The Angkorian World: Polity and Cosmos in Southeast Asia

Come and join our UH Mānoa CSEAS Director Dr. Miriam Stark for her talk on “The Angkorian World: Polity and Cosmos in Southeast Asia”!

Date and Time: Thursday, April 11, 2024 from 7:30-9:00pm
Location: UH Art Auditorium, Room 142, 2535 McCarthy Mall, Honolulu 96822

Description:
Angkorʻs first great kin, Jayavarman II, established Cambodiaʻs Angkorian state on the banks of the Tonle Sap in 802 CE and build his first capital, Mahendraparvata, on the slope of the nearby Kulen mountains. What followed were six centuries of political competition, warfare, and imperial rule by Angkorʻs kings. Like rulers of other ancient states, Khmer kings built vast stone monuments to honor their predecessors and gods that still stand today. A century of scholarly research on the Khmer Empireʻs achievments has shedl ight on the scale and nature of premodern Southeast Asiaʻs most influential polity; it has also shaped political agendas in unanticipated ways. This lecture introduces the Angkorian world, from its temples to its ceramics, and examines how cosmology and statecraft created Southeast Asiaʻs greatest premodern empire and the worldʻs largest preindustrial city.