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Jayavarman VII built 121 "houses with fire" rest houses built every fifteen kilometers along raised highways for travellers, and 102 hospitals. His was the " Buddhism of the Greater Vehicle ". However, Brahmans continued to play a "role at court", with Hrishikesa being made chief priest, with the title Jayamahapradhana.
For centuries, the reign of King Jayavarman VII of Cambodia was mostly lost to history. ... The stones once belonged to a seven-headed serpent-like statue found with a Buddha in the temple.
Angkor scholar George Coedès has theorized that Jayavarman VII stood squarely in the tradition of the Khmer monarchs in thinking of himself as a devaraja (god-king), the difference being that while his predecessors were Hindus and associated themselves with Brahma and his symbol the, chaturmukha (four faces), Jayavarman VII was a Buddhist. [9]
Jayavarman VII (1181–1215) was the greatest of all Khmer Buddhist kings. Jayavarman VII worked tirelessly to establish Buddhism as the state religion of Angkor. [citation needed] He was already an elderly man, perhaps 60, when he ascended the throne. Before becoming king, he had devoted his long life to meditation and tantra.
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In fact, during this time Jayavarman VII altered the ‘Hindu worldview’ from Deva-raja to Buddha-raja. [12] The Deva-raja cult was established in the early 9th century by Jayavarman II and held its roots in Hindu traditions, with the king defined as the manifestation of the Hindu god, Śiva. [18]
[citation needed] Jayavarman VII was a Mahayana Buddhist, and he regarded himself to be a Dharma-king, a bodhisattva, whose duty was to "save the people" through service and merit-making, liberating himself in the process. Jayavarman withdrew his devotion from the old gods and began to identify more openly with Buddhist traditions.
The bust of Jayavarman VII is a grey-green sandstone head, with downcast eyes and a faint smile. The hairstyle, with the hair pulled into a small round bun at the top of the skull, makes it possible to identify the subject as being a man; the four squatting men sculpted on the pediment of the temple of Banteay Srei, kept at the Guimet museum, have practically the same hairstyle.