ABSTRACT
Most histories of Angkor begin in the 9th century CE, as Jayavarman II installed himself on Phnom Kulen as his country’s first cakravartin or universal ruler. Yet he was a direct descendant from a 6th–8th century royal lineage, and areas he consolidated under his reign had well-established Khmer polities whose religion and statecraft provided templates for subsequent Angkorian ideology and rulership. This chapter reviews the Angkorian world before Angkor, focusing specifically on the Mekong Delta because of its longstanding linkages to a maritime world that connected China to South Asia, with Southeast Asia as its fulcrum. We introduce Maritime Southeast Asia and its interactions with a Khmer world that materialised by the 7th century CE and embed Pre-Angkor and Angkorian into the Lower Mekong Basin in which it is located. This historical context is necessary both to understand how Angkor emerged as a regional power and the political and organisation structures that facilitated its ascendance.
