K. 227 AND THE BHARATA R!

HU RELIEF

Chapter 19

K. 227 and the Bharata R!hu Relief:

Two Narratives from Banteay Chmar
Ian Lowman

Abstract
This paper reexamines the relationship between the Old Khmer inscription K. 227 from the late Angkorian
temple of Banteay Chmar and a bas-relief panel from the same temple. One section of the text of the
inscription has long been assumed to record the story depicted in the bas-relief scene. This paper proposes
a new translation of a key passage in the inscription that undermines any connection between the two
narratives and opens the way for a possible reinterpretation of the bas-relief.

Introduction
One of the more intriguing texts in the epigraphic corpus of Angkorian Cambodia is the Old Khmer
inscription K. 227 from the temple of Banteay Chmar. The inscription, a rare example of Old Khmer
historical prose, has long been believed to narrate the story depicted in a bas-relief panel at the same
temple. Recently Claude Jacques has suggested that the two narratives are in fact distinct; the inscription
recounts a rebellion at the palace while the bas-relief appears to represent a mythological scene in the
forest (Jacques and Lafond 2007: 239). However, the connection between the bas-relief and the inscription
has become so firmly established that we cannot simply dismiss it at face value. I will review how George
Cds originally linked the two narratives in his brilliant translation and historical analysis of K. 227. I
will also show how his later revised translation of the relevant passage in the inscription contradicts his
original interpretation of the bas-relief. I will then attempt to clarify the two narratives intended and very
separate significances.
Banteay Chmar is a large temple complex built by Jayavarman VII (AD 1182"c. 1218) in
northwestern Cambodia near the present-day Thai border. Though we lack textual confirmation of its
original name or purpose, it was clearly of considerable political importance. Like the kings central
temple at Angkor, the Bayon, it features extensive bas-reliefs as well as the so-called face-towers. Three
unfinished stelae (the fourth is missing) intended for the kings genealogy were recently discovered in
three of the corners of the temple just within the third enclosure wall (Pottier 2004: 144, fn. 17).1 This
arrangement recalls the position of the four genealogical stelae found in the four corner shrines (Prasat
Chrung) of the kings capital at Angkor Thom, with the Bayon at its center. Taking the matching stelae
together with the bas-reliefs and the face-towers, it is tempting to surmise that Banteay Chmar was
something like a second capital for Jayavarman VII.
The bas-reliefs of Banteay Chmar are situated on the temples third enclosure wall [Fig. 19.1].
Like those of the Bayon, the bas-reliefs of Banteay Chmar are generally believed to depict scenes of
Jayavarman VII, his subjects and his wars (Cds 1932: 71). The most famous images at Banteay Chmar
are, however, religious in nature. These are the eight images of Avalokite#vara located on the western wall
south of the entry pavilion (Boisselier 1965), only two of which remain in situ. The so-called Bharata-
R$hu relief, depicting a hero or prince in combat with an armed monster, is just north of the western
entry pavilion on the same wall.

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Fig. 19.1: Plan of the temple of Banteay Chmar (Courtesy of O. Cunin).

Inscription K. 227 was originally located on a doorjamb of the eastern entrance to the hypostyle
hall [Fig. 19.1] preceding the central shrine of the temples eastern annex (Cunin 2004: 164).2 This
doorjamb inscription is just one manifestation of an entire epigraphic sub-genre particular to the temples
of Jayavarman VII (Cds 1951a: 97119; Groslier 1973: 8699; Maxwell 2007). These inscriptions are
found on the doorjambs of various rooms or shrines in a majority of this kings temples at the capital
as well as at Banteay Chmar. They typically identify the name of a statue of a god placed in a room
or shrine, and they often include the original name of the apotheosized individual whom the statue
represents. These labels can also list several statues at once. The preamble of K. 227 identifies five deities
or five deified individuals who are said to be located in the central shrine or jewel-house (g!ha ratna
ti kant"l). Though Cds believed this jewel-house to mean the central shrine of the entire Banteay
Chmar complex (Cds 1929: 318), it is just as likely that the five statues were placed in and around the
central tower of the eastern annex where the inscription was found (Maxwell 2009).
Exceptionally in this corpus of doorjamb inscriptions, K. 227 contains two stories which explain
the circumstances of the five individuals deification. Both stories revolve around the figure in the
center of the jewel-house, a deified prince %r&ndrakum$ra. The first story relates how two comrades
of the prince lost their lives while helping him fend off a rebel attack on the palace during the reign
of Ya#ovarman II (c. 1160s), resulting in their deified forms being placed in the eastern corners of the
shrine. The other two comrades, whose images were placed in the western corners of the same shrine,
feature in the second episode about a failed military campaign in Champa. The inscription itself is
undated, though it may have been composed late in Jayavarman VIIs reign given the recent discovery
of a doorjamb inscription in Sanskrit from a shrine in the same eastern annex (BC 45) recording the
date AD 1216 (1138 #aka).3

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 K. 227 AND THE BHARATA R!HU RELIEF

As a uniquely narrative Old Khmer text, K. 227 presents several thorny problems of interpretation.
The difficulties stem largely from a lack of historical context and from some rare Old Khmer forms
and phrases. To cite one historical problem, we do not know if prince (r"japutra, literally kings son)
%r&ndrakum$ra was the son of Jayavarman VII or of some other king, or if the title of prince had a looser
meaning at that time.4 It is also difficult to determine when the second event, the battle in Champa, took
place. While such problems may never be resolved, there are other linguistic and historical issues that
merit further investigation.

