This document was talked about The Theravada Buddhism in Cambodia. It was presented by venerable Sokly Mouch, Miss Phum Kimyieng, and Mr. Souert Vannak. We are the students at Preak Sihanouk Raja Buddhist University Battambang Campus. Sincerely yours, From me: venerable Sokly Mouch, Live in Battambang, Cambodia.

1. Preah Seyhanouk Raja Buddhist
University

2. Group 3 Members:
1. Ven. Mouch Sokly
2. Miss Phum Kimyieng
3. Mr. Souert Vannak

3. Chapter 3
Theravada Buddhism in Cambodia
Territorial and Social Lineaments

4. 1.Land, Authority, and Sacred Space
Most cultures of regions, Cambodians, from
the end of the Angkorian period until the
1840s.
The territory belonged to the spirits of the
ancestors(Neak Ta).
In the Theravada Buddhism’s philosophy, the
king was chosen by election.

5. Since the appearance of Theravada
Buddhism, the Cambodian king has been
regarded as “one who has merits”(Neak
Mean Bon).
The king possession of a set of powerful
fetish weapon.
The Khmer were not as opposite toward
hill tribes such as the Vietnamese and
Chinese.

6. In nineteenth-century, Cambodia was
arranged into 5 regions(Dey):
Tbong Kmum, Ba Phnom, Treang, Pursat
and Kampong Svay(Kampong Tom).
Ba Phnom was probably a central of
regarding space with Theravada’s
belief, while 4 regions were grouped
around a central hub.

7. 2. Neak Ta and other Spirits
Cambodia is protected by a network
of tutelary spirits (Neak Ta), even they
were not the Buddhism’s religious
belief.
Some Neak Ta are related to specific
locations, such as the trees, the ponds,
or the ruined villages.

8. Neak Ta were divided into 3 kinds:
First spirits(Neak Ta) related to the
natural phenomena.
 Second Neak Ta were ancestral
spirits, both male and female.

9. Third Neak Ta derived from Brahmanical
gods and various mythical heroes.
The famous Neak Ta in the country is
Khleang Moeung, the protector spirit in
Pursat province.
His shrine is 5 km long Northwest of
Pursat province.

10. Shrine of Neak tà Khleang Moeung

11. Neak tà Khleang Moeung’s exploits once
formed part of the repertoire of the National
Theater and were often performed during times
of tension with Thailand.
There are three basic types of rite associated
with their cult:
The first is a vow or promise (born sron).
The second (banhchean neak tà) is a more
formal ceremony.
The final category (bon banchan neak tà oy sok
sabai).

12. Breay are another class of exclusively
female and highly dangerous spirits of
virgins or of women who have died in
childbirth.
There are different kinds of
ghost(Kmoch):
Kmoch Tay Horng: a ghost of someone
who was killed.
Beysach: a ghost that lives on dirt places.

13. Priey: a ghost living in a large tree with the
ability to turn into a ball of fire.
3. Spirits Priests, Amulets, and Protection
The Gru are almost always males.
Gru follow written text containing details
for the medicine, symbolic
diagrams(Yantras), and mantras.
The dhmap can do the black magic.
Protective amulets come in a variety like:
small Buddha images, tooth of a parent.

14. 4. Mountains
Mountains had been a sacred site of
religion.
Phnom Kulen was the holiest mountain of
the Angkorian period.
About thirteen kilometers west of
Battambang on the road to Pailin is Phnom
Sampou.
Phnom Preah Reach Trop, the sacred hill
at Udong.

15. 5. Monasteries
A lot of modern monasteries, particularly
in Kampong Cham, Svay Rieng, Takeo, and
Kandal province have been constructed on
the site of Angkorian and pre-Angkorian
temple.
Giteau notes that between 1964 and the
early 1970 at least four monasteries in
Battambang town had destroyed and also
rebuild.
Typically.

16. Monasteries often possess racing canoes.
Bon Banchos Sema must be celebrate
before monasteries are used.
Some monasteries are famous by relics.
All Viharas possess at least one Buddha’s
status.

17. 6. The Monastic Economy
The work involved in constructing the
Angkorian barays and their associated
temples had been enormous and required
the services of a massive pool of man
power.
There are four categories of monastery
slave: pol preah, komlas preah bamros
preah and nhom preah.

18. The Khmer word “kñum” possesses
the semantic resonances to justify its
translation by the term “slave,” but one
must be aware of potential anachronism.
Western notions of freedom and
slavery may not always be appropriate
in judging the institutions of medieval
South-east Asia 290–291

19. According to a manuscript once
housed at Wat Sam-bok ([Keo-Han
1951], King Paramaràja VIII [r. 1659–
1672]) decreed that 40 families of
condemned persons forced into corvée
for the king (neak na) and “slaves other
Buddha” (pol preah) be responsible for
the upkeep of the monastery and a large
stùpa in perpetuity.

20. Monks could also become pagoda
slaves if found guilty of com-mitting a
variety offenses, including killing and
stealing sacred objects.
 For fornication, adultery, incest,
bestiality, administering a drug to bring
about an abortion, falsely claiming to
have achieved various spiritual powers

21. A monastery’s real estate was termed
Sambat preah. Such sacred lands (dey preah)
were not taxed when worked by slaves but
might be subject to taxation when tended by
freemen.
The arrangement clearly perpetuated the
institution of monastic slavery. However,
because monastic slaves were part of the
property of a monastery.

