Death and Mortuary Rituals in Mainland Southeast Asia: From Hunter-Gatherers to the God Kings of Angkor

In mailand Southeast Asia, the continuity of burial rites through the ages, with its culmination in the ​“temple mausolea” of Angkor, is remarkable. In this essay, the author, interpreting Bronze Age cemeteries together with their Neolithic predecessors and Iron Age successors, stresses ​“the provision of mortuary feasting in both securing and maintaining the social status of the relatives of the deceased. This may be seen in the placing of lidded pottery containers in graves with fish, shellfi sh, chickens, eggs, pigs, cattle, and water buffalo bones in graves. In this manner, the dead served the living elite, a practice that might have been enhanced when the bones of particularly rich Bronze Age grandees were exhumed perhaps to participate in post mortem rituals, and then carefully reinterred.”

The social role of mortuary rites culminates in the Angkorean civilization. The historic process is described as follows: ​“With the opening of the Southern Maritime Silk Road, exotic goods and ideas reached Southeast Asia. The established elites found in the esoteric Hindu religion an ideological pathway to elevated social status that progressively moved them closer to divine status. By the seventh century, just two centuries after the last Iron Age leaders were interred at Noen U‑Loke, a Khmer king was accorded a title hitherto employed only for gods. With the foundation of the Kingdom of Angkor in the early ninth century, texts inscribed for royal temple mausolea accord the rulers divine titles. Ancestors likewise were worshipped. The construction of increasingly massive temple mausolea, such as Angkor Wat and the Bayon, engaged armies of stone masons, sculptors, architects, priests, goldsmiths, and labourers in a common endeavour whereby merit was gained through contributing to the tomb of a god. In this manner, it is possible to identify in the Angkorian monuments the physical evidence for the exploitation of the populace by the ruling line. One of the particular features of this behaviour is the stress placed upon legitimacy through descent from the divine ancestors. The temple of Preah Ko at Hariharalaya, for example, has six shrines, each dedicated to the worship of King Indravarman’s male and female ancestors.”