[avighnay]

Angkor Wat was and is a prime example of human civilization and its early prowess. However, the title is not entirely right. The Angkor Wat by itself was built by Suryavarman who was apparently a descendant of the Cholas of Tamilnadu, India. The Cholas and Pandyas are very under documented empires.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Suryavarman-II

There are tamil inscriptions in Angor Wat and the architecture is highly influenced by Chola/Pandya architecture.

https://www.quora.com/How-did-Tamil-Kingdoms-influence-Angko...

Some examples of what the Cholas and Pandyas accomplished which stands to today are

Tanjore Temple (Cholas) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX9-__GWHnA (Edit: Unfortunately, this video also has a lot of old western cliched ideas of Hinduism, hope I had a better documentary to share...) (for scale, this can fit 200 Taj Mahals)

Madurai Meenakshi (Pandyas) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQjI3DPt9Tk

You can see that the architectural pattern of 4 directional gateways with a central temple complex is basically the same as Angor Wat.

[tacomonstrous]

>The Angkor Wat by itself was built by Suryavarman who was apparently a descendant of the Cholas of Tamilnadu, India.

I don't think there is any evidence to suggest that the Khmer dynasty was ethnically South Asian. Do you have a reference for this?

[richajak]

I think that statement by avighnay is misleading to the readers. Ethnically, South East Asians are definitely not south asian. We can find filipino with mostly western names, malaysian with arabic names, indonesian with old sanskrit names, others with chinese names. however, their ethnicity? hmm

For those who are aware of South East Asian's history, they are influenced by the Indian and Culture culture for the past two millennia, in addition to their own local culture. We can find some traces of Hindu-influence temples AD 800-1500, Chinese trading since Tang Dynasty onwards, even western culture during AD 1500 onwards.

[rusticpenn]

It is very interesting because Suryavarman is a very common Tamil name, Surya means Sun. All his ancestors names are also typical Tamil names and are very similar to names of Chola kings at that time.

[BugsBunny1991]

There doesn't seem to be anything apparent about Suryavarman's origins, at least according to what I've read from Cambodian scholars.