Performance as (re)incarnation: The Sdech Kân narrative

Journal of Southeast Asian Studies

Volumn 44, Issue 1, 2013, Pages 4-23

  Norén Nilsson, Astrid ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE; POLITICAL HISTORY;

EID: 84871259399     PISSN: 00224634     EISSN: 14740680     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0022463412000598     Document Type: Article

References (102)

1. Heng Monychenda, 'In search of the Dhammika ruler', in People of virtue: Reconfiguring religion, power and moral order in Cambodia today, ed. Alexandra Kent and David P. Chandler (Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2008), p. 310.
2. See, for example, on Burma, 'Burma: The end of an era or a dynasty's beginning?', Irrawaddy, 26 Jan. 2011;
3. on Laos, Volker Grabowsky and Oliver Tappe, '"Important kings of Laos": Translation and analysis of a Lao cartoon pamphlet', Journal of Lao Studies, 2, 1 (2011): 1-44
4. on Thailand, Irene Stengs, Worshipping the great moderniser: King Chulalongkorn, patron saint of the Thai middle class (Singapore: NUS Press, 2009)
5. Pasuk Phongpaichit and Chris Baker, 'The spirits, the stars and Thai politics', lecture, The Siam Society, Bangkok, 2 Dec. 2008.
6. Judy Ledgerwood, 'Ritual in 1990 Cambodian political theatre: New songs at the edge of the forest', in At the edge of the forest: Essays on Cambodia, history, and narrative in honor of David Chandler, ed. Anne R. Hansen and Judy Ledgerwood (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2008), p. 213.
7. Steve Heder identifies three 'claims of qualification to rule' in postcolonial Cambodia: being sdech, 'king' or 'prince', a title associated with the royal family; neak cheh doeng, a person with higher education; and neak tâsou, a person who has taken part in armed struggle. Hun Sen routinely portrays himself as a military figure, neak tâsou. His claims to being a neak cheh doeng are epitomised by his election into the Royal Academy of Cambodia (RAC) on 28 April 2010.
8. Performing Sdech Kân can be seen as his ultimate claim to being sdech. See Steve Heder, 'Cambodia's democratic transition to neoauthoritarianism', Current History, 94, 596 (Dec. 1995): 425-9.
9. Steve Heder, 'Political theatre in the 2003 Cambodian elections: State, democracy and conciliation in historical perspective', in Staging politics: Power and performance in Asia and Africa, ed. Julia C. Strauss and Donal B. Cruise O'Brien (London: I.B. Tauris, 2007), p. 162, suggests that Hun Sen has 'occasionally attempted to present himself as a neak mean boun', and quotes a 1993 United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) report. The reinvention of Sdech Kân is a first more or less coherent form of narrativisation to frame such claims.
10. Ian C. Harris, Cambodian Buddhism: History and practice (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005), p. 50;
11. for a discussion of the historical Sdech Kân as a neak mean bon see Khing Hoc Dy, 'Neak mean boun, "être de mérites", dans la culture et la littérature du Cambodge', Péninsule, 56, 1 (2008): 6;
12. see also Ashley Thompson, 'The future of Cambodia's past: A messianic Middle-period Cambodian royal cult', in History, Buddhism, and new religious movements in Cambodia, ed. John Marston and Elizabeth Guthrie (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2004) on the neak mean bon during Cambodia's Middle Period (i.e., after the fall of Angkor and before the French protectorate, c. 1450-1863).
13. Khing, 'Neak mean boun', p. 1.
14. Ashley Thompson, 'The suffering of kings: Substitute bodies, healing, and justice in Cambodia', in History, Buddhism, and new religious movements in Cambodia, pp. 91-112;
15. Alexandra Kent, 'The recovery of the king', in People of virtue, pp. 109-27.
16. See Kantorowicz's classical study of the king's two bodies as a political theology of early-modern Western monarchies. Ernst H. Kantorowicz, The king's two bodies: A study in mediaeval political theology (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957).
