As they were, not as we want them to be: Analyzing shared histories beyond modern borders in Cambodia and Thailand

Guest Post: Andrew Harris, University of Toronto

Intro: Cambodia and Thailand, Southeast Asian neighbors whose historical and modern relations have been defined by cool neutrality, conquest and occupation on both sides, and/or modern border skirmishes, have shared a regional history from at least the 9^th to the 20^th centuries free of modern boundaries and entrenched national ideologies. To analyze this heritage and history, especially religious history or any topic pertaining to any Buddhist origins, as an all-encompassing whole without drawing borders and separating “us” from “them” is rarely tolerable and are often seen as inflammatory. Archaeologists locally and internationally continue to attempt to bridge these gaps in order to understand pre-modern societies and the state structures they created, but without the ability to make comparisons across the map in more than hushed tones, present biases will continue to limit interpretations of the past.

Pride in the past has long been used as a tool to mobilize modern societies, regimes, and even nationhood. Countries and governments claiming the vestiges of an ancient civilization as belonging to their ancestors have created commanding rallying cries of unity and empowerment, especially when the present is a shadow of perceived former glory. But what happens when nationalism based on past prosperity divides history up into sets of modern borders? How do archaeologists, especially non-partisan parties from abroad, work within these parameters in order to understand the full story told by the remains of civilizations that transcend modern notions of nationhood?

As a PhD Candidate in archaeology having done research in both Cambodia and Thailand, I can tell you that exploring the remains of Khmer Empire (802-1431 CE), which at one point covered both countries as well as Laos and southern Vietnam, beyond the borders of Cambodia is a bit of a balancing act in public relations. Openly attempting to interpret the Theravada Buddhist religious history of modern Cambodia and Thailand in relation to a shared past, which just happens to be part of my PhD research, meanwhile, receives about as positive regional reaction as your average Sean Spicer slip-up. Since the establishment of French Indochina in 1863, which included all the countries listed above except for Thailand, or Siam as it was known then, a line in the sand has been drawn between Khmer/Cambodian and Thai history and archaeology. Essentially, “what’s yours is yours, and what’s mine is mine, and my history is superior to yours and nothing will be interpreted differently.

“Finished.

“Done.

“Move on!”

Thai history as is known today was born in an attempt by the Thai Kingdom of Siam to keep the French border solidly east of the prize they’d conquered from Cambodia in 1594: the ancient Khmer capital of Angkor. Thailand, notes an inscription (allegedly) written under King Ram Khamhaeng of the Kingdom of Sukhothai during the late 13^th century, rose to independence along its current borders from a rebellion against the mystic, Hindu Khmers, immediately embraced Theravada Buddhism from Sri Lanka, and for the next two centuries unleashed hell on Cambodia until 1594 when the successor-state to Sukhothai, Siam, captured the ancient Khmer capital indefinitely. Questioning this interpretation, despite a multitude of evidence that indicates the 13^th century inscription was written in the 1800s to gain ground against European encroachment by creating an established history, now falls under Thailand’s rigid lèse-majesté laws – that is, laws protecting the king and his family from defamation – and can get you thrown in jail for insulting the royal lineage.

Cambodia, meanwhile, indeed lost Angkor to the Thais in the late 16^th century after the capital was moved to the area surrounding Phnom Penh following an attack on Angkor by nearby Siam in 1431, and became a protectorate of both Thailand or Vietnam depending on the century. Colonial French interest in Angkor, following western Cambodia’s reclamation from Thailand in 1907, gave ground to the idea that the Khmers were the first “High Civilization” in Southeast Asia, and the early independent Cambodian state of the 1950s and 60s drew strength from their powerful roots; both the ethnic group and language of Cambodia are still called Khmer. Angkor Wat, the world’s largest religious monument, is now emblazoned on the country’s flag, and inspiration drawn from that history moving forward is even more important to the Cambodian psyche following two decades of brutal civil war and genocide.