The Assault on the Palace in K. 227

The most problematic section of K. 227 is the beginning of the first story about the rebellion at the palace,
in lines seven through nine [Fig. 19.2], which has been used to link the text of the inscription with the
bas-relief.

Fig. 19.2: Lines 79 of rubbing of inscription K. 227 (EFEOB-est.n0325) (Courtesy of EFEO).

The following is Cds original transcription and translation of the passage:

n" bharata r"hu sa#vuddhi droha ta vra$ p"da %r& ya%ovarmmadeva pi thle' cap vra$ mandira is vala nagara
pho' pa' pitay kant"l matt v" rarat iss
When Bharata R$hu made known his traitorous spirit against the king %r& Ya#ovarmadeva to seize the holy
(royal) palace, all the troops of the capital threw pitay into the middle of his mouth and they all fled (1929:
309, lines 79, and 3101).

The first point of confusion in the account of the rebellion is whether there was one rebel, Bharata R$hu,
or two, Bharata and R$hu. In his translation, Cds suggested that Bharata R$hu was a single personal
name consisting of two parts, a given name Bharata and a descriptive moniker [the monster] R$hu, i.e.,
the demon who swallows the sun and the moon to create an eclipse. Cds justified this single Bharata
R$hu by claiming that we would expect the copula nu [and] between the two names if they were two
separate personages (1929: 310, fn. 5). This is curious logic, however, as we find the names anak sajak
arjuna anak sajak %r& dharadevapura without a copula in lines nine and ten of the same inscription,
between which Cds inserts the implied copula in his translation: the Anak Sajak Arjuna and the Anak
Sajak %r& Dharadevapura (1929: 311). Clearly no copula was required when two individual names were
written together.
In a characteristically rigorous footnote, Cds recognized that a strong alternative case could be
made for two rebels, Bharata and R$hu, in the phrase bharata r"hu sa# vuddhi droha (1929: 310, fn.
6). In Old Khmer sa# meant to associate, to conspire, as seen in the so-called loyalty oath of the 11th-
century king S'ryavarman I which contains the phrase vva# sa# nu khm"', and which Cds translated:
we will not (vva#) be accomplices (sa#) of (nu) [the kings] enemies (1951b: 209). Since Cds first
published his translation of K. 227, two more examples of sa# that connote the sense of conspire have
been found in the Old Khmer inscriptions. The first is the 11th century K. 420 from Siem Reap province,
which recalls how a certain Ka( Hiramyas land was confiscated because [he] conspired (sam#) with
(ni nu) Vra) T&rthaka to rebel against (khm"' ni) His Majesty %r& S'ryavarman (1952: 163, lines 323).
Very similar language is used in a recently translated 11th century stela K. 1198: In 933 #aka (AD 1011),

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Trakval Vo conspired (sa#) with (nu) T$ Pa* with the intention of rising up against (pi khmi khm"' ni)
His Majesty [S'ryavarman I] (Pou 2001: 243, line 23). The phrase sa# vuddhi droha in K. 227 likely
meant to combine treasonous thoughts or to conspire where vuddhi droha, following Khmer gram-
mar, corresponds to the Sanskrit compound drohabuddhi (Cds 1929: 310, fn. 6). This precise meaning
of sa# is preserved in modern Khmer in the term sam ga#nit, to combine thoughts or to conspire.
In all these cases sa# is used to signal an association of more than one person. Hence, the first clause
of the inscription should read: When Bharata and R$hu conspired against His Majesty Ya#ovarman in
order to seize the royal palace []. Though undoubtedly recognizing the soundness of this translation,
Cds opted instead for a single Bharata R$hu, linking sa#vuddhi to the Sanskrit word sa#buddhi,
calling to attention, to arrive at the meaning Bharata R$hu manifested his treacherous spirit (1929:
310, fn. 6). The lack of any Sanskrit-derived verb sa#buddhi in modern Khmer or Thai, however, casts
considerable doubt on this interpretation, suggesting that Cds had other reasons for taking Bharata
R$hu as a single individual.
Cds preference for a single Bharata R$hu was based implicitly on his interpretation of the
following clause in lines eight through nine, which he compared with the content of the bas-relief panel
on the western third enclosure wall of Banteay Chmar. He translated the passage: all the troops of the
capital threw pitay [cakes] into the middle of his [i.e., the monster Bharata R$hus] mouth and they all
fled (1929: 3101). Cds found surprising support for this curious translation in the bas-relief, which he
believed to illustrate a prince throwing cakes into the mouth of the demon R$hu (we should note, however,
that in his translation all the troops, not just a prince, were throwing cakes). Though he observed that
there were in fact two monsters depicted in the bas-relief, one fighting a prince and apparently swallowing
cakes in the upper register and another consuming a cart in the lower register [Fig. 19.3], he recognized
that the two figures could represent the same R$hu, both in that monsters characteristic act of swallowing
and featured in separate narrative moments (1929: 310, fn. 5; 311, fn. 1). Only the monster of the upper

Fig. 19.3: A hero defeating a demon (Photo: I. Lowman).

