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Hualin International Journal of Buddhist Studies 8.2 (2025): 121–189; https://dx.doi.org/10.15239/hijbs.08.02.07
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Buddhist Epigraphy and Women’s History)
Inscriptions of Indradevī, Chulalak, and Sujātā: Three Buddhist Queens from Cambodia and Thailand
Trent WALKER
University of Michigan
ttwalker@umich.edu
Abstract: This article offers new transliterations, translations, and interpretations of three of the most important inscriptions by or about elite Buddhist women between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries in mainland Southeast Asia. The first inscription (K. 485 from Phimeanakas), in eloquent Sanskrit verse from late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century Cambodia, is an extensive eulogy and list of donations penned by Indradevī, a Mahāyāna Buddhist queen betrothed to Jayavarman VII. The second (No. 93/Sukhothai 26 from Wat Asokārāma), in Thai prose and Pali verse from today’s north-central Thailand, offers a detailed record of donations and aspirations in the voice of Chulalak, a queen of the Sukhothai kingdom who lived in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. The third (K. 303/IMA 2 at Angkor Wat), composed in an elevated style of Middle Khmer prose, records the pious deeds and aspirations of the Cambodian queen-mother Sujātā in the late sixteenth century. Taken together, the three inscriptions provide insights into changing notions of Buddhist queenship, gendered soteriologies, and authorial voice during a period of religious and political transition in Southeast Asia.
Keywords: epigraphy, Buddhism, women, Pali, Sanskrit, Khmer, Thai
About the Author: Trent Walker is Assistant Professor of Southeast Asian Studies and Thai Professor of Theravada Buddhism in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan. A specialist in Southeast Asian literature, religion, and music, his publications include numerous articles on Thai, Lao, Khmer, Pali, and Vietnamese Buddhist texts and recitation practices. He is the author of Until Nirvana’s Time: Buddhist Songs from Cambodia (2022, winner of the 2024 Khyentse Foundation Prize for Outstanding Translation) and the co-editor of Out of the Shadows of Angkor: Cambodian Poetry, Prose, and Performance through the Ages (2022).
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
