Society, economics, and politics in pre-Angkor Cambodia: The 7th-8th centuries
About this book
The volume presents a study of those topics based on a close reading and analysis of the contemporary Khmer-language inscriptions of the 7th-8th centuries. It thus breaks with the Sanskrit and Indological tradition which has dominated work on early Cambodia, giving prominence to royal genealogies and religion. In addition to making available the neglected information in the Khmer corpus, the author tries to present early historical Cambodia in a form which is comparable with what is known of early societies and states in other parts of the world, and in a way which may be of interest to social scientists as well as Orientalist historians. New explanations are also proposed for some of the problems which have long troubled students of early Cambodia - the transition from Funan to Chenla, the formation of the first royalty and first states, the nature of Cambodian ''slavery,'' the puzzle of the poorly documented 8th century, which is presented here as a period of consolidation rather than disintegration, and the political-demographic shift from South to North which resulted in the founding of Angkor.