Khmer Folklore
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Khmer Folklore
Cambodian literature (, ), also Khmer literature, has a very ancient origin. Like most Southeast Asian national literatures its traditional corpus has two distinct aspects or levels: *The written literature, mostly restricted to the royal courts or the Buddhist monasteries. *The oral literature, which is based on local folklore. It is heavily influenced by Buddhism, the predominant religion, as well as by the Hindu epics Ramayana and Mahabharata. Ancient stone inscriptions A testimony of the antiquity of the Khmer language are the multitude of epigraphic inscriptions on stone. The first written proof that has allowed the history of the Khmer Empire to be reconstructed are those inscriptions. These writings on columns, stelae and walls throw light on the royal lineages, religious edicts, territorial conquests and internal organization of the kingdom. Buddhist texts Following the stone inscriptions, some of the oldest Khmer documents are translations and commentaries of the P ...
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Khmer Script
Khmer script (, )Huffman, Franklin. 1970. ''Cambodian System of Writing and Beginning Reader''. Yale University Press. . is an abugida (alphasyllabary) script used to write the Khmer language, the official language of Cambodia. It is also used to write Pali in the Buddhist liturgy of Cambodia and Thailand. Khmer is written from left to right. Words within the same sentence or phrase are generally run together with no spaces between them. Consonant clusters within a word are "stacked", with the second (and occasionally third) consonant being written in reduced form under the main consonant. Originally there were 35 consonant characters, but modern Khmer uses only 33. Each character represents a consonant sound together with an inherent vowel, either ''â'' or ''ô''; in many cases, in the absence of another vowel mark, the inherent vowel is to be pronounced after the consonant. There are some independent vowel characters, but vowel sounds are more commonly represented as depe ...
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Puthisen Neang Kong Rei
The legend of The Twelve Sisters or The Twelve Ladies, known as ''Nang Sip Song'' (นางสิบสอง) or as ''Phra Rot Meri'' (พระรถเมรี) in Thai and រឿងភ្នំនាងកង្រី​​ ''Puthisen Neang KongRei'' in Cambodia, is a Southeast Asian folktale, and also an apocryphal Jātaka Tale, the Rathasena Jātaka of the Paññāsa Jātaka collection. It is one of the stories of the previous lives of Shakyamuni Buddha in which Rathasena, the son of one of the twelve women, is the bodhisattva. Background The story of the Twelve Sisters is part of the folk tradition of certain countries in Southeast Asia such as Thailand, Cambodia and Laos and the folktales derived from it come in different versions, often under different titles depending from the country. This legend was also brought to Malaysia by the Malaysian Siamese where it became popular among the Malaysian Chinese community. It is a long story about the life of twelve sisters ab ...
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Ka Kee
''Ka Kee'' () or ''Unfaithful '' is a 1980 Thai fantasy film based on the classical versified in '' Kaki Klon Suphap'' () written by Thai classical poet Chao Phraya Phrakhlong (Hon) () (c. 1740s - 1805), part of Thai folklore. The film was directed by Nerramitr and became one of the most famous Thai fantasy films of the year. A fotonovela based on scenes of the movie was also printed. Other Thai movies with the same title but not based on the classical poem were released in 2003 and 2012. Plot Garuda came down from his celestial residence to gamble with an ancient king in a dice game. Garuda saw the beautiful Ka Kee, the king's wife, and kidnapped her. The king's musician helped her to escape by also seducing her. The king took offence at Ka Kee's unfaithfulness, for she had slept with three men. He punished her by banishing her to a raft that floated to the middle of the ocean, sure that she would not survive her ordeal. The raft drifted until it arrived at an island while Ka ...
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Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion, diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age#South Asia, Bronze Age. Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism, the language of classical Hindu philosophy, and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism. It was a lingua franca, link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in the early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture, and of the political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting effect on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies. Sanskrit generally connotes several Indo-Aryan languages# ...
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Kakey
''Neang Kakey'' () is a Khmer '' sāstrā lbaeng'' tale and the best-known work composed as a melodrama in verse by future King of Cambodia Ang Duong in 1815 during the time he resided at the Royal Court in Thailand. The novel became a classic in modern post-Independence Cambodia and was incorporated in the curriculum for Khmer high schools. Origin While he was studying at the Royal Court in Bangkok, King Ang Duong was inspired by the Thai folk tale ''Kaki Klon Suphap'' to write, when he was only 19 years of age, a similar tale in Khmer, about an unfaithful wife, far from virtue and what the canons of society expected at that time. A Buddhist tale of virtue and vice Ang Duong wrote during a time when traditional Buddhist Theravada was influential in Cambodia and when indulgence on physical beauty was strictly moderated. His melodrama around the misadventures of Neang Kakey were primarily derived from two jataka stories, '' Kakati Jataka'' and ''Sussondi Jataka'', as part of ...
