8.10.1 Legacies for other South-East Asian societies Angkor is the Khmer Empire’s greatest legacy. This city was its capital and its central area of settlement. Angkor provides evidence of Cambodia’s past wealth, strength, culture and religious beliefs. Many thousands of people visit Thailand, Laos and Cambodia each year to marvel at amazing historical sites. This is called cultural tourism. Of all these historical sites, Angkor is arguably the most spectacular; however, it is not the Khmer Empire’s only legacy. The Khmer Empire had cultural and trade relations with other mainland South-East Asian kingdoms and with the maritime South-East Asian states of Java and Srivijaya. Through trade and cultural exchange, and through its rise and fall, the Khmer Empire influenced much of the region. Khmer influence in Thailand Angkor’s civilisation influenced Thai systems of ruling, the way Thai society was organised, Thai architecture and arts, and the development of the Thai written language. From the sixteenth century, Europeans knew Ayutthaya’s Thai empire as Siam. By 1700, Ayutthaya was a vast city with around a million people that traded with the Dutch, French, Chinese and Japanese. But in the eighteenth century, its power declined and in 1776 the Burmese destroyed the city.
SOURCE2 The Khmer written language (a) influenced the development of the Thai written language (b).
Khmer influence in Laos In Laos in 1353, a prince from Angkor named Fa Ngum founded the Theravada Buddhist kingdom of Lan Xang (meaning ‘a million elephants’). As Angkor lost its power, Lan Xang came to dominate modern-day Laos, much of north-eastern Thailand and even parts of southern China and north-western Vietnam. In the seventeenth century, Lan Xang reached the height of its power. European visitors were impressed by its prosperity and its great temples. But when its king died in 1694 without an heir to the throne, Lan Xang broke up into rival kingdoms that came under the influence of its more powerful neighbours — Vietnam, Thailand and Burma. Vietnam after the fall of Angkor During the early fifteenth century, China regained control of Vietnam until the Vietnamese secured their independence in a rebellion in 1428. Vietnam played no role in the decline of Angkor but it benefited by expanding into territory that had been part of the Khmer Empire. This is because much of Vietnam is mountainous and it needed more farming land. It also took territory from Champa. 8.10.2 Cambodia from the sixteenth century In the sixteenth century, Europeans sought wealth from the South-East Asian spice trade but had little impact until the mid-eighteenth century. After Ayutthaya’s attack in 1593, Khmer rulers sought Spanish help, which led to a brief period of Spanish influence before the Spanish were massacred in 1599. During the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Cambodia’s rulers turned to the Thais and then to the
Jacaranda Humanities Alive 8 Victorian Curriculum Third Edition
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