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 K. 227 AND THE BHARATA R!HU RELIEF

Fig. 19.4: Tiered object held in the palm of the heros right hand (Photo: I. Lowman).

register was having cakes tossed into its mouth, which suggested to Cds that the Bharata R$hu of the
inscription was one person / monster.
This image of a prince throwing cakes into a monsters mouth was in fact first identified by Henri
Parmentier in 1910 in his preliminary description of the bas-reliefs using faint photographs:
When [the hero] arrives near the monster, he holds a pile of cakes in his hand and probably throws them into
its mouth; while the monster eats them, the hero has the time to ready himself for combat and kill his enemy
loaded down with food (1910: 216, emphasis added).

While Cds translation of K. 227 proves that he took Parmentiers description more or less for granted,
one can detect a hint of uncertainty in Cds more circumspect observation of the same scene:
The adversary of the monster holds in the palm of his right hand, as if preparing to throw them [at the
monster], a pile of flat objects of diminishing size which Monsieur Parmentier, in his description of the bas-
reliefs of Banteay Chmar, calls hypothetically a conical pile of cakes (1929: 311, fn. 2, emphasis added).

A close examination of the bas-relief, however, fails to justify this hypothetical identification of cakes
being tossed into a monsters gaping mouth. We observe on the right a hero or prince driving a chariot
and holding aloft in his hand a tiered pyramidal object as if in supplication, perhaps praying for a deitys
aid in defeating his foe [Fig. 19.4]; there is no indication that he is about to throw the object. While

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Fig. 19.5: Stacked goods on a cart (Photo: I. Lowman).

Parmentier identified the tiered object or stack of objects as a pile of cakes, there are actually several
examples of objects in pyramid-shaped piles in this bas-relief panel for instance, in an image of a cart
that is being attacked by a demon in the lower register [Fig. 19.5]. If anything, these look like the stacked
boxes of goods which are commonly seen in depictions of porters and worshippers in the bas-reliefs of the
Bayon. To be fair, Parmentiers interpretation was admittedly provisional, and the tiered object remains
mysterious. Nonetheless, even if we may not be able to determine what exactly the hero is holding in
his hand and what he is doing with it, we must conclude that the idea of a hero throwing cakes into a
monsters mouth is very dubious.
In fact, I doubt that Cds would have accepted this interpretation of the bas-relief if not for his
translation of the passage in K. 227 which appeared to support Parmentiers provisional interpretation. In
any event, Cds translation was incorrect, as he himself later admitted. From his original transcription,
is vala nagara pho' pa' pitay kant"l matt v" rarat iss, he translated the passage: all the troops of the
capital threw pitay into the middle of his mouth and they all fled. Three words stand out as especially
suspect: matt for mouth, where we would expect mat with a single t; v" for it, the intimate or
contemptuous third person in modern Khmer, though v" typically stands for a title for male commoners
or temple personnel in Angkorian Khmer; and rarat as a reduplicated form of rat, to run, which would
be highly irregular.5 Cds eventually admitted that these forms were erroneous when he recognized the
relatively unknown word mattav"ra(a in another inscription, forcing him to update his transcription and
translation of K. 227 in a 1953 revision that appears to have gone mostly unnoticed as it is buried in an
obscure footnote. He wrote:
In translating [the passage in K. 227], I believed it possible to separate mattava)ra into matt va)(r) in his
mouth, which worked well in the context [i.e., the context of the bas-relief], but the use of the word in the

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present inscription [K. 930], where it designates a construction, requires me to reconsider this interpretation.
The meaning must be: threw pitay in the middle of the pavilion (Cds 1953: 315, fn. 3).

