The Fall of the Holy: Collapse of the Khmer Empire in Southeast Asia in the 15th century A.D.

Class: Sustainability and Resilience in History
Grade: 9.5/10
Year: 2017

Introduction

It’s 1431 in South-East Asia; in an area we now call Cambodia. At the time it was the Khmer Empire, one of the largest and most technologically advanced civilizations around. We’re standing in Angkor, the religious capital, and a sprawling “urban landscape…cover[ing] an area of about 1000 square kilometers” (Stone, 2013, pg. 2). Miles of waterworks stretch out from the temple at the center of what is known as the West Baray. Angkor Wat, “the largest religious building ever constructed on the planet” (Mithen, 2012, pg. 195), raises several stories into the sky, the red sandstone glittering in the evening sun in hues of gold, orange, and yellow. Standing here now, the vast waterworks seem sluggish, clogged with years of silt and sand, their walls broken down and in some areas blocked off. There is blood on the ground, smoke in the air, and great swatches of deforested hills all standing eerily silent. What happened here to bring about the destruction of a civilization over 600 years old? What happened to the great city that Jayavarman II founded in 802 C.E. (Stone, 2013, pg. 1) and why couldn’t such an advanced society stop it in time to save them from collapse? To discover this, we must return to the mid-1300s when things started to go wrong. Yet even before there were subtle issues arising. At the center of the Khmer’s demise was the mistaken the belief that humans could act as Gods and alter the landscape to whatever point he wished. In the case of the Khmer, the combination of climatic change (specifically drought conditions) and the hostile activities of neighbors was the tipping point that led to collapse.

802 C.E. saw the merger of varying and the often warlike peoples of South East Asia, becoming united citizens of the Khmer empire. Jayavarman II was “the first to be declared as the King of Kings” and he demonstrated his military prowess by subduing and enforcing control of numerous other kingdoms. The population of Angkor eventually “number[ed] hundreds of thousands: courtiers, aristocrats, priests, soldiers, craftsmen, farmers and slaves” with the majority being “peasant rice farmers” (Mithen, 2012, pg. 199). Rice farmers are significant, because the hierarchy of Angkor was centralized around the need to feed an ever increasing population, which meant more land, and more farmers.

Location, Location, Location


Jayavarman II built his first capital in an extensive floodplain north of what is called the Great Lake within the Mekong Basin, whose source starts high in the Tibetan Mountains and eventually empties into the South China Sea (Mithen, 2012, pg. 195). The location is an important aspect of the Khmer civilization and their agricultural selection. Rice plants require a lot of water, commonly grown in flooded paddies, or fields. Today, as was probably true in the time of Jayavarman II, farmers use a technique called “receding-flood agriculture – planting rice on recently inundated ground” (Mithen, 2012, pg. 199). This is most effective during the monsoon season, and is far less successful during the dry season. To remediate this inequality in their fresh water supply, the Khmer became master waterworks builders. The West Baray, around Angkor Wat, is a man-made moat complete with “a vast network of canals and reservoirs [and] at least one [construction] project [which] permanently chang[ed] the hydrology of Angkor itself” (Hirst, 2017, pg. 2). 

Adaptability in an Unforgiving Landscape

“The management and allocation of water is driven by two [factors:]…water as a basic good…and water as an economic good” (Sithirith, 2017, pg. 4); water is necessary not only for crops during dry spells but for everyday usage of drinking and cleaning. This is especially true in Cambodia, where even today “[f]loods account…for 70% of rice production losses…while drought account[s] for 20%...the other 10%... [is] due to…pest and disease outbreaks” (Sithirith, 2017, pg. 2). To manage the monsoon rains, the Khmer built the barays and canals. It is important to note when these massive construction projects were taking place in time. The Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) transitioned to the Little Ice Age (LIA) between 900/950 C.E. and 1250/1300 C.E. This resulted in higher rainfall than is experienced today, and “provided for the rapid growth of Khmer agriculture and population” (Gundersen, 2015, p. 63). This, in turn, led to urban and suburban expansion into the forests surrounding the capital, additional clear cutting produce more rice paddies. Thus began a pattern of deforestation that would later take a major role in weakening the society.

