| Abstract: |
Surprisingly little has been written on the nuances of social hierarchy in the Angkorian Empire. It hardly seems possible that all women of the Angkor Period resembled the apsara or devata that grace the temple walls. Did ordinary women have agency? Despite references in the inscriptions to a mysterious kanlong kamraten an—a cult of female deities that existed for some 400 years on the banks of the Tonle Sap—the prevailing opinion in scholarship has been that elite women were pawns in a game of thrones. Similarly, although the institution of slavery at Angkor has been studied at length, a clear understanding of the fluidity of bondage structures has been absent in the scholarship until recently. This chapter will elucidate the concept of the individual at Angkor—their legal, social, and religious status—and how this understanding was mutable, never fixed.
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