Therefore, by Cds own admission, the text says nothing of cakes being thrown into a monsters mouth.
The phrase matt v" should be read mattav"ra, typically spelled mattav"ra(a and meaning a projecting
pavilion or a veranda.6 The loss of final -(a in two other contexts in the inscriptions (see K. 930, line
8; and K. 720, line 22, in Sanskrit) proves that this identification is correct. The evidence is therefore
sufficient, I believe, to sever the connection between K. 227 and the bas-relief. It appears that Cds, in
attempting to conform the content of the inscription to the content of the bas-relief and vice versa, took
significant interpretative liberties with both in the process.7
Cds did not update his account of the bas-relief even after revising his translation of the
inscription, which suggests that he continued to believe that the Bharata R$hu of K. 227 was featured
on the third enclosure wall of Banteay Chmar. He hesitated to dissociate the two narratives because, in
his mind, they both featured a certain kind of cake, signified in K. 227 by the word pitay. Cds related
pitay to a certain pitai which appears as an unidentified ritual object largely in the 9th-century inscriptions
of Roluos and Lolei. Phonetically the pitay / pitai connection is possible, though it should be said that of
all the instances of pitai in the epigraphy, none end with a final -ay. Cds focused on a passage in the
7th-century inscription K. 44 to prove that pitai (and hence K. 227s pitay) was a cake. On side B of K.
44, we read: duk sn"' na# pitai ka#lu' a'gana (1942: 11, side B, line 78). Cds identified na# as
the word for cake, hence: na# pitai, pitai cakes. However, a relatively new inscription, unknown to
Cds, allows us to revise this translation. The inscription is K. 1073 from Buriram, dated to the early
10th century (Pou 2001: 1025). In line 10 of side B we find the words n"# pitai with a long ", which
must be related to the characteristically pre-Angkorian short -a form of na# pitai in K. 44, and which
can only mean to transport the pitai, without any indication of whether the pitai is a cake or something
else entirely. Michael Vickery has suggested this same translation of K. 44s na# pitai by referring to
another pre-Angkorian example of nam in K. 137, na# ku# vrau moy slicc, which Vickery tentatively
translates: take 400 vrau slaves (1999: 77). Vickery also points to the words lm"# pitai in the late 9th-
century inscriptions of Roluos, where lm"# may be construed as the agent form of a hypothetical base
*l$( from which modern la#n"# (manner, introduction) is also likely derived. Thus, lm"# pitai can
perhaps be understood to mean one who goes before or one who takes the pitai. In sum, the word
pitai remains a mystery except that it signified an object that was portable. Although we cannot claim to
know for certain that the pitai was not some sort of ritual cake, we also cannot conclude from the present
evidence that it was.8
Having dismissed any obvious reference to cakes in K. 227, we are left with a translation that is
considerably more obscure than what Cds originally proposed: all the troops of the capital threw the
pitay in the middle of the pavilion and fled. A more regular translation of pa', if it is to be understood
as a cognate of modern pa', may be to abandon rather than to throw. But why would there be
concern over the abandonment of a certain religious item by the kings armies in the middle of a
pavilion? Perhaps the pitay was some sort of royal palladium kept in a special pavilion and protected by
all the soldiers of the capital in the event of a usurpers attempt to steal it and thus claim the throne. The
examples of pitai in the epigraphy suggest that it had a specific ritual function in temples, however; there
is no indication that it was a symbol of political legitimacy associated with the royal palace.
The simplest solution to this incoherence is to admit that the form pitay in K. 227 is unrelated to
the ritual object pitai in which case pitay may not exist in the present passage at all. Saveros Pou has
recognized this possibility, and she separates the words in the following way in her Old Khmer dictionary:
is vala nagara pho' pa' pi tay kant"l mattv"ra (sic) rat iss (1992: 292). Observe that she divides pitay
into two distinct words: pi tay. The translation implied by her definitions of these words is: all the troops
of the capital desired (pa' pi, modern p*+, and the grammatical particle p&) to retreat (tay) into (?) the
middle of the terrace, all fleeing. Pous transcription is attractive as it makes for a more coherent sentence
in translation. Unfortunately, the form tay for modern /t+,-y/ (to retreat) is unconvincing. As far as I know,
there is no example of an Old Khmer voiceless unaspirated dental initial that has since gained aspiration
(excepting initial consonants in conjuncts). There are cases of voiced unaspirated dental stops gaining
aspiration, but only because these forms, when borrowed into Thai, always become aspirated before being

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reappropriated into Khmer (Antelme 1996: 42). All voiceless unaspirated dental stops borrowed into Thai,
on the other hand, have remained unaspirated. Most voiceless aspirated dental stops (t+) in modern Khmer
are found in foreign loanwords, and /t+,-y/ is no exception; Pou herself has given ample evidence in an
article co-authored with Philip Jenner that modern /t+,-y/ was borrowed from a Chinese dialect, probably
by way of Thai, and that this loanword was originally aspirated (Pou and Jenner 1973: 36). Hence the
form tay (unaspirated), and by extension Pous proposed transcription of the passage, must be considered
highly unlikely if not impossible.
I would like to propose an alternative to Cds and Pous transcription of the passage. With the
forms pitay or pi tay we would expect to find a vir"ma above the y, the vir"ma being the line above the
final letter of an Old Khmer word (not including words derived from Sanskrit) signaling that the word
ends with a consonant or semi-vowel. Unfortunately, in many inscriptions, this inscription included,
the vir"ma is occasionally absent,9 creating potential confusion when separate words in a phrase are
not immediately recognizable. As we find no vir"ma in the enigmatic cluster of words pa'pitaya [Fig.
19.6], we are left to guess where one word ends and another begins. Instead of pa' pitay or pa' pi tay,
with the passages missing vir"ma over the y, the words could be divided pa' pit ya, with the vir"ma
over the t of pit.

Fig. 19.6: Detail of lines 89, rubbing of inscription K. 227 (EFEOB-est.n0325) (Courtesy of EFEO).