However, the idea that borders, ethnicities, national histories, and other early 20^th century tent-poles of nationalism existed as the sole mechanism of state-building during ancient times is a complete fallacy; the concept of set borders in Southeast Asia only became a political reality through European influence beginning in the 17^th century. Prior to this, Southeast Asian empires were ruled in the form of what is often called a mandala-state: a polity with fluctuating borders that drew stability not from stable frontiers, but a stable center ruled by a single monarch either religiously upheld or deified as a God in his own right. The mandala-state originally a South Asian concept transplanted to Southeast Asia when Hinduism was first introduced to the region in the 6^th century CE, but the idea of a polity’s strong core versus strong borders can be applied to hundreds of ancient cultures across the world. City-state civilizations such as Ancient Greece, Mesopotamia, and the Maya have also been studied and found to have drawn power from regionally strong rulership centers with fluctuating borders, but Southeast Asian states were by far the largest of the polities that embodied this concept. Due to the city’s position on the Khmer frontier, losing Sukhothai in the 13^th century was therefore likely a drop in the bucket to Angkor despite how momentous an event Thai autonomy from the Khmer Empire was thought to have been according to its histories.

The concept of modern borders dividing ancient civilizations also creates insular regional histories, and limits study on the transfer of knowledge and ideas across “unfavorable” geographical areas. This is exceptionally important in understanding how cultures and ethnicities were first formed, and why modern people partake in the traditions they do. As noted, studying the religious history of Theravada Buddhism in Southeast Asia is a touchy subject – an intangible tradition which was, which is, and which ever shall be – and studying the religious histories of countries together, transcending modern borders, is likely yet another lèse-majesté offense.

For example, Thailand’s historical record indicates that the Kingdom of Sukhothai began its modern Theravada Buddhist tradition with the aid of monks from Sri Lanka, the new center of Theravada practice following the Muslim Conquest of northern India, in the 14^th century, but 14^th century Burmese records indicate that the son of the Khmer king Jayavarman VII (r. 1181-1220 CE) was already studying at the Mahavihara monastery at Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka near the end of the 13^th century. On the other hand, Cambodian history also claims direct ties to Sri Lanka, but delineated its monastic ordination halls with boundary stones called sima, a tradition that began in Thailand to demarcate holy spaces as early as the 6^th century CE that in turn came from northern Thai Neolithic burial practices. Obviously, information was exchanged in the frontier of the Khmer Empire and through conquests and attacks by Sukhothai and Siam during the 14^th – 16^th centuries that aided in the creation of the religious traditions of both countries, two countries that rank first (Cambodia with 96.9%) and second (Thailand with 93.2%) in the percentage of their citizens who are Buddhist.

The battle over historical sovereignty between the two countries reached its peak in 2008 when Cambodia petitioned successfully to have the 10^th century Khmer temple of Preah Vihear made a UNESCO World Heritage Site. On land disputed by Thailand since 1931 due to a mapping disagreement with French Indochina, the UNESCO nomination began a three-year war over the temple that claimed the lives of over forty soldiers and civilians. In a manner similar to Israel and Palestine’s disputes over Temple Mount, Cambodia claimed Preah Vihear due to its Khmer origins and UNESCO approval while Thailand vouched for their more recent ownership and their ignorance to an alleged mapping error that originally caused the conflict.  A distant Hindu temple in the north of Cambodia located in the middle of a Khmer Rouge minefield and the site of skirmishes between Thai and French/Cambodian forces for nearly a century, the most recent dispute over Preah Vihear really boils down to an acknowledgement of a Cambodian-owned monument in Thai conquered territory.

This was not made readily apparent in comments by government officials from both countries preceding the 2008 conflict, as concessions were made by Thailand to redraw the border around the temple so Thailand could have access to the watershed land for agricultural growth, but the attack by Thai soldiers following Cambodia’s UNESCO nomination made this fact apparent.

The reality that modern borders indeed do influence the study of ancient ones, or lack thereof, inhibits a realistic view of the past. Studying what things were, rather than what people want them to have been, allows us to read beyond the ancient inscriptions and modern propaganda and interpret fluid ancient geographies such as Southeast Asia in all its complexities rather than simplifying mandala-states down to Civilization Country A vs. Civilization Country B. Shared histories also promote the possibilities of modern reconciliation, something that in the wake of last half-century of coups, wars, systematic murders, US carpet-bombings, and crippling communist takeovers might benefit Thailand and Cambodia as they move forward.

Of course, while continuously looking backward for positive reinforcement.

Learn more about Andrew’s work in Cambodia and other locations: https://inbrokenfootsteps.wordpress.com/

Check out Andrew’s first fascinating contribution to the ARCH blog: https://www.arch-library.org/2017/06/20/the-new-loot-trading-shovels-for-stalls-through-archaeotourism-in-cambodia/