Kauṇḍinya, Preah Thaong, and the "Nāgī Somā": Some Aspects of a Cambodian Legend

The love story between a foreign (or not so foreign) prince and the daughter of the King of the Nagas, set on the legendary (or not so imaginary? was the country really under water then? is it the Cambodian version of an universal myth, the Flood that created life on earth? And the legendary Koh Kouk Thlok — the island of the thlok tree [or Nokorkuk Thlok, the land where grow the thlok tree] –, symbolic origin of the Srok ស្រុក Khmer (Khmer Land), has been told and interpreted in many different ways.

Here, the author compares several versions through history (and historiography) to reach his conclusion: ​“If we can regard Preah Thaong [Kaundinya] as a symbol or personification of the immigrating ethnos, then the serpent lady was the symbol or personification of the people already living there, that is, ​“the nagas.””

Chinese sources refer to the marriage of Kaundinya and Neang Neak, also called Queen Soma: ​“Tenth century Chinese encyclopaedia Tai Ping Lu Yuan says Kaundinya (Hun Tian) was a devotee of a Hindu god and dreamt of his god giving him a divine bow and asking him to take to sea in a vessel. The Chinese text that was translated by historian and academician Ramesh Chandra Majumdar said Kaundinya went to a temple of his god and found a bow the morning after the dream. ​“Then he embarked on a trading vessel, and the god changed the course of the wind in such a manner that he came to Funan,” the Chinese encyclopaedia said. ​“Liu Ye (Soma) came in a boat to plunder the vessel. Hun Tian raised his bow and shot an arrow, which pierced through the queen’s boat from one side to the other. The queen was overtaken by fear and submitted to him. Thereupon Hun Tian ruled over the country.”” (notation by Ajay Kamalakaran in his 2021 online essay)

ADB Input

In a version of the Preah Thong and Neang Neak story recorded in a 2010 UNESCO-approved publication for children, the Prince is the son of the Mon king, and the land of the Naga princess is a ​‘nearby island’, suggesting that in ancient times the whole region was an ocean:

Once the Bhodhisattva arrived at a big tree called Thlok on Kok Thlok island. As he approached, he suddenly sighted a monitor lizard called Trokout going into a hole under the tree. He exclaimed to himself, ​“This land is going to be the great kingdom of Kok Thlok and this Trokout is going to be reborn as the son of a king.” The Bhodhisattva’s prophesy was true. The Trokout died and was reborn as Preah Thaong, son of the Mon king. 

One day, Preah Thaong and his servants came to visit the nearby islands. He so enjoyed the islands that he did not realize that the tide was getting high, so high that he could not return to the mainland. He had to spend the night at the sandbar. As he was in deep slumber, a naga princess named Neang Tavottei, the daughter of the naga King, Phuv Chung Neak, and her servants transformed into human forms and came from the underworld to play on the beach. [source: Asia Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding (APCEIU) and Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO), Telling Tales from Southeast Asia and Korea: Teachers’ Guide, 2010, ISBN 978−974−7809−39−8 [p 106 – 11].]

And also:

• The tree with pinkish-brown trunk called thlok ធ្លក [cám in Vietnamese] is Parinari anamensis, also labelled Annamese burada. Pauline Dy Phon (Dictionary of Plants, p 490) noted that in period of food shortage (1975−1979) the edible thlok fruits were boiled before maturity to be mashed and eaten.
• The Vietnamese name is . The trunk has a pinkish-brown hue with soft flaking bark (see illustration). The Khmer name is .
• Kouk Thlok គោកធ្លក is a commune (khum) in Angkor Borei District, Takeo Province.
• There is a prasat (temple) named Kouk Thlok, បា្រសាទគោកធ្លក, part of the Roluos group, in the village also named Kok Thlok, Bakong District, Siem Reap Province.