History, Buddhism, and New Religious Movements in Cambodia

The volume is organized into four major thematic sections. The first section, “Cambodian Religion and the Historical Construction of Nation,” examines how Cambodian Buddhism and religious identity were shaped through historical memory, royal cults, Theravāda traditions, colonial scholarship, language reform, and the making of national consciousness. It includes studies on Maitreya-related middle-period royal cults, Khmer identity and Theravāda Buddhism, and the Dhammakāy movement during the French protectorate. The second section, “The Icon of the Leper King,” explores the symbolic and ritual importance of kingship, healing, justice, and spirit worship through studies of substitute bodies, royal suffering, and contemporary devotional practices associated with worshipping kings and queens. The third section, “The Ethnography of Contemporary Cambodian Religion,” analyzes lived religious practices, including female asceticism, salvation, possession rituals, Cambodian Buddhist merit-making, and modern forms of tapas. The fourth section, “The Transnationalism of Cambodian Religion,” considers how Cambodian religious identity moves beyond Cambodia itself, especially through the Dhammayātrā peace movement and Cambodian spirit cults in Long Beach, California. Across these sections, the book shows that Cambodian religion is not limited to institutional Theravāda Buddhism, but includes overlapping Buddhist, Brahmanical, royal, spirit, ritual, nationalist, and diasporic formations.