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The Preah Neang Deví as the representative of the ancestors


With the development of religious worship, the ancient Khmers modeled the overall vision of Braahmanism and Buddhism to their own sensibilities, and replaced the major gods with their ancestors. There is clear evidence of this shift in the statues of deities built under the reign of Jayavarman VII, when they were designed to look like him or his wife, such as the statues of the kneeling Prajnaparamita and those of the king himself.

Phimean Akas temple inscription K. 485, written by Indradeví, provides further insight into this practice, ‘Jayarájadeví, an intelligent women, erected everywhere statues of her mother, her father, her brother, her friends, her forebears and relatives that she knew or had heard of’ (stanza XCIII). There is mention of Indradeví herself in stanza XCVI, ‘[…] Thus, while erecting numerous images of Srí Jayarájadeví along with images of herself and the king, in every city, […]’.

However, it is difficult to maintain and to accept that all the images of the Preah Neang Deví are simply the representations of the wives of the kings, as no documentation to that effect has survived to this day. In addition, some curators have moved statues from the temples to totally unsuitable locations, a situation that has caused serious research issues.

Based on inscription K. 485, it is reasonable to think that the kneeling Prájnaápáramitá is a likeness of Jayarájadeví. This tends to prove that the ancient Khmers likened their ancestors but also their contemporaries to the gods.

Thus, the role of the statue of the kneeling Prajnápáramitá is twofold; it is considered to be an object for adoration, the Prájnápáramitá, while at the same time it is also the person being worshipped, Queen Jayarájadeví.

Individual worship indicates that at the time of the empire, the Khmers relied on the two great religions to feed their own sensibility, which meant paying their respects to the souls of their ancestors who were Cambodia’s kings and queens in particular. This is the source of the ‘cult of bhakti’, or cult of fidelity to their ancestors in ancient Khmer society.

The practice of this cult has definitely led the Khmer to think about the patriotism of their ancestors, who were the true protectors of the country rather than the gods.
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