Something similar to this transcription was suggested by tienne Aymonier in his cursory translation
of K. 227 in 1901, where he recognized the words pa' pit, or a single compound pa'pit (the p of pit
is written as a subscript in an apparent compound with the ' of pa'). Aymonier interpreted pa' pit to
mean to hide oneself, with an analogy to modern pidp"#' /./t.a0/, as can be seen in his incomplete
translation: all the troops of the capital (is vala nagara pho') having fled (rat iss) and hid (pa' pit),
the king rose to fight (Aymonier 1901: 345). Cds dismissed Aymoniers form pa' pit, asserting that
pa' could not relate to modern p"#' because the ancient form [] must be p"' with a long " (Cds
1929: 311, fn. 1). However, Cds proceeded to contradict himself by taking chpa' to fight, short a,
whose likely root is pa' (Jenner 2009: 145), to be the Old Khmer equivalent of modern chp"#' (long ").
In fact, the equivalence of Old Khmer chpa' and modern chp"#' proves that pa' was a valid spelling in
Old Khmer, and the expected spelling in K. 227, for modern Khmer p"#' (Jenner 2009: 302).
The proposed pa' pit, related to modern p"#'pid/.a0./t/, is entirely comprehensible. Aymonier
mistakenly understood it intransitively, however, to mean to hide oneself. Modern Khmer p"#'/.a0/,
taken transitively, signifies to conceal, shield, block, protect. The word pit/./t/, spelled pid in modern
Khmer, means to close, to seal off; it can probably be seen in the Old Khmer phrase van ka#ve' ju#
sruk pit from the 12th century inscription K. 194, side B, lines 2122, which I translate: build (van for
vvan) a wall around the village, fortifying (pit) it (Cds and Dupont 1943: 144). I take pa' pit together
to mean to seal off, to secure, to protect.
We are therefore left with the following transcription: is vala nagara pho' pa' pit ya kant"l
mattav"ra. The meaning of ya in this context remains undetermined. One possibility is that ya is an

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abbreviated form for Old Khmer yok, to take, which in modern Khmer can be pronounced either /j1-k/
or /j1-/ with a silent final /k/ (Vong Sotheara, pers. comm., 12 Dec. 2009). However, I believe that pa'
pit, understood transitively to mean to protect, should take ya as a direct object. In modern Khmer
there is a noun ya /j,-/ meaning a projecting porch. Relating ya to modern /j,-/ may seem dubious
at first; the vowel of modern /j,-/ is characteristic of the first series in modern Khmer, which would
typically signal that /j,-/ is a foreign loanword. There is in fact a verb /j,-/, to summarize, which has
been borrowed from Thai. However, the present /j,-/ is not a loanword from Thai, nor is there any similar
term in Vietnamese or, as far as I have determined, in any Chinese or other Mon-Khmer language.10 It is
therefore entirely possible that it is a legitimate Old Khmer word. Modern ya /j,-/ is used in one sense
to describe the roofed porticos or avant-corps extending outward from, and serving as entryways into,
Angkorian shrines. Assuming that the isolated ya of K. 227 signifies this kind of projecting balcony or
entryway, we can devise the following translation: all the troops of the capital defended (pa' pit) the
central projection (ya kant"l) of the mattav"ra(a.
The word mattav"ra(a seems to work well in this context. In at least three inscriptions from the
11th century, the mattav"ra(a is a place, presumably attached to the palace at Angkor, where the king
would meet with his officials and issue commands (K. 224, side B, line 5; K. 693, side B, line 29; K.
1011, 3, lines 23). A close examination of the Sanskrit term would hopefully illuminate something more
of its function. Cds takes the term to mean pavilion. Monier Monier-Williams offers the following
definitions: turret, pinnacle, pavilion (1976 [1899]: 777). Pou is likely correct in suggesting that
mattav"ra(a was equivalent to the modern koey, a raised veranda or terrace (1984: 122). One focused
study of this term in the Sanskrit literature concludes that it was a porch or veranda (vara(-a) from which
palace residents could safely amuse themselves in observing the world beyond the palace walls (Mirashi
1975: 100). If this was the function of the mattav"ra(a at the palace at Angkor, it may very well have
been constructed outside the walls of the palace complex to afford a view over the capitals main forum
for public spectacles. Moreover, the main mattav"ra(a of the palace may have been located to the east
of the palace complex, perhaps outside the palace, as one 11th-century inscription refers to an eastern
mattav"ra(a of the capital (Jacques 1999: 360).11
Taken together, these clues seem to indicate that the mattav"ra(a was located just outside the walls
and to the east of the palace, overlooking the main royal square, i.e., at the site of the so-called elephant
terrace which must have served as the formal entrance to the palace from its principal approach from
the east. In its current design, the elephant terrace that lines the eastern edge of the palace compound at
Angkor is marked by three projecting platforms or porches, the most important being the central porch
that faces the approach to the palace from the east through the Victory Gate of Angkor Thom. I am
tempted to identify the central projection of the veranda (ya kant"l mattav"ra(a) in my hypothetical
translation with the central projecting platform or porch of the elephant terrace, or of a mid-12th-century
version of that terrace. Though the elephant terrace has typically been dated to the time of Jayavarman
VII or later, i.e., several years after the rebellion at the palace supposedly took place, there is evidence of
earlier stages of terrace construction perhaps going back to the early 11th century (Pottier 1997: 205).
Associating the central projection / porch of the veranda with the elephant terrace at Angkor would
clarify its significance in the context of the heroic story. The inscription tells us that after the attack of
the rebels the kings soldiers guarding the central porch fled (rat iss). By abandoning the central porch,
the soldiers left the palace entrance and the king completely unguarded. It was only after this moment of
hopelessness that the brave prince %r&ndrakum$ra stepped forward to block the way, standing alone with
his two companions to challenge and defeat the two usurpers Bharata and R$hu.
With this context in mind, I propose the following transcription and translation of the passage:
n" bharata r"hu sa# vuddhi droha ta vra$ p"da %r& ya%ovarmmadeva pi thle' cap vra$ mandira is vala
nagara pho' pa' pit ya kant"l mattav"ra rat iss
When Bharata and R$hu conspired against King Ya#ovarman to seize the royal palace, all the troops of the
capital defended the central porch of the veranda [and then] fled.

