each area were, but many have not survived. There are so many clues in the bas relief to tell us who these figures were that they could have been no one other than Jayarājadevī and Indradevī.
Jayavarman VII and these two queens are so often shown together that one writer theorized that they ruled together, almost as a modern triumvirate. I think Jayarājadevī and Indradevī would have been mentioned in the Preah Khan Stele if this were true; they weren’t. Instead there is this passage, “When those who are dear as life itself – wives and children – have been dead for a long time, and others are there [replacing them], one forgets his grief. But when parents have died, even long since, there being no others [to replace them], one’s grief is beyond measure.” Instantly, this tells us the place of a queen in the hierarchy of the royal family.
Scholars have written that caste was not strong at Angkor. I thought that it must be - the Brahman advisors to the kings would have insisted on it.
The caste system is very complex. It is not simply a system of segregation. And it wouldn’t have lasted for thousands of years if there were no advantages to it at all. As part of my South Asian Studies course I learned that some castes actually function as trade guilds.
I thought the best way to look at caste at Angkor would be to look at who married whom. Brahman men marrying into the Khmer elite, which was Kshatriya (one level below Brahman) would not break the rules of caste. But Brahman women marrying into the Khmer elite would. George Coedès’ genealogy of the kings covers a span of 800 years. In all of that time we see many Brahman men marrying into the Khmer elite, but only two women. But that isn’t proof. We also see that all of the kings’ names ended in “varman”, which would indicate that they were all Kshatriya. But I don’t think that’s proof, either.
What is is the inscription on Jayavarman VII’s 102 hospitals. The responsibility of the doctors is recorded as “to attend each of the four castes”. It appears to me that Jayavarman VII was trying to abolish segregation and discrimination by caste, but not the entire caste system. I found eight other inscriptions that mention caste.
Let’s return for a moment to Sūryavarman II’s queens. We know that among the royals’ thousands of servants there were dwarves. One scholar wrote that the short male figures we see in the Procession of the Queens in the Southern Gallery of Angkor Wat were dwarves. We see one with the principal queen, one with the second queen, and one with the third. But the one with the principal queen appears to be holding a slingshot - the same bull-faced slingshot still made in the village north of Srah Srang today. And the one with the second queen is holding onto her Ashavali sash with one hand, and taking something from her hand with the other. These two boys appear to be adopted children. The one with the third queen could be a child, or a dwarf.
It is generally accepted that Sūryavarman II had no children. And we know that the royal family of the Cham kingdom to the east adopted at least one boy.
I interviewed Pra Ratana Visuk Sithong Heng, the second-highest-ranking Cambodian monk in the United States, in 2024. “I have 14 questions for you,” I said, “about the Angkorian civilization.”
“Oh,” he replied. “I don’t know anything about Angkor. Wait and ask Preah Maha Vimaladhamma Pin-Sem Sirisuvanno.” (Preah Maha Pin-Sem is the Abbot of Wat Bo, Siem Reap, and one of the world’s foremost authorities on the Angkorian civilization.)
Pra Ratana Visuk Sithong Heng is an old friend. “I’ll bet you know more than you think you do,” I said. “I’ll bet you know something.”
I began asking him the 14 questions. And he replied, one after another, that he didn’t know the answer. Until I asked, “Did Sūryavarman II allow his queens to adopt?”
“Oh. I know the answer to that one. Yes, he did. They were allowed to adopt from the families of the elite.”
I don’t think I’ve ever interviewed anyone who couldn’t tell me something. You just have to give it a shot.