Snorkeling Camels

This period of time also saw the expansion of empires; the Maori discovered New Zealand (950 C.E.), the Vikings settled Greenland (979-980 C.E.) (Wheeler, 2017, pg. 1), and simultaneously the Mayan Post-Classical Period was occurring (950-1539 C.E.)- a time when they were beginning to abandon their cities. The MCA also saw the growth of trade via the Indian Ocean Trade Routes due to the monsoons created by the La Niña winds and currents (Gundersen, 2015, pg. 63). These winds travel from Africa to India between April and September, and then reverse during November to February. These very predictable winds resulted in a lower risk for transporting goods, creating cheaper trade, and thus economic growth and stability (Green, 2012). This coincided with a shift in “regional economic focus toward…maritime trade” (Buckley, et al., 2010, pg. 6749) in 1370 C.E.

Figure 1Indian Ocean Maritime Trade (Green, 2012)

In the midst of all this trade, there was a significant change to weather patterns. “[B]etween 1290 and the 1340s, Cambodia was much drier…indicating the onset of the [Little Ice Age]” (Gundersen, 2015, pg. 63). This change created long periods of drought, followed by flooding conditions and decreased temperatures, the latter cause occurred globally as result of volcanic eruptions (Gundersen, 2015, pp. 63-64). This combination of climate change coupled with an agriculturally intensive society along with the growing Maritime trade saw their power begin to diminish in the region away from Angkor and more wars with neighbors, culminating in a final war with the Siamese kingdom of Ayuttaya in 1431, the traditional date for the Khmer Empire Collapse (Hirst, 2017, pg. 1).

Not the First Time

The barays and temple complexes functioned similarly to that of the Mayan Temple Structures or the Mo’ai of Easter Island. The structures were used as religious and political centers but they also were a demonstration of past leader’s influence, might, and wealth (Mithen, 2012, pp. 201, 222). The barays and temples utilized vast resources, not only in materials but labor and power. The stone was mined at the Phnom Kulen Mountain ~ 40km away. The East Baray is estimated to have required “six-million man-days…to erect its embankments” (Mithen, 2012, pg. 201). It is reasonable to assume that when the weather changed and the Khmer were faced with “decades-long periods of megamonsoons and droughts” (Stone, 2013, pg. 2) that their water management systems failed.

The Khmer attempted to rectify the damage caused by drought as they occurred. “The first channel was reduced to a third of its original 30 m width, and a narrow exit channel was taken off to the southeast…[at]…Krol Romeas, the massive eastern exit channel of the East Baray” (Buckley, et al., 2010, pg. 6749). These attempts to redesign the water systems still resulted in many of the barays becoming blocked by sediment deposits (Yirka, 2012, pg. 1). Dendrochronology records show that a “megadrought lasting three decades—from the 1330s to 1360s—[was] followed by a more severe but shorter drought from the 1400s to 1420s” (Columbia University, 2010, pg. 1). With Angkor Thom (the larger settlement around Angkor Wat) encompassing “more than 13 square miles of formally planned urban space” (Swaminathan, 2013, pg. 1) one can extrapolate that these lengthy droughts followed by sudden monsoons, followed by even more droughts, led to a food shortage that left the citizenry starving, sick and dying. 

Rice Riots

When a population suffers calamity they do what most of us would: look to their leaders. If the leaders cannot fix the problem, then the citizenry, for the most part, tend to take the matter into their own hands. In the Khmer’s case, the internal struggles start to be apparent in the 1300s. In Thailand, the droughts led to famine and disease, most notably, “a major smallpox epidemic…between 1330 and 1352” (Gundersen, 2015, pg. 64). Constant warring between the civilizations suggests that numerous parts of the Khmer Empire were affected; evidence of religious intolerance, civil unrest and violence hint at this combination of food shortage and potentially diseased populace. In 1296 an emissary by the name of Zhou Daguan of the Yuan Dynasty, China, arrived and spent a year in Angkor where he wrote the book ‘Memoirs of the Customs of Cambodia’ in which “he describes the everyday life of the king, courtiers and his people” (Mithen, 2012, pg. 204). He describes the state as opulent but challenged from abroad by the “Vietnamese and Thai armies[…] the civilization…in decline” (Mithen, 2012, pg. 204). As evidenced by defacement and destruction of thousands of Buddhist images across the Empire. When Zhou first arrived, Buddhism was again a strong force, but within ten years the Thai army had advanced, whittling down power while artistic endeavors were declining. “No stone temples or inscriptions are known [to have been created after] 1327” (Mithen, 2012, pg. 204).