22. Monastic lands were generally donated by
wealthy and influential figures to maintain
the foundation in perpetuity, although other
forms of land and property bestowal are also
attested in the historical record.
87 Ebihara (1984, 292) believes that such
donations were motivated by two basic
considerations: merit making and tax
avoidance.

23. 7. Monks, Ritual Specialists, and Laity
In the mid-1960s Kalab (1968, 521)
studied a village, Prek Por, of around
4,500inhabitants.
It consisted of a number of hamlet
variously supporting three separate
local monasteries.

24. The description nicely encapsulates the
spiritual educational, and social welfare–
oriented functions of a typical rural
monastery several years before the country
erupted into civil war.
The chief monk (chau adhikar) is also
known as the head of the monastery (mevat).
In modern times he has been part of the
provincial sangha hierarchy. His
responsibilities include the overall
maintenance of monastery buildings

25. Monks (loak song) constitute the heart
of the community, but other categories of
person also reside in a typical monastery.
Temple boys (kmeng vat) between
seven and twelve years of age carry out
various domestic tasks and gain a basic
education.

26. As if to underline this inequality between
the sexes, village traditions hold that a boy
around the age of twelve should become a
novice monk (Samne) and observe the ten
precepts for a short period in honor of his
mother. Full ordination as a bhikkhu around
the age of twenty, on the other hand, is
undertaken in honor of one’s father.

27. One of the distinctive features .In the past,
sangha members were accorded
considerable deference, no matter how high
the social or economic standing of the
layperson might be.
The penal code of King Sisowath
prescribed the death penalty for anyone
who killed a monk

28. It is sometimes said that, for a monastery
to prosper, “either the villagers around must
be rich or modestly well-oª, or the abbot
must be very skilled in religious magic” (W.
Collins 1998a, 21).
We have seen that some monasteries have
royal foundations and, until relatively
modern times, were not so dependent on
local economic vicissitudes.

29. The achar vat is generally selected in a
consultation process between the chau
adhikar and the village community.
Ideally, he must be a pious older man
who keeps the first eight precepts of the
novice monk. In addition he must be
known for his financial probity.

30. Another important role of the achar is as
organizer of the seven major annual
festivals. These celebrations are important
opportunities for fund-raising.
The achar’s final responsibility is to lead
the laity in acts of worship.

31. The term “leader of the wind” (mekhyal)
101is sometimes deployed in connection
with the roles played by achars and cah
thom.
It implies that a position of authority is
transient and related to specific situations.
Thus, an achar may become mekhyal to
accomplish a particular task.

32. A mekhyal is expected to become involved
in a definite undertaking and should not act
solely in a supervisory capacity.
However, like the wind, he may act with
daring to overcome obstacles, even if this
implies some defiance of customary norms.

33. Lay rituals may also be performed for
purely this-worldly ends, for, as an eighteen-
year-old girl told “I will go to three or four
Kathun103festivals this year so that I will be
re-born as a rich American.”
No matter the motivation, expenditure of
large sums of money and energy in support
of elaborate rituals

34. These are to abstain from Recent
Cambodian religious traditions retain much
that is archaic.
The cult of the neak tàmay be regarded as a
foundational layer upon which later tradition
shave been overlaid

35. Theravada Buddhism extended its hold, the
Brahmanical mythology that had underpinned
the concept of the devaràja diminished,
though it was never entirely abandoned.
The sacred character of king shiphas
persisted, although Buddhist influences led
the righteous king.

36. We can identify a general trend toward
assimilation and accretion in the way that the
Cambodian landscape has been sacral zed
over the centuries.
Worship at high places is a feature of most
religious tradition, and Cambodia is no
exception, for mountain cults are attested in
the region from the earliest period.

37. We have seen that the rituals employed for
the foundation of new Buddhist monasteries
still preserve many archaic and sacrificial
features.
But the retention of the institution of sacred
slavery until well into the modern period also
demonstrates that social and political
arrangements of the Angkorian period were
retained by the post-Angkorian Theravada
dispensation.

38. Group Discussion
1.Why do Khmer people from the past until now
always respect to the ancestors and the tutelary
spirits (Neak Ta) ? (2 groups) (By Ven. Mouch
Sokly)
2.What is the monastic economy ? (2 groups)
(By Mr. Souert Vannak)
3.What do the Theravada Buddhist Monks in Cambodia
help their monasteries and societies ? (2 groups)
(By Miss Phum Kimyeang)
(Divide into 6 groups)

40. Chapter 3
Theravada Buddhism in Cambodia
Questions
1.Describe the Cambodia from the end of Angkorian period until the
1840s.
2.How did Cambodians people choose a new king?
3.In traditional law codes, what did the kingdom see ?
4.Why did Neak Ta Khleang Moeung and his family die ? What did
he do after he die ?
5.How many categories(kinds) of Neak Ta were divided ? What
were they ?

41. 6.What is the most effective protection ?
7.Why was Phnom Kulen the holiest mountain of the
Angkorian period ?
8.What is principle structures in the monasteries ?
9.What does the monks constitute ?
10.What does the terms of leader of wind imply ?