Angkor Thom's Divine Medicine

An extensive 12th-century hospital network is being revealed in Cambodia.

- Marley Brown

Just beyond the walled city of Angkor Thom, within the ancient Khmer metropolis of Angkor in northwestern Cambodia, archaeologists have unearthed evidence of what might be the world’s first government healthcare system. They are investigating the remains of a twelfth-century hospital complex called Tonle Sngout, which sat at one of five gates to Angkor Thom. The hospital served as a bustling checkpoint for thousands of residents, travelers, patients, and pilgrims entering and leaving the city. The findings, including six rare statues, attest to the empire-building efforts of the Khmer king Jayavarman VII, who ruled between 1182 and 1218. Arguably the greatest of all the Khmer rulers, he built Angkor Thom, instituted Buddhism as the state religion, and expanded the Khmer kingdom to its apogee by military conquest and by wielding the power of medicine and social services.

The world-famous archaeological site of Angkor, best known for Angkor Wat, the twelfth-century temple built by one of Jayavarman VII’s Hindu predecessors, was the capital of the Khmer Empire from about the ninth through the fifteenth centuries. For most of that time, the kings of Angkor ruled over territory that ranged from the southern tip of Vietnam across Cambodia, Laos, and parts of Thailand, Myanmar, and China’s Yunnan Province. Jayavarman VII was born into the royal family in Angkor around 1120 and lived to be nearly 100, dying in 1218. He took power after leading the campaign to expel invaders from neighboring Champa, who had occupied Angkor for several years. Scholars believe that as part of his effort to rebuild the kingdom and consolidate Khmer power, he embarked on a phase of construction across his empire, building a network of roads, canals, reservoirs, and temples— and exactly 102 hospitals, called arogyasala.