Jayavarman VII
“He suffered the illnesses of his subjects more than his own; because it is the pain of the public that is the pain of kings.”
Any time you feel like you’re too old to try something new, just remember that 11th-century Khmer Emperor Jayavarman the Seventh was a larger-than-life Cambodian badass who appeared out of absolutely nowhere at the age of 57, when he came riding out of the jungle on the back of a goddamn war elephant, forged his oppressed people into a massive army of sword-wielding maniacs who liberated his homeland with fire and steel, retook the capital of the Khmer Empire from a brutal invader, avenged his family line against his Empire’s most ancient and hated enemies, then fed his captives to crocodiles or paraded their severed heads around as trophies, then marched to their homeland, captured their King, and forced the complete subjugation of their civilization. Then, when he was done manhandling his ancient enemies, he went home, built a million temples, laid the foundation for the entire history of Traditional Cambodian Medicine, constructed a vast highway system spanning all of Southeast Asia, converted his Kingdom to Buddhism, taught the women of his kingdom to read, carved his own giant face on a couple hundred mountainsides, constructed some of the most iconic structures of the Ancient World, may or may not have had sex with a Goddess (depending on what sources you want to believe), and then died of some kind of crazy disease at the age of 95 (?!) and vanished into history for 700 years, completely forgotten by all of civilization until some archaeologists dug up his works in the early 20th century.
Civ Six maxes this dude look like a total goofball, but take a look at this artwork from the Cambodian National History Musuem and tell me you don’t think this guy could fuck some shit up:
He’s the guyin the gold armor riding on the back of the armored war elephant, surrounded by servants, musicians, and a gigantic fucking army of infantry, cavalry, elephants, chariots, and siege artillery.
As with many great Badasses of History, very little is known about Jayavarman VII as a young man. He just kind of materializes out of the forest as a grown-ass man in full battle armor on a mission of vengeance, like some kind of Avenging Spirit of Badass that just simply appears when history needs a dude who can snap skulls in half with a knee strike. There’s at least some chance that he was the son of the Dharanindravarman II, the King who ruled the mighty Khmer Empire from 1150 to 1160, but, as with many things involving Jayavarman, we really can’t even confirm that. We kinda only think this guy was a prince because after he conquered, crushed, and annihilated anyone who stood in his way he carved a bunch of giant-ass stone tablets declaring that he was the Rightful Heir to the Throne and that anyone who stood in his way had their ballsacks removed by a squad of rabid ball-eating alligators, and it’s not like there are a lot of conflicting primary sources from the time period to contradict him. So, fair enough. You do you, man. I’m not gonna start shit, that’s for sure.
Well the story goes that King Dharanandravarman II died in 1160 and was succeded by his son Yasovarman II, who ruled for six years before being betrayed by one of his noblemen and murdered to fuck in his own throne room. The usurper’s name was Tribhuvanadityavarman, which is largely irrelevant to this story, but I only mention it because it’s a crazy-looking name and anyone foolish enough to try to use a text-to-speech program to listen to this article is going to think that fucking Alexa just had a stroke or something.
Anyway, Tribhuvanadityavarauvanadityman ruled at Angkor Wat for eleven years, but his rule was chaotic, weak, and managed about as well as one of those construction projects where two dudes in hardhats block several lanes of the highway for eighteen months so they can stare at a rotting bag of concrete and scratch their balls aggressively at oncoming traffic. Trib was eventually attacked by the Khmer’s ancient enemies, the Cham Empire from present-day Southern Vietnam, who invaded via war canoes in 1177, attacked Angkor Wat by complete surprise, humiliated Trib Ditty Man in battle, sacked and burned his capital to cinders, and then cut out his gallbladder and the gallbladders of several of his top generals and family members and ate them.
It is a low point in Khmer history. Their king was dead, mutilated, and humiliated, their capital in ruins, their Empire in the hands of their ancient enemies, and the Cham were eating gallbladders all over the fucking place for some reason.
It was then that a hero came riding to their rescue: Fifty-seven year old Jayavaram VII, on the back of a mighty war elephant, emerged from the jungles of Cambodia, united his disgruntled people, organized them into a cohesive fighting force, and marched them to war against the Cham -- to retake their capital, reclaim the throne, and end this period of chaos and destruction that had been plaguing their people for decades.
Shit was about to get really real for real.
Jayavarman VII arrived literally out of nowhere, in the middle of the jungle, gathered an army of badass Cambodian warriors, and went completely fucking ballista-istic on his enemies. Riding into combat on the back of a giant war elephant, dressed in gold armor, this guy led armies on land and at sea to face his enemies. In a big naval battle, his troops swarmed from their war canoes onto the enemy ships, smiting, hacking, and chopping their way through their foes, sending the wounded and dying men splashing down into crocodile-infested waters where they were then torn to pieces by badass armored death-rolls. He led armies in the field, not only retaking Angkor Wat from the Cham and reclaiming his throne, but then leading his forces east towards their enemies, crushing the Cham armies in the field, capturing THEIR capital, imprisoning their King, and forcing an end to the war by making them accept a humiliating arrangement that left the Cham little more than a vassal state of the Khmer. He then led his victorious forces against any other enemies he had on his borders, forging a mighty Khmer Empire that spanned from present-day Cambodia into Vietnam, Laos, Burma, Thailand, and even down the Malaysian Peninsula. It would be the furthest the empire would stretch in its 500-year existence.
