page_title: Buddhism in Cambodia
section_title: Khmer nationalism and Buddhism
hierarchical_section_title: Buddhism in Cambodia / Khmer nationalism and Buddhism
caption_attribution_description: English: Khmer traditional mural painting depicts Gautama Buddha gains nirvana in dharma hall, wat Botum Wattey Reacheveraram, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
context_page_description: Buddhism in Cambodia has existed since at least the 5th century. In its earliest form it was a type of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Today, the predominant form of Buddhism in Cambodia is Theravada Buddhism. It is enshrined in the Cambodian constitution as the official religion of the country. Theravada Buddhism has been the Cambodian state religion since the 13th century. As of 2013 it was estimated that 97.9 percent of the population was Buddhist.
  The history of Buddhism in Cambodia spans a number of successive kingdoms and empires. Buddhism entered Cambodia via two different streams. The earliest forms of Buddhism, along with Hindu influences, entered the Kingdom of Funan with Hindu merchants. In later history, a second stream of Buddhism entered Khmer culture during the Angkor empire when Cambodia absorbed the various Buddhist traditions of the Mon kingdoms of Dvaravati and Haripunchai.
  For the first thousand years of Khmer history, Cambodia was ruled by a series of Hindu kings with an occasional Buddhist king, such as Jayavarman I of Funan, Jayavarman VII, who became a mahayanist, and Suryavarman I.
context_section_description: Cambodian Buddhism was instrumental in fomenting Khmer national identity and the independence movement in the 20th century, leading to Cambodian independence as a sovereign state.
  In their attempt to separate the Khmer people from their cultural allegiance to the neighboring Theravada Kingdom of Siam, the French encouraged a sense of Khmer identity by emphasizing Khmer-language studies and Khmer Buddhist studies. They established Pali schools within Cambodia to keep the Cambodian monks from traveling to Siam for higher education. These Khmer language study centers became the birthplace of Cambodian nationalism.
caption: Mural painting depicting Gautama Buddha at Wat Botum
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