Angkorian "Nation"

Whilst reading Lowman's The Descendants of Kambu: The Political Imagination of Angkorian Cambodia, we see how difficult reconstructing the past of Cambodia is. Relying mainly on inscriptions since other local writings have not survived, Lowman argues for Angkorian Cambodia as a "nation" with a sense of boundedness, territory of nativity, and based on a myth of common descent through Kambu (the origin of the name Cambodia). Evidence of this can be found in the myth of Kambu, the defining of others like the Cham as ethnic/political others, and the degree to which inscriptional evidence attests to way provincial elites recorded their history as propertyholders via genealogy and royal elephant hunts of Jayavarman III. There is a lot more going on here, with additional evidence from the way in which the sense of Khmerness as a "nation" was also how Buddhists in Cambodia sought royal patronage before the reign of Jayavarman VII. Overall, the evidence does suggest something perhaps unique for Cambodia in this period of Southeast Asian history. A sense of ethnic community with a bounded territory of nativity was at least promoted by the royalty at Angkor and provincial elites posted to different parts of the sprawling territory. This was quite distinct from the mandala or cosmological model sometimes haphazardly applied to premodern Southeast Asian states. However, one would like to see more evidence of this through additional inscriptions (more than 3, or 5) so that one can sense that the myth of independence from "Java" or stories of land claims tied to elephant hunts really were more widespread. Perhaps like the case of the peasantry or enslaved people, this is impossible to truly uncover without the discovery of more inscriptions or new types of sources for this period. Sadly, post-Angkorian Cambodia defined its sense of "nation" differently, so Lowman advises against assuming too much continuity.