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Ang Duong
Ang Duong ( ; 12 June 1796 – 18 October 1860) was the King of Cambodia from 1848 to his death in 1860. Formally invested in 1848, his rule benefited a kingdom that had suffered from several centuries of royal dissent and decline. His politics focused on sustained national unity and identity and the minimization of foreign interference. He issued the first substantial revision of the legal codex in centuries, and he encouraged and supervised religious and cultural reforms. Confronted with increasing Rattanakosin Kingdom, Siamese and Nguyễn dynasty, Vietnamese encroachment, he attempted to establish an alliance with French colonial empire, colonial France on a sovereign basis. Although this alliance ultimately culminated in the 90-year period of the French protectorate of Cambodia, King Ang Duong's actions were the foundation for the modern united state of Cambodia. Ang Duong ascended the throne with the title ''Preah Karuna Preah Bat Samdech Preah Harireak Reamea Issathipadei An ...
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Dance In Cambodia
Dance in Cambodia ( ''robam'') consists of three main categories: classical dance of the royal court, folk dance which portrays cultural traditions, and social dances performed in social gatherings. Classical dance Cambodia's premier performing art form is Khmer classical dance, or ''Robam Preah Reach Trop'', a highly stylized dance form originating from the royal courts. Originally performed and maintained by attendants of the royal palaces, Khmer classical dance was introduced to the general public in the mid-20th century and became widely celebrated as iconic of Cambodian culture, often performed during public events, holidays, and for tourists visiting Cambodia. Performances feature elaborately costumed dancers performing slow and figurative gestures to the musical accompaniment of a pinpeat ensemble. The classical repertoire includes dances of tribute or invocation and the enactment of traditional stories and epic poems such as the ''Ramayana''. Two of the most perfo ...
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Mermaid
In folklore, a mermaid is an aquatic creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide, including Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Mermaids are sometimes associated with perilous events such as storms, shipwrecks, and drownings (cf. ). In other folk traditions (or sometimes within the same traditions), they can be benevolent or beneficent, bestowing boons or falling in love with humans. The male equivalent of the mermaid is the merman, also a familiar figure in folklore and heraldry. Although traditions about and reported sightings of mermen are less common than those of mermaids, they are in folklore generally assumed to co-exist with their female counterparts. The male and the female collectively are sometimes referred to as merfolk or merpeople. The Western concept of mermaids as beautiful, seductive singers may have been influenced by the sirens of Greek mythology, which w ...
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Sovanmacha
Suvannamaccha (; ; , ALA-LC: ''Suvaṇṇmacchā''; , ; literally "golden fish") is a daughter of Ravana (Thotsakan) appearing in the Thai and other Southeast Asian versions of Ramayana. She is a mermaid princess who tries to spoil Hanuman's plans to build a bridge to Lanka but falls in love with him instead. The figure of Suvannamaccha is popular in Thai folklore and is represented on small cloth streamers or framed pictures that are hung as luck-bringing charms in shops and houses throughout Thailand. Story Hanuman, building a causeway, discovered that he was hampered by mermaids underwater. When the divine mother Goddess Sita is kidnapped, her husband Lord Rama enlists Hanuman's aid in rescuing her. Hanuman learns that divine mother the goddess Sita is being held captive on the island of Lanka. He informs Lord Rama, her husband, who orders him to build a causeway to Sri Lanka from India so Rama's army can attack. Hanuman collects his band of Vanaras and they begin throwing h ...
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Hanuman
Hanuman (; , ), also known as Maruti, Bajrangabali, and Anjaneya, is a deity in Hinduism, revered as a divine ''vanara'', and a devoted companion of the deity Rama. Central to the ''Ramayana'', Hanuman is celebrated for his unwavering devotion to Rama and is considered a '' chiranjivi''. He is traditionally believed to be the spiritual offspring of the wind deity Vayu, who is said to have played a significant role in his birth. In Shaiva tradition, he is regarded to be an incarnation of Shiva, while in most of the Vaishnava traditions he is the son and incarnation of Vayu. His tales are recounted not only in the ''Ramayana'' but also in the '' Mahabharata'' and various ''Puranas''. Devotional practices centered around Hanuman were not prominent in these texts or in early archaeological evidence. His theological significance and the cultivation of a devoted following emerged roughly a millennium after the ''Ramayana'' was composed, during the second millennium CE.Paula Richman ...
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Indian Epics
Indian epic poetry is the epic poetry written in the Indian subcontinent, traditionally called ''Kavya'' (or ''Kāvya''; Sanskrit: काव्य, IAST: ''kāvyá''). The ''Ramayana'' and the ''Mahabharata'', which were originally composed in Sanskrit and later translated into many other Indian languages, and the Five Great Epics of Tamil literature and Sangam literature are some of the oldest surviving epic poems ever written. List of longest epics Hindi epics In modern Hindi literature, '' Kamayani'' by Jaishankar Prasad has attained the status of an epic. The narrative of Kamayani is based on a popular mythological story, first mentioned in Satapatha Brahmana. It is a story of the great flood and the central characters of the epic poem are Manu (a male) and Shraddha (a female). Manu is representative of the human psyche and Shradha represents love. Another female character is Ida, who represents rationality. Some critics surmise that the three lead characters of Ka ...
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