Ref ID:	23517
Ref Type:	Book Section
Authors:	Thompson, Ashley
Title:	The ancestral cult in transition: reflections on spatial organization in Cambodia's early Theravāda complex
Date:	1998
Source:	Southeast Asian Archaeology 1996: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference of the European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists, Leiden, 2-6 September 1996
Place of Publication:	Hull
Publisher:	Centre for South-East Asian Studies, University of Hull
Abstract:	Arising within a unique configuration, Theravāda Buddhism did not assert its presence in Cambodia as Brahmanism and Mahāyāna Buddhism once had. The tenets of Theravāda emphasizing humility and impermanence, the relatively rapid subordination of the religions that had covered Cambodia with stone temples, the drastic reduction in human and material resources: these are some of many factors that contributed to the development in the middle period of a very particular form of cultural expression. As the country adopted Theravāda, the new religious cult discreetly appropriated ancient space. Theravādin Cambodia thus developed its religious forms by literally and figuratively incorporating the ancestral heritage. The present paper draws on archaeological, epigraphic and ethnological evidence to bring one aspect of this question into better focus: the spatial organization of the early Theravāda cult. A close look at certain evidence from Angkor, Srei Santhor and other regions gives insight into the transformations that were taking place even before the fall of Angkor and then as the Khmer royal capital began its long peregrination. Paying particular attention to formal and conceptual relations between the Buddhist stūpa and the ancient prāsād, this paper aims to explore broader issues of memory and memorialization at a crucial moment in Khmer history.
Date Created:	11/3/2009
Editors:	Klokke, Marijke J. de Bruijn, Thomas
Page Start:	273
Page End:	295