Pantheons
Khmer
Other Pantheons
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The neak ta, tutelary spirits of the land and of ancestors, honoured at shrines in villages, fields and forests across Cambodia as part of Khmer folk religion. They sit alongside Theravada Buddhism rather than in competition with it, absorbing older Angkorian era devotion to local guardian spirits and to figures of the pre-Buddhist Khmer court. A neak ta's shrine is typically a modest structure housing a stone or carved figure, tended by a local caretaker, and consulted for matters of health, harvest and community welfare rather than for salvation.
Facts
Structure
Structure of the PantheonLocal and lineage cults gathered under one name, with no single frame 1 Divine HeadshipNo sovereign; the gods act as peers 1 Succession Between Divine GenerationsOne divine generation; no succession between generations is recorded 1 The Creator and the Ruling GodsThe world was formed from pre-existing matter or from a slain being, with no creator god 1 Attestation
Era of AttestationHeld from the beginning in the tradition's own terms; documented in the outside record from the colonial period, and read by scholars as predating the Angkorian establishment of Hinduism and Buddhism 1 Veneration TodayActively venerated in a living tradition 1 Sources
Primary SourceOral tradition held within Khmer villages, with published ethnography 1 Organisation
Membership of the PantheonEvery place, clan and lineage adds its own 1 How Mortals Enter the PantheonAncestors and founders become objects of cult 1 Cult
Principal Cult CentreNo single centre. Each locality keeps its own neak ta at a village shrine, often a stone set under a tree 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Neak Ta directly: "The neak ta, tutelary spirits of the land and of ancestors, honoured at shrines in villages, fields and forests across Cambodia as part of Khmer folk religion."
This source names Theravada directly: "They sit alongside Theravada Buddhism rather than in competition with it, absorbing older Angkorian era devotion to local guardian spirits and to figures of the pre-Buddhist Khmer court."
Sources
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