Of course, this translation is far removed from the scenario of a prince throwing cakes into a monsters
mouth that was essential to Cds original interpretation of both K. 227 and the bas-relief.

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The Bas-Relief: A Sacred Biography of Jayavarman VII?

The main purpose of this exercise has been to distinguish the content of K. 227 from that of the
bas-relief and to propose an alternative translation of the inscriptions mystery passage. We can now
attempt a more precise interpretation of the bas-relief scene as we are no longer obliged to fit it in the
Procrustean bed of the inscription. In our interpretation, we should pay attention to those details which
Cds necessarily passed over in his attempt to identify a battle at the palace, such as the caravan in the
lower register and the forest setting. We should also keep in mind that the bas-reliefs of Banteay Chmar
are like those of Jayavarman VIIs main temple at Angkor, the Bayon: a combination of mythological
allusions, religious scenes and royal eulogy (Roveda 2005: 434). It is likely that one purpose of the
bas-reliefs of both temples was to present an idealized life-story of the king. Hence, I suggest that
the bas-relief scene of the hero fighting the demon depicts King Jayavarman VII as a young prince
performing a heroic deed. Moreover, I believe that the bas-relief has apparent Buddhist associations
which Cds original interpretation overlooked. Finally, in order to comprehend this scenes meaning,
I will examine the surrounding bas-relief panels in their entirety as a series of scenes in a more or less
coherent narrative.
To the far right next to the doorway there is a scene at a palace with a crowned king and a crowned
queen behind him, attended by female servants with whom he appears to be conversing. To the left we see
in the upper register a noble lady in a curtained chamber surrounded by her own attendants [Fig. 19.7].
Perhaps this is the same queen, now in her private quarters and without her crown. Her hand gesture, with
her left hand cradling her abdomen below a visible navel, may indicate that she is pregnant.
Below the lady in the palace, in a transitional scene, we see a long row of laborers carrying goods
to the left towards an ox-pulled cart into which the goods are being stowed [Fig. 19.8]. Above the
cart and the oxen in the upper register is an image of a heroic figure or prince driving a chariot. The
correspondence between the cart and the chariot must mean either that the two vehicles are traveling in
unison, the chariot depicted above to preserve order of rank, or that the two vehicles are embarking on a
similar journey. Trees in both registers indicate that the journey will take place in a forest.

Fig. 19.7: Pregnant queen (?) with attendants (Photo: I. Lowman).

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 K. 227 AND THE BHARATA R!HU RELIEF

Fig. 19.8: Hero on a chariot accompanying a caravan (lower register) into the forest (Photo: I. Lowman).

To the left of a small doorway in the wall the narrative continues with a forest scene in the lower
register and the prince on the chariot above. The chariot appears to be pulled by poorly rendered horses.
The prince on the chariot is leaning forward and holding aloft in the palm of his right hand a curious
pyramidal object [Fig. 19.4]. In the lower register we see the cart again, loaded with stacked boxes that
seem to mirror the images held in the princes hand above [Fig. 19.5]. In the lower register we see that the
cart in the forest is being attacked by a crowned demon who is shoveling the ox into his mouth along with