17. Thompson, 'The suffering of kings', p. 92.
18. Heng, 'In search of the Dhammika ruler', p. 310.
19. See Heng, 'In search of the Dhammika ruler', pp. 317-18.
20. Khing, 'Neak mean boun', p. 22, suggests a complete overlap between the Preah Bat Thommik and neak mean bon through the conceptual link 'dhammik = bodhisatta = neak mean boun'.
21. According to Olivier de Bernon, 'Le Buddh Damnāy: Note sur un texte apocalyptique khmer', Bulletin de l'École Française d'Extrême Orient, 81 (1994): 91, the word 'dhammik' [thommik], part of the Cambodian royal title, designates in Putth Tumneay not only a just monarch, but also the warriors who submit only reluctantly to the sovereign Bodhisattva.
22. Khing, 'Neak mean boun', p. 21;
23. Olivier de Bernon, 'Le Buddh Damnāy', p. 91.
24. On the association of the upheavals described in Putth Tumneay with the Khmer Rouge, see Carol A. Mortland, 'Khmer Buddhists in the United States: Ultimate questions', in Cambodian culture since 1975: Homeland and exile, ed. May Ebihara, Carol Anne Mortland and Judy Ledgerwood (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), p. 82;
25. Frank Smith, Interpretive accounts of the Khmer Rouge years: Personal experience in Cambodian peasant world view (Madison: Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1989), pp. 18-23;
26. Ledgerwood, 'Ritual in 1990 Cambodian political theatre', p. 216.
27. See Heng, 'In search of the Dhammika ruler', p. 313.
28. Some Cambodians consider Sihanouk as the Preah Bat Thommik or as a Bodhisattva, which would make him a neak mean bon. See De Bernon, 'Le Buddh Damnāy', p. 93;
29. Khing, 'Neak mean boun', p. 22.
30. Ledgerwood, 'Ritual in 1990 Cambodian political theatre', p. 216.
31. Olivier de Bernon, 'La prédiction du Bouddha', Aséanie, 1 (1998): 43-66.
32. Hun Sen released a press statement denying that he was a reincarnation of Jayavarman VII; this was prompted, he stated, by how many people believed this to be the case. Ledgerwood, 'Ritual in 1990 Cambodian political theatre', p. 219.
33. Saveros Pou, 'Dieux et rois dans la pensée khmère ancienne', Journal Asiatique, 286, 2 (1998): 656.
34. Saveros Pou, Dictionnaire vieux Khmer-Français-Anglais (Paris: CEDORECK, 1992), p. 508, defines the Old Khmer meaning as 'To be aloof, above all. The supreme one. Sacred beings, espec. Princes. (Of these) To be, stand, move.'
35. Ian Harris, 'The monk and the king: Khieu Chum and regime change in Cambodia', Udaya: Journal of Khmer Studies, 9 (2008): 81-112.
36. Norodom Sihanouk, 'Pour mieux comprendre le Cambodge actuel', Le Sangkum: Revue politique illustrée, 1 (Aug. 1965): 14.
37. Penny Edwards, Cambodge: The cultivation of a nation, 1860-1945 (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2007), p. 250.
38. Harris, Cambodian Buddhism, p. 146.
39. Sihanouk was granted the title of dhammik mahārāj [thommik mohareach] (great righteous king) in the 1947 Constitution, but renounced it by abdicating. He occasionally referred to himself as king-monk (Harris, Cambodian Buddhism, p. 144).
40. In contrast, legend has it that after Trâsâk Ph'aem ascends the throne, the title Preah Bat Thommik is added to his royal title, underlining the overlap between the neak mean bon and the Preah Bat Thommik. See De Bernon, 'Le Buddh Damnāy', p. 91.
