Khmer Religion
KHMER RELIGION. The majority of Khmer, the dominant ethnic population of Cambodia, identify themselves as practitioners of Theravāda Buddhism. As in other contemporary Southeast Asian cultures with strong Theravadin identities, the Buddhism practiced in Cambodia is characterized by two trends. Although the Theravadin history of Cambodia is understood by most Khmer to extend back to ancient times, the self-conscious construction of Cambodia as a Theravadin nation is largely a modern development. Khmer Buddhism is (and has long reflected) a complex interweaving of local and translocal religious ideas, movements, rituals, practices, and persons. This history includes, first, the blurring of clear distinctions between Theravāda, Mahāyāna, and Tantric historical development in Cambodia, and second, the incorporation of Buddhist values into local spirit cults and healing practices. As Buddhist scholars have only recently begun to recognize, the older normative presentation of a monolithic "Theravāda" tradition dominating Southeast Asia is largely a scholarly fiction.
Buddhism in Cambodia during the past two millennia has been marked by numerous transformations as it was blended, in different forms, with local and Hindu-influenced cults; as diplomats, missionaries, monks, and traders imported new interpretations, monastic lineages, and practices; and as Buddhism rose and fell from official patronage.
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