Eclecticism and tolerance in the religions pantheon of ancient Angkor

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• Dr Peter Sharrock
• Friday 24 May 2024, 14:00-15:00
• Audit Room, King’s College (and online) .

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Said Reza Huseini.

Zoom Link if you wish to join us onlline: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAkc-Ghpj8pGNyQhW8z0zEy76Le_2f4yMGK

Ancient Khmer religion was astonishingly open and tolerant of a wide pantheon of deities. The king who sent abroad for the texts of Buddhist Tantra built multiple monasteries around his lineage temple to Siva. When the largely Buddhist Mahidhara dynasty came to power, the king who was crowned by brahmins in Angkor, constructed a vast Esoteric Buddhist temple at home and send his Saiva guru to make donations to the Saiva shrines across the kingdom. In his family’s next generation, one king built the largest Vaisnava temple on earth and his younger brother, on succeeding him, built eight Esoteric Buddhist sanctuaries east of Angkor and addressed his major dedication inscription to the Adi-Buddha Vajrasattva. When Buddhism was finally made the religion of state it embraced the Mahayana pureland of Sukhavati and the cult of Hevajra, while conserving sanctuaries to Siva and Visnu in the state temple.

This talk is part of the King's Silk Roads series.

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• Audit Room, King’s College (and online)
• King's Silk Roads

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