But Jayavarman was more than just a military leader and conquerer who used gigantic fucking elephants and wheeled siege engines to stomp his foes into mashed potatoes and put an end to three decades of civil unrest and chaos in his homeland. He was also kind of a badass organizer, leader, and administrator — things you typically don’t expect from a guy who flosses his teeth with enemy tibias. Interestingly, after taking the throne in the year 1181 at the age of 61 years old, Jayavarman VII then proceeded to become one of the greatest builders of the ancient world, constructing thousands of statues, temples, hospitals, roads, and other public works during his unbelievable thirty-seven year reign. (There’s a theory that he was working fast because he was already 60 when he took the throne and wasn’t sure how much time he’d have, but apparently he was able to keep that shit up for 30+ years without dying, going insane, becoming evil, or passing out from exhaustion, so good on him.)
He also apparently had 3,000 concubines living in his palace and claimed that happiness and prosperity came to his people because he would climb this big tower in Angkor Thom every night to have sex with the Goddess Naga in exchange for good weather and harvests, but that’s a detail I learned from watching a History Channel documentary on the Khmer Empire once and I wasn’t able to back up in any of my other sources, so, while it’s badass enough to warrant a mention on this site, you should also probably take it with a grain of salt because it’s coming from the same place that summarizes three thousand years of Egyptian Hegemony by getting a bunch of academically-discredited dudes in Van Halen t-shirts to sit in front of a camera and declare that there’s no way an ancient African civilization could have built anything cool unless they were aided by benevolent Martians or time-traveling Europeans.
Jayavarman on his badass Golden Throne.
And his personal hot tub.
We do have record of Jayavarman’s wife, a woman named Jayarajadevi, who was renowned as a poet, scientist, philosopher, and devout Buddhist. Jayarajadevi and her sister Rajendradevi were believed to be instrumental in Jayavarman’s works as king, and both sisters worked tirelessly not only to build Buddhist temples and educate the people in religious philosophy, but they also helped educate the girls and women of Angkor, teaching them to read, write, and understand basic concepts of science and medicine. It was largely due to their influence that Jayavarman had such great success bringing Buddhism to Cambodia, and they were probably influential in his decision to focus his energy on building hospitals and temples. Many of their writings remain and are important pieces of Cambodian history. Which, yeah. I like that.
And Jayavarman’s public works were pretty spectacular, even looking at them a millenia after they were built, let alone back when this shit was brand new out of the box. In addition to doing the usual Conquering King Badass thing (carving his face in every mountainside he could find, having a team of artists chisel out battle scenes of him stomping his enemies into dust and feeding them to wild animals, commissioning artwork of himself killing wild animals with a bow while hot chicks begged him to take a break from slaughtering his enemies so he could have sex with them, etc.) he also constructed some of the most enduring projects of Cambodian history: he rebuild the ruins of Angkor Wat, constructed the palatial walled city of Angkor Thom, built the temples at Bayone and Ta Prohm, constructed huge mausoleums commemorating his fallen family members, built towering statues of Buddhas, dug reservoirs and lakes to bring clean water to his people, and built roads and highways through seemingly-impenetrable jungle so he could connect his capital to the villages and towns in his domain. He constructed a very detailed highway system with a hundred guarded rest stops along the way, then built a hundred and two hospitals to provide medical care for all the people under his dominion. These hospitals form the basis of Traditional Cambodian Medicine, and they were not only staffed by thousands of doctors and nurses but also stocked with everything from trauma kits to hemorrhoid cream -- which is not a joke, they literally listed on a giant stone stele somewhere in Cambodia that this dude provided nearly 2,000 boxes of that shit inventoried across the 102 hospitals in his reign.
After bringing his kingdom into a golden age of power and ruling over a massive civilization as a Benevolent Dictator for 37 years, Jayavarman VII finally passed away in 1218 at the age of 95, possibly of leprosy, which is pretty badass. He, and his works, were eventually forgotten by history, overtaken during the course of several centuries by the relentless growth of the Cambodian jungle, until their rediscovery by archaeologists in the early 20th century. Nowadays you can visit them, restored to a portion of their former glory, and they’re considered World Heritage Sites by UNESCO.
Links:
Chronology of Cambodian History
Books:
DiBiasio, Jame. The Story of Angkor. N.p.: Silkworm Books, 2013.
Higham, Charles. The Civilization of Angkor. United States: University of California Press, 2004.