41. Kent, 'The recovery of the king'.
42. Julia C. Strauss and Donal B. Cruise O'Brien, 'Introduction', in Staging politics, pp. 2-3.
43. Steve Heder, 'Political theatre', p. 162.
44. Strauss and Cruise O'Brien, 'Introduction', p. 3.
45. Saing Hell, Neak bodevott klaeng klay [The false revolutionary] (Phnom Penh: Ed. Ariyathor, 1972);
46. Tauch Chhoung, Sdech Kân chrek reach [Sdech Kân the usurper] (Paris: Ed. Association des écrivains khmers à l'étranger, 1995).
47. er siècle de notre ère, d'après les inscriptions lapidaires: les annales chinoises et annamites et les documents européens des six derniers siècles (Paris: Paul Guethner, 1914), pp. 235-78.
48. The account given in Adhémard Leclère, 'Le Sdech Kân', Bulletin de la Société des études Indochinoises (BSEI), 59 (1910): 17-55, is largely identical, but omits king Srey Sokonthor Bât's dream.
49. Leclère does not provide a reference for the chronicle on which he based his account. But see Eng Soth's Aekâsar Mohaboros Khmer [Documents on the great Khmer heroes] (Paris: Association Culturelle Pierres d'Angkor, 1985 [1969]), vol. 1, episodes 7-10; vol. 2, episodes 11-19, of which pp. 8-19, largely mirrors Leclère's account as retold above, whilst providing a lengthier account of events.
50. Leclère's BSEI article was reprinted in the volume edited by Michel Tranet, Le Sdach Kan (Phnom Penh: Atelier d'Impression Khmère, 2002).
51. Chroniques Royales du Cambodge: De Bañā yāt à la prise de Laṅvaek: de 1417 a 1595, ed. and trans. Khin Sok (Paris: École Française d'Extrême-Orient, 1988) discusses Sdech Kân's reign, but does not retell the legend recounted above, for which Khin instead references Leclère's 1910 account (p. 258).
52. Tranet, Le Sdach Kan, preface.
53. Hun Sen, 'Visit of Samdech Hun Sen and Bun Rany to the former Royal City of Sanlob Prey Nokor in Kompong Cham', Cambodia New Vision (CNV), 97, 28 Feb. 2006.
54. Hun Sen, 'Inaugurating Buddhist temple in Serei Suosdei Pagoda', CNV, 99, 27 Apr. 2006.
55. Author's interview with Prime Minister Hun Sen, 29 Sept. 2011.
56. With the establishment of the Lao People's Democratic Republic in 1975, Souvanna Phouma became 'Counsellor to the Government', King Savang Vatthana abdicated and was appointed 'Counsellor to the President', former Crown Prince Vong Savang was appointed member of the Supreme People's Assembly, and Prince Souphanouvong was made President of the new republic. Martin Stuart Fox, A history of Laos (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 170.
57. In a further parallel to contemporary Cambodia, the use of traditional notions of legitimacy became even more pronounced following the collapse of communist ideology in the late 1980s, when the Lao regime turned to employ a Buddhist discourse centred on righteous kings. Today, historical kings have increasingly been integrated into what Grabowsky and Tappe refer to as an 'official national hero pantheon'. See Grant Evans, The politics of ritual and remembrance: Lao since 1975 (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 1998), p. 70;
58. Grabowsky and Tappe, 'Important kings of Laos', pp. 1-44;
59. Grant Evans, 'Revolution and royal style: Problems of post-socialist legitimacy in Laos', in Elite cultures: Anthropological perspectives, ed. Chris Shore and Stephen Nugent (London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 189-206.
60. This is even more paradoxical given that the Laotian transition is believed to have entailed putting the king to death. Ex-king Savang Vatthana, his wife and two sons are believed to have died under arrest in Houaphan. Evans, The politics of ritual, pp. 99-100.