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the goods on the cart [Fig. 19.3]. Above the prince is shown fighting with either the same or a different
demon, vanquishing him with a graceful kick to the face.
Clearly the three successive images of the prince in the upper register and the two successive images
of the cart in the lower register are supposed to be understood in narrative sequence. Moreover, the
parallel scenes of the prince on the chariot and the cart carrying the goods must be somehow related. The
challenge is how we should fit these disparate parts into a coherent narrative whole.
Without pretending to have a definite answer, I will explore the possibility that this bas-relief
functions on two levels as an allusion to Buddhist myth and as a sacred biography of King Jayavarman
VII. It should be noted that Parmentier, in his description of the panel, suggested that it probably
represents an unknown Indian myth, not a historical event (1910: 216). I agree that the images of crowned
demons, or yak.a, and of chariots reveal that we are dealing with a mythological scene of some kind. The
central figure in the myth is the young chariot driver or prince. If the merchant cart and the prince are
to be understood as actors in the same narrative, then it is quite possible that the prince is escorting the
cart, perhaps representing a merchant caravan, through a dangerous forest. Alternatively, the prince could
be embarking on the same journey but at a later time. Before encountering the demon, the prince raises
an object as if in offering, perhaps in supplication to a deity for protection against what lies ahead. Then
when the cart is attacked and its goods are nearly devoured by one or two demons, the prince comes to
the rescue, or if arriving late, to mete out retribution.
The image of the prince rescuing the caravan does not bring any specific Indic or local Cambodian
myths immediately to mind. However, the caravan likely signifies that we are in the world of Buddhist
myth. The merchant caravan traveling through treacherous lands is one of the most common frame
narratives in accounts of the Buddhas previous lives, the j"taka or avad"na; it is possible that this
narrative represents an apocryphal j"taka tale unique to mainland Southeast Asia and unknown in
the contemporary textual tradition. It is also possible that this scene specifically evokes the cult of
Avalokite#vara or Loke#vara, Jayavarvarman VIIs patron deity. The early function of Avalokite#vara
was as the all-compassionate protector of caravans from the eight perils of travel, including the perils
of demons and bandits (Donaldson 2001: 237). In the section about the virtues of Avalokite#vara in the
Lotus Sutra, it is said that if a caravan leader accompanying his goods across a dangerous land is beset
by robbers with swords, he need only petition Avalokite#vara for deliverance (Watson 1994: 299). It may
be that this bas-relief panel is a creative rendering of this common Buddhist theme: a caravan leader or
s"rthavaha, i.e., the prince, accompanies a caravan through a wilderness; when the caravan is attacked by
demons, he prays for his companions protection (the tiered object raised in the figures right hand being
an offering to the bodhisattva) and for the strength to defeat the demons.
If we assume that this bas-relief is also a royal eulogy or biography, the hero or caravan leader
who saves the cart is probably King Jayavarman VII as a young prince. According to this interpretation,
the bas-reliefs mirror the kings Sanskrit eulogies which clothe the king in religious and mythological
imagery, presenting Jayavarman VII as a god-like warrior and a Buddhist ruler sympathetic to the needs
of his subjects (Thompson 2004: 93101). Reading the series of panels on the northern section of the
western wall from right to left, this royal biography becomes apparent. A queen is shown on the far right
surrounded by her attendants; this may be Jayar$jac'2$ma3i, Jayavarman VIIs mother, pregnant with
the future prince [Fig. 19.7]. Jayavarman VII is then shown performing a heroic deed as a young prince,
saving his people, represented as a besieged merchant caravan, from a demonic threat [Fig. 19.3]. To
the left the narrative sequence continues. The prince is now presented in full regalia as a king, crown
on head and sword in hand, accompanied by his retainers, his chariot now pulled by two regal horses
[Fig. 19.9]. I am convinced that the sequence would have us understand this chariot rider and the earlier
one as the same individual at different life stages. In this section of the panel the adventurous savior of
the caravan has become a king. The royal procession continues its march into the forest until we meet a
large central figure standing in a forest retreat [Fig. 19.10]. Here the figure is portly and seemingly more
mature, wearing a chignon in his hair. He puts his hands together in a gesture of respect as a regal lady
kneeling before him presents him with a lotus flower. This is likely the king again, though now in a new
role as an ascetic or Buddhist devotee in his later life.
I propose that the entire bas-relief panel narrates Jayavarman VIIs rise to the status of an enlightened
Buddhist monarch. Having proved his mettle in battle against the demons, he marches as a crowned and

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Connecting Empires 19.indd 253
Fig. 19.9: Crowned king on a chariot leading a military procession (Photo: I. Fig. 19.10: Kneeling woman offering a lotus flower to the royal renunciant
Lowman). (Photo: I. Lowman).

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consecrated king before renouncing his weapons and finery for the simple attire of a religious renunciant.
As the rest of the wall has collapsed, we will likely never know how the story continues. However,
what remains of the panel suggests a succinct sacred biography of King Jayavarman VII presented in
the context of one of the eight perils of the cult of Avalokite#vara, heralding the king as a disciple of the
Buddha and an agent, like his patron bodhisattva, of his peoples salvation.

Acknowledgments
I am indebted to Philip Jenner for reading an early draft of this paper and for providing much needed
criticism. I am also grateful to Michel Antelme, Grard Diffloth, and Vong Sotheara for discussing some
of the linguistic problems of K. 227. Of course, I am solely responsible for the above conclusions. Finally,
I wish to thank Olivier Cunin for his plan of Banteay Chmar and Cristina Cramerotti and the EFEO for
the photograph of the rubbing.

