Khmer King

Suryavarman II, the king of the Khmer Empire renowned as a religious reformer and temple builder. Under his rule the temple of Angkor Wat, the world’s largest religious structure, was constructed.

Suryavarman defeated rival claimants to the throne and established sole rule over the Khmer empire by 1113, reuniting the empire after more than 50 years of unrest. Warlike and ambitious, he expanded the limits of the empire to include much of what is now Thailand; his patronage stretched as far west as the frontiers of the Burmese state of Pagan, south to the coast of the Gulf of Thailand (including part of the eastern coast of the Malay Peninsula), and east to the kingdom of Champa in the southern part of what is now Vietnam.

Suryavarman was formally crowned in 1113, with his guru, the powerful priest Divakarapandita, presiding. The king was a religious reformer who blended the mystical cults of Vishnu and Shiva, supreme Hindudeities, and promulgated Vaishnavism as the official religion, rather than Buddhism, which had briefly flourished under his predecessors.