61. See Hun Sen's speech at the twentieth anniversary of the return of Sihanouk from exile and Sihanouk's ninetieth birthday, CNV, 164, 30 Oct. 2011, in which Hun Sen, whilst still referring to Sihanouk as the 'father of peace', stops at emphasising 'the brilliant reflection' of Sihanouk and Monineath in 'the creation of [the] policy of national reconciliation and healing'.
62. See, for example, Hun Sen, 'Speech at Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Jakarta, 16 Mar. 1999', cited in Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen: Neayok Rothmontrey brosaut chenh pi trokaul kâsekâr [Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen: Prime minister born in a farmer's family], ed. Chhay Yiheang (Phnom Penh: Ponleu Pech, 2007), p. 79.
63. In yet other speeches, Sdech Kân brings peace in a straightforward parallel to Hun Sen more than three hundred years later. See Hun Sen, 'Inaugurating Buddhist temple in Serei Suosdei Pagoda'.
64. For speeches in which Sdech Kân's killing of Srey Sokonthor Bât is linked to the win-win policy, as the start and end-point of civil war respectively, see, for example, 'Address to the closing session of the national conference: "Peace, national reconciliation and democracy building: Ten years after the Paris Peace Agreement"', CNV, 45, 22 Oct. 2001;
65. 'Address on the occasion of the acceptance of the Honorary Doctorate Degree of Political Science from the University of Ramkhamhaeng, Kingdom of Thailand', CNV, 46, 15 Nov. 2001;
66. for a speech in which 1998 as the end-point of national division since the time of Sdech Kân is put explicitly in relation to the 1997 events, see 'Inaugurating Bayon TV/Radio broadcast station', CNV, 110, 11 Mar. 2007.
67. Leclère, Histoire du Cambodge, p. 252, situates Srolop at the border of the historical provinces Tboung Khmom and Ba Phnom.
68. Ros Chantraboth, Preah Sdech Kân (Phnom Penh: Bânnakear Angkor, 2007), p. 225.
69. Hun Sen, 'Visit of Samdech Hun Sen and Bun Rany to the former Royal City'.
70. Hun Sen, 'Opening Junior High School Bun Rany - Hun Sen Memot', CNV, 108, 5 Jan. 2007.
71. For the former, see, for example, Chhay, Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen, p. 32.
72. On his claims during the PRK, see Ben Kiernan, How Pol Pot came to power: A history of communism in Kampuchea, 1930-1975 (London: Verso, 1985), p. 254.
73. Leang Delux, 'History: Hun Sen finances a book about Sdach Korn', Cambodge Soir, 29 Mar. 2007. A second edition was released in 2007.
74. See Bo Proeuk, 'Hun Sen-sponsored 'Preah Sdach Korn' book needs 2d edition to meet demand', Reaksmey Kampuchea, 25 Sep. 2007.
75. Ros, Preah Sdech Kân, pp. 3-4.
76. The seriousness with which Hun Sen takes allegations of being a traitor to the nation was highlighted by how he warned critics of the 7 January ceremony that anyone accusing him or senior government officials of being a 'national traitor' would be arrested. See Cheang Sokha and Rebecca Puddy, 'Don't call me a traitor: PM', Phnom Penh Post, 10 Jan. 2011.
77. Hun Sen, 'Preface', in Ros, Preah Sdech Kân, p. i.
78. Ros, Preah Sdech Kân, p. 271.
79. Hun Sen, 'Preface', pp. ii-iii.
80. In some of the PM's speeches, it is the very death of Srey Sokonthor Bât that marks the national democratic revolution. See Hun Sen, 'Educational achievements in Kompong Thom's Santuk District', CNV, 121, 11 Feb. 2008.
81. Hun Sen, 13 tosâvot nei domnaoer Kampuchea [13 decades of Cambodia's evolution] (Phnom Penh: Pracheachon, 1991), pp. 76, 280.
