Below is an extract from a historical book on the success of King Jayavarman and the Decline of Angkor. This is an interesting part to read. Sophal, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Jayavarman VII and the Decline of Angkor

Much of what can be said about the career of Jayavarman VII is derived from an inscriptional eulogy by his queen, Indradevi. It claims that Jayavarman, as a prince, was conducting a military campaign in Champa when he learned about the upheavals which led to the death of his father and the accession of Yasovarman II. ‘He returned in haste to aid King Yasovarman, but Yasovarman had been stripped of throne and life by the usurper [Tribhuvanadityavarman], and Jayavarman remained in Cambodia waiting for the propitious moment to save the land heavy with crimes[1].’ 

These events ere in the mid-1160s. It was to be over a decade before Jayavarman found his opportunity to bid for power – the Cham invasion of 1177. Jayavarman VII made it his task to rid Cambodia of these foreigners, and was later able to represent himself as saviour of the nation through his victories over them in a series of battles. One naval engagement is vividly depicted in relief carving on the walls of two of his temples. By 1183 he was able to have consecrated his dominion over the Khmers as a whole. The fact that he had to take several years to fight his way to power even after disposing of the foreigners is a reflection of the persisting danger of political fragmentation, not suppressed even in the twelfth century.

Much is doubtful about Jayavarman’s origins and earlier career. It is possible that while in Champa he had gained close sympathy with the values of Mahayana Buddhism. As for his legitimacy as rule, he could evidently claim kin links through mother and father with Suryavarman II, with numerous princes were probably jus as good.

At all events, the imperial unity that the second Jayavarman had so proudly celebrated, ardently pursued by subsequent kings yet never irrevocable mastered, required a mighty effort if it was to be seized once more. Jayavarman VII was the man for the occasion. His reign was grander than any other. His inscriptions declared a loftier and more inspiring ambition. The sheer massiveness of his monument-building rivalled the total of all that had gone before, so that it took a long time for historians to recognize that the building of so many structures had been initiated or completed in a single reign. Throughout the lands of the Khmers, wherever the instruments of Angkor’s power had disappeared, perhaps believed gone for good, his armies came in triumph bearing the banners of empire.

The Chams, of course, had to be punished; between 1203 and 1220 Jayavarman VII was able to subject Champa to Khmer dominance, putting his own nominee upon the throne. An inscription from Say Fong, opposite Vientaine, attests the extension of Jayavarman’s administration to present-day Laos. A later Chinese record lists the dependencies of Angkor at the time, enumerating the suppliers of the emperor’s daily washing-water (an act of homage by vassals); the list includes what it calls the king of Java (possibly a Malay ruler), the king of Yananas (the Vietnamese), and the two kings of Champa. The borders of the Khmer empire were probably never very secure or precisely defined, depending largely upon the political calculations of local chieftains in choosing patrons, but Jayavarman’s empire appears to have been as great as Angkor had ever been.

This empire was held together by roads that were built on embankments above flood level, 5 or 6 metres high. They crossed rivers by ornamental bridges. One went north about 225 kilometres towards Phimai; one went west towards Sisophon, one east towards Champa, and another south-east to Kompong Thom, 150 kilometres.

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[1] An extract from Ian Mabbett and David Chandler, The People of South-East Asia and the Pacific, The Khmers, 1995.