Khmer inscriptions are a corpus of post-5th century historical texts engraved on materials such as stone and metal ware found in a wide range of mainland Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and Laos) and relating to the Khmer civilization. The study of Khmer inscriptions is known as Khmer epigraphy.
Khmer inscriptions are the only local written sources for the study of ancient Khmer civilization.
Sdok Kok Thom (Thai: สด๊กก๊อกธม, Sadok Kok Thom, pronounced [sādók kɔ́k tʰōm]; Khmer: ស្តុកកក់ធំ, Sdŏk Kák Thum [sɗok kɑk tʰum]), or Sdok Kak Thom, is an 11th-century Angkorian temple in present-day Thailand, located about 34 kilometres (21 mi) northeast of the Thai border town of Aranyaprathet. The temple is in Khok Sung District, Sa Kaeo Province, near the village of Ban Nong Samet. It is regarded as the largest Angkorian temple in eastern Thailand. The temple was dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva. Constructed by a prominent priestly family, Sdok Kok Thom is the original site of one of the most illuminating inscriptions left behind by the Khmer Empire, which ruled much of Southeast Asia from the end of the 9th century to the 15th century.
Built of red sandstone and laterite, the temple is a prime example of a provincial seat of worship during the empire's golden age. It is small by the standards of the major monuments in Angkor, the empire's capital, but shares their basic design and religious symbolism. In its 11th century heyday during the reign of King Udayādityavarman II, the temple was tended by its Brahmin patrons and supported with food and labor by the people of surrounding rice-farming villages.
Jayavarman II (Khmer: ជ័យវរ្ម័នទី២; c. 770 – 850, reigned c. 802–850) was a Khmer prince who founded and became the ruler of the Khmer Empire after unifying the Khmer civilization. The Khmer Empire was the dominant civilization in mainland Southeast Asia from the 9th century until the mid-15th century. Jayavarman II was a powerful Khmer king who declared independence from a polity inscriptions named "Java", which most probably refers to the island of Java in the Indonesian archipelago. Jayavarman II founded many capitals such as Mahendraparvata, Indrapura, Amarendrapura, and Hariharalaya. Before Jayavarman II came to power, there was much fighting among local overlords who ruled different parts of Cambodia, and much of the area fell under the orbit of the Shailendra dynasty of Srivijaya. As a child, Jayavarman II had been held in captivity or exile in Java, and was installed as Java's vassal around 800. By starting off with small weak kingdoms, he built himself up from there eventually leading to the Khmer Empire. No inscriptions by Jayavarman II have been found. Later kings of the Khmer Empire described him as a warrior and the most powerful king from that time frame that they could recall. Historians formerly dated his reign as running from 802 CE to 835 CE.
Champa (Cham: ꨌꩌꨛꨩ, چمڤا; Khmer: ចាម្ប៉ា; Vietnamese: Chiêm Thành 占城 or Chiêm Bà 占婆; modern Vietnamese Chăm Pa) was a collection of independent Cham polities that extended across the coast of what is present-day central and southern Vietnam from approximately the 2nd century AD until 1832.
According to earliest historical references found in ancient sources, the first Cham polities were established around the 2nd to 3rd centuries AD, in the wake of Khu Liên's rebellion against the rule of China's Eastern Han dynasty, and lasted until when the final remaining principality of Champa was annexed by Emperor Minh Mạng of the Vietnamese Nguyễn dynasty as part of the expansionist Nam tiến policy. The kingdom was known variously as Nagaracampa (Sanskrit: नगरचम्प), Champa (ꨌꩌꨛꨩ) in modern Cham, and Châmpa (ចាម្ប៉ា) in the Khmer inscriptions, Chiêm Thành in Vietnamese, Campa in Malay, Zhànchéng (Mandarin: 占城) in Chinese records, and al-Ṣanf (Arabic: صَنْف) in Middle Eastern Muslim records.
Old Khmer is the oldest attested stage of the Khmer language, an Austroasiatic language historically and presently spoken across Cambodia, Southern Vietnam, and parts of Thailand and Laos. It is recorded in inscriptions dating from the early 7th century until the first few decades of the 15th century. Such inscriptions, spanning nearly a millennium and numbering well over a thousand, present one of the most extensive sources of documentation in Southeast Asia.
Old Khmer was written in an early variant of the Khmer script derived from Pallava, a southern variant of Brahmi, and in turn became the basis of the scripts used for Thai and Lao. Along with Brahmi and Indian influence on Cambodia, Old Khmer saw an influx of Sanskrit loanwords in the domains of religion, philosophy, and to a lesser extent, politics. Despite this, Old Khmer retained a prototypical Austroasiatic typology in phonology, syntax, and morphology, being sesquisyllabic, analytic, having a rich system of derivational affixes.