Kambuja

Kambuja 

a feudal Khmer state that flourished from the ninth to the 13th century. Its capital was Yasodharapura, now part of the ruins of Angkor. Kambuja included present-day Cambodia and part of Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, and Burma. It is known in historical writings as Angkor Cambodia. The emergence of Kambuja completed the unification of the area inhabited by the Khmer and by the related Mon, the site of the ancient Khmer empire of Funan (first to sixth centuries) and of the later Khmer states of Land Chenla and Water Chenla (seventh and eighth centuries). Between the ninth and the 12th centuries the feudal empire of Kambuja included territory inhabited by the Khmer and regions settled by the Cham, Mon, and other ethnic groups. The founder of the royal dynasty of Kambuja was Jayavarman II, who reigned from about 802 to 850.

During this period state owernship of land was extended, largely in the form of land ownership by state temples, and great power was concentrated in the hands of a deified monarch. An extensive irrigation system was constructed in the central regions of Kambuja, north of Lake Tonle Sap. Here majestic temples were erected in the 12th and 13th centuries (Angkor Wat, Angkor Thorn), forming the world famous architectural complex of Angkor. In the 12th and early 13th centuries, particularly under Suryavarman II (1113–50) and Jayavarman VII, Kambuja fought many wars of conquest and attained its greatest expansion. In the 13th century royal power began to weaken, and class struggle, manifested in peasant uprisings, intensified. The empire lost the non-Khmer areas and disintegrated in the late 13th century. The name Kambuja long remained the official name of the Khmer state.

D. V. DEOPIK