The first megadrought believed to have occurred three years later provides evidence of how architecture was reduced in status and their dwindling resources used elsewhere. Airborne laser scanning [LiDAR] has shown that Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom both suffered severe economic decline. “[T]he medieval settlements at Phnom Kulen and Koh Ker had extensive hydraulic engineering on a scale comparable to Angkor, showing a much wider reliance on [the Khmer’s] water management system…[and] uncovered ‘very serious’ erosion” (Stone, 2013, pg. 3). An additional problem stemmed from the choice of construction methods; as opposed to the stone structures of the temples, the city (including the palace) and agricultural communities were wood and thatch structures. With economic collapse these structures quickly deteriorated in the wet conditions becoming brittle and stressed when dried (Hirst, 2017, pg. 2). The failure of the city’s waterworks’ systems accounts for the move of the capital to Phnom Penh at the Mekong Delta which was in a better position to take advantage of trade routes.

Conclusion

Was the Khmer Empire doomed from the beginning? Evaluating Diamond’s 5-point-framework we see several causes for concern. First, the climate of the 14th and 15th centuries could best be categorized as bi-polar. Great shifts between drought and flood wrecked havoc across the region and contributed to the loss of crops and the spread of disease. Second, the environmental problems of deforestation and over agricultural expansion greatly taxed the fragile tropical jungle environment. While collecting water in the barays and moats worked in predictable seasons, they were unable to handle quick and explosive changes. This leads into the third point, the failure of the Khmer to adapt to a suddenly changing environment. This is where Diamond falls a bit short. One could easily say that the Khmer couldn’t adapt and that’s why the waterworks showed such damage, but there is plenty of evidence that they tried changing the catchment system and yet it still failed. Here is where the scope of the problem plays such a drastic role. If the drought had been short term, they probably would have gotten through it, just as they did during the dry seasons, however, when you have a drought that lasts for thirty years, it’s simply overwhelming. The fourth and fifth points go together as one can say that the Khmer were a hostile people. Like the Maya, they seemed to enjoy warfare to some extent, participating in battles from Laos to Thailand and having twelve rulers (two from Siam) in the 1300s alone (World Library, 2017, pp. 5-6). With internal conflicts such as the Buddhism defacement period and external wars and poor external trade management, the Khmer Empire does seem to meet all of Diamond’s requirements for a societal collapse. However, one must say that the most significant pieces to the collapse were, in fact, the climate change (drought/flood) and hostile neighbors. Overwhelming drought conditions with periods of intense floods during the monsoon seasons interspersed with war after war weakened the society to the point where it could sustain itself no longer. 

P.S. A Warning to the Future

The idea that the climate is constantly changing isn’t new; how to deal with it is. Do we use technology; stop burning fossil fuels; population control; GMO food for the Global South; or redistribute wealth? It’s not a simple answer because there are so many stakeholders involved as well as political and religious concerns. However, these issues are just that, GLOBAL, and therefore our only option is to work together to handle them. A start would be to focus on environmental practices such as soil erosion and water contamination. By minimizing these items through legislative and community programs, for instance, re-planting trees or harsher fines for contamination by individuals/companies, we can start to minimize the damage caused by extreme weather. We have seen how destructive storms and earthquakes are now (ex. Haiti and Fukushima) if the weather gets to the point it did in the 1400s a thirty-year drought in the Global South could lead to famine, disease, and war. However, unlike the Khmer with their bronze-age weapons, many countries now have access to guns, planes, and nuclear/chemical weapons. A famine now could very well lead to the next World War. If that happens, no one will be safe. A single civilization will not fall. Humanity will. 

Bibliography

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