ABSTRACT
After a long period of strife and internecine warfare, Suryavarman II defeated several opponents and ascended to the Cambodian throne, inaugurating the greatest period of premodern Cambodian cultural production and imperial expansion. He came to the throne after defeating a rival prince in a large battle in 1113. Cambodia in the twelfth century was a theocracy, a form of government in which the supreme ruler is a god (or gods), usually served by a priesthood. Suryavarman's heroic act was to begin constructing Angkor Wat, the enormous addition to the famous temple complex at Angkor. Suryavarman II ensured great prosperity and prestige to the Cambodian elites, but in doing so he bankrupted the country's economy. He ushered in an age of strife that exceeded the one he had ended, and encouraged a profound social and cultural shift in Cambodia that endures to the present.
