The Devaraja Cult

Hermann Kulke's The Devaraja Cult, published by Cornell University's Southeast Asia Program in 1978, is a scholarly study of the god-king cult central to Southeast Asian, principally Khmer, sacred kingship. Its authority rests on standard academic publication through a specialist regional studies program and Kulke's standing as a historian of early Southeast Asia. Its limit is age: subsequent decades of epigraphic and archaeological research on Angkor and related sites have refined some specific points a 1978 study could not have incorporated, so a very specific claim about a particular inscription or monument benefits from checking against more recent specialist scholarship, even as the book's broader account of the devaraja concept remains a standard reference.