# Reamker and the Poem of Angkor Wat (c. 1620)

URL: https://allhistories.com/cambodia/timeline/1620-reamker-and-the-poem-of-angkor-wat
Location: Angkor, Cambodia
Themes: main-event

Wikipedia notes that the earliest evidence of the Ramayana in Cambodia is a seventh-century inscription, but the surviving Reamker text dates from the sixteenth century. It was composed by at least three unknown authors, with the first part written in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the second part in the eighteenth. The article places The Poem of Angkor Wat in the early seventeenth century and lists L'berk Angkor Wat, dated 1620, as another work that mentions the epic. These works describe the reliefs on the temple's walls that depict the Rama story, showing Buddhist readers interpreting a Hindu monument. The Reamker adapts the Sanskrit story to Buddhist themes and includes episodes absent from Valmiki's version. Scenes from the epic are painted on the walls of the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh, and the story remains central to Khmer dance and theatre. The poem and the epic are major sources for literary scholars because they show how Cambodian authors translated Indian narrative traditions into local Buddhist language. At this point in the timeline (c. 1620), King Chey Chettha II (1618 – 1627) ruled Post-Angkor Cambodia. Reign dates for this ruler are disputed between sources.

## Why it matters
The Reamker shows continuity between Angkorian Hindu culture and the Buddhist culture of the post-Angkor kingdom.

Ruler at the Time: [King Chey Chettha II](https://allhistories.com/cambodia/rulers/chey-chettha-ii)

## Sources
- [Wikipedia — Reamker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reamker)
- [Wikipedia — Angkor Wat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_Wat)