Cambodia’s Decline and the Fall of Angkor as Pictured in the Chinese Sources during the Yuan and Early-Middle Ming dynasties (Late XIII - Early XV cc.)

Abstract

The fall of Angkor in the 15th century marked a turning point in the Cambodian history leading to the downfall of the Khmer civilization and the start of the so-called “post-Angkor period” which is also often referred to as the “Dark Age of Cambodia”. Local epigraphical sources almost completely disappear from the 13th up to the 16th centuries while the Royal Chronicles dealing with this timeframe were compiled much later, mostly in the 18th and 19th centuries. Therefore, primary sources of this era are very scarce. While it is commonly accepted among the modern researchers that the fall of Angkor was a continuous process and was not a result of a single Siamese attack or a natural calamity (moreover, various reasons for this gradual downfall have been outlined), the perception of this process by other political powers in the region, especially China, has been significantly understudied. In this work the author made an attempt to trace the transformation of depiction of Cambodia in the Chinese sources of the Yuan and early Ming dynasties (both official and private).