82. Reflecting the transformation of regime identity with the transition to a free market economy, Kân is credited not only with having invented the Marxist term class struggle, but also commemorated for having introduced Cambodia's first monetary unit, the sleung. The National Bank of Cambodia has reproduced the sleung coin. See National Bank of Cambodia, 'Cambodia ancient naga coin nordic-gold proof-like coin', http://www.nbc.org.kh/english/nbc- gallery/more-info.php?id=4 (last accessed 1 July 2012).
83. Sihanouk stated that 'we must go back to the past to find the veritable origins of a socialism that did not yet have this name. The installers of this socialism were our Kings of Angkor.' Norodom Sihanouk, 'Pour mieux comprendre le Cambodge actuel', p. 18.
84. Statues of Sdech Kân's four closest aides, namely Oknhas Vieng, Veang, Lompeang and Sral (see Eng, Aekâsar Mohaboros Khmer, pp. 242-3), are being crafted at the time of writing, to accompany the statue in Srolop. Whilst it is unclear whether these are being made in the likeness of particular individuals, this possibility cannot be excluded.
85. Chun Sakada, 'Hun Sen statue removed after dust-up', Voice of America (Khmer), 18 Jun. 2010.
86. Ashley Thompson, 'Angkor revisited: The state of statuary', in What's the use of art: Asian visual and material culture in context, ed. Jan Mrázek and Morgan Pitelka (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2008), p. 187.
87. Hang Chan Sophea, 'Stec Gamlaṅ' and Yāy Deb: Worshipping kings and queens in Cambodia today', in History, Buddhism, and new religious movements in Cambodia, pp. 113, 125.
88. Hang, 'Stec Gamlaṅ' and Yāy Deb', p. 113.
89. See John Marston and Elizabeth Guthrie, 'The icon of the Leper King', in History, Buddhism, and new religious movements in Cambodia, pp. 87-8.
90. Hang, 'Stec Gamlaṅ' and Yāy Deb', pp. 113-14. Classical Cambodian portrait-statues typically represented kings, princes or high dignitaries after their death in their divine aspect.
91. See George Coedès, 'Le portrait dans l'art khmer', Arts Asiatiques, 7 (1960): 179-98;
92. Saveros Pou, 'Dieux et rois dans la pensée khmère ancienne': 653-69;
93. Thompson, 'Angkor revisited', explores the conceptual complexities of the portrait-statue in terms of the relationship between king and the god it represented, suggesting that the old Khmer portrait-statue 'was and is conceived as the posthumous abode of the person/god embodied within, and as an embodiment of the reign of successive kings' (p. 203).
94. The notion of invulnerability is well documented as central to social and political imaginations across Southeast Asia as a core of imaginings of the foundation of political power. See, for example, Andrew Turton, 'Invulnerability and local knowledge', in Thai constructions of knowledge, ed. Chitakasem Manas and Andrew Turton (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1991), pp. 155-82;
95. Tony Day, Fluid iron: State formation in Southeast Asia (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002).
96. Invulnerability is an important characteristic of both the neak mean bon and the Preah Bat Thommik. Turton, 'Invulnerability', p. 171;
97. Khing, 'Neak mean boun', p. 10;
98. Heng, 'In search of', p. 313.
99. Hang, 'Stec Gamlaṅ' and Yāy Deb', pp. 124-5.
100. Sihanouk phrased his return to Angkor after the 1997 events to 'pay his respects to the statues' as a metaphor for reestablishing peace and reconciliation in their wake. Thompson, 'Angkor revisited', p. 181.
101. In 1998, Sihanouk and Queen Monineath sponsored a pavilion for Yāy Deb shortly before a summit to resolve conflict in the wake of the first national elections after the 1997 events. Hang, 'Stec Gamlaṅ' and Yāy Deb', p. 116.
102. See further Ashley Thompson ('Angkor revisited', pp. 203-6), who traces how the struggle for central authority through identification with monuments was bound up with the representation of the nation and borders at the time of the 2003 anti-Thai riots.