Notes
1. Intriguingly, the inscriptions on the stones that contain writing (K. 1206 and K. 1209) are unfinished, and in one case
(K. 1209) the stone features only a single letter.
2. K. 227 is now installed at the National Museum of Phnom Penh after having been recovered from an antiquities dealer
in Bangkok (Pottier 2004: 144, fn. 17).
3. The first line of this new inscription, in Old Khmer, consists of the words vra$ vle' svargga, sacred fire from heaven,
no doubt indicating a fire worshipped in the shrine BC 45. T.S. Maxwell has made a preliminary translation of the
Sanskrit portion, unpublished, which includes the date. For an overview of the inscription, see Maxwell 2009.
4. Cds believed %r&ndrakum$ra, this son of a king (r"japutra), to be the son of the reigning king Jayavarman VII
(Cds 1928: 100). Bernard-Philippe Groslier presents intriguing evidence from a verse of the stela of Phimeanakas
for an identification of %r&ndrakumara with Jayavarman VIIs younger brother (1973: 153), revising Cdss previous
interpretation of that verse (1942: 174, fn. 2). A final possibility is that the title r"japutra represents not so much a
definite familial relationship with a king than an honorific title given to the kings closest friends and allies, in which
case there would be no question of his being a son of a king at all.
5. In 1953, Cds implied that his original transcription was matt v"(r) rat, the word v" ending with an erroneous silent
/-r/ as sometimes occurs in modern Khmer (though this phenomenon is undoubtedly too recent to attribute it to an
Old Khmer text). In fact, he originally took the inexplicable /r/ with rat: rarat (Cds 1929: 311, fn. 3).
6. In their translation of K.194 / K.383 Pierre Dupont and George Cds suggested that mattav"ra(a signified a
projecting structure like a watchtower of a castle, or a cornice (Dupont and Cds 1943: 150, fn. 9).
7. Cds took similar liberties with a passage in line 11 which describes the princes defeat of the rebels. Cds
translated the relevant passage: the prince struck Bharata R$hus nose and knocked him down (stac phjal mu$ phtval
bharata r"hu). Once again, Cds pointed to the image in the upper register of the bas-relief [Fig. 19.3], which he
believed faithfully illustrates a prince swinging at the monster R$hus nose (1929: 312, fn. 1). The one-on-one nature
of their combat appears to have confirmed in Cdss mind that Bharata R$hu could not be two separate individuals.
On closer examination, however, there is no image of a prince striking a monsters nose in either narrative. Cdss
definition of phjal mu$ in line 11 to mean strike the nose is especially questionable. The word phjal means to fight
in combat (or, if understood as a causative, to cause to fight in combat), and I am unaware of any context in which
the modern *phjal (or prajal) has the sense of to strike, to hit. Cds takes mu$ to mean nose. The word mu$
could also have more generally signified face (Jenner 2009: 441). I believe a less problematic translation can be
proposed by pointing to the borrowing of Old Khmer phjal into Thai in the term p/ajon (or: prajon, prajan) 0na
(face): to face in combat. As for the bas-relief, a hero is shown kicking an armed monster and raising a club in
his right hand ready to strike; the monster is falling backwards in defeat [Fig. 19.3]. The hero does not appear to be
striking the monsters nose with his outstretched left hand as Cds supposed.
8. Cds suggested that pitai may be derived from the Sanskrit root pit!, ancestor, which is an interesting possibility,
although Cds appears to have highlighted it without suggesting any alternative in order to further support his
translation of pitai as a cake, seeing in an ancestor cake an analogy to the funerary cakes called pi(-a used in the
Hindu religion as offerings to deceased ancestors (Cds 1942: 13, fn. 9).
9. The word vnek in lines 1011 of K. 227 lacks a vir"ma, whereas the vnek in line 25 has a vir"ma (Cds 1929:
309); the fact that they are used in exactly the same expression (toy vnek) confirms that the use of the vir"ma was
inconsistent.

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10. I thank Philip Jenner for confirming that /j,-/ is not a loanword from a Chinese dialect (Philip Jenner, pers. comm.,
18 June 2010). Whether /j,-/ is derived from another Khmer word is another question; if this were the case, it may
be far enough removed from its original form to thwart any attempt at an easy etymology. Jenner tentatively suggests
that we take it as a simple variant of modern y"r /ji-4r/ to extend (which presupposes Angkorian *y"r /ja-r/ or *y"
/ja-/), the final r possibly a modern excrescence (as often happens). Another option is to compare /j,-/ to modern
/51-k/, which also means balcony or ledge. A change from /51-k/ to /j,-/ could perhaps be explained as the result
of a change from 5- to j-, which was in turn compensated by a vowel shift from 1- to ,-. A similarly dual shift, though
in this case in an example /j-/ to /5-/, can probably be seen in the modern forms /j6-0/ (ultimately from /r4ji-40/?) and
/5a-60/, both meaning a roofless howdah. These changes would need to be explored further by someone with more
linguistic competence than myself. As for loss of final /k/, this can be seen in the modern forms /j1-k/ and /m1-k/,
which become in common speech respectively /j1-/ and /m1-/.
11. This is K.1011, 3 from Kp$l Sb$n; Claude Jacques translates mattav"ra(a nagara p1rvva: the wall (lenceinte) of
the capital, to the east (Jacques 1999: 360).

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