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To glimpse into the
Khmer Society,
we can understand
that the top of the
hierarchy should
have been the
god-king or
deva-raja,
surrounded by his
tutors who were
brahmins, and
also by the members
of his royal
family. The priests
residing in the
temples were also
powerful as they
seem to own many
lands and the paddy
fields.
The stone
inscription found in
many temples gave
some glimpses to the
donors whose names
were written with
the titles. These
donors could have
been the noblemen or
the dignitaries of
the Khmer's ruling
class responsible
for the
administrative and
judiciary tasks,
however, their
titles were
unfamiliar to the
historians and the
hierarchical ranks
were not known, thus
it is difficult to
draw a complete
table of hierarchy
for the Angkor
Empire.
Since the economy of
the Khmer
civilization was
based mainly on
agriculture, the
majority of the
people should have
been the peasants or
the farmers living
in the villages. It
was not clearly
certain that there
were any small
landowners in the
kingdom since most
inscriptions often
referred to large
landowners of the
elite class or of
the temples.
The lowest hierarchy
of the Khmer
civilization should
have been the
slaves.
Interestingly, there
were two types of
slaves in the
kingdom which are
worth mentioning and
distinguished. As
previously discussed
in the chapter of
"inscription", some
of the Khmer stone
inscriptions were
found to list the
names of slaves who
belonged to the
temples. Since
their names were
carefully crafted
and enshrined in the
holy place, they
could not have been
the low class slaves
as its word "slave"
implied. The
historians believed
that they were
actually the temple
servants and the
priests who were
"the slaves only to
the gods", and not
to any human being.
In reality then, the
"actual slaves" were
mostly the captives
from the neighboring
countries, however,
it was found that
the Khmer people
themselves could
fall into the lowest
status of being a
"slave" if they
failed to pay their
rents or loans to
the upper ruling
class. |
