The Customs of Cambodia

– With an additional text on The Temple of Angkor Wat by Louis Finot (1929) –

“Zhou Daguan (Chou Ta-Kuan) spent a year in Cambodia from 1296 to 1297 as part of a Chinese diplomatic mission sent by Timur Khan, the grandson and successor of Kublai Khan, to the court of Indravarman III (reigned 1295-1308). The Khmer empire, though under attack, was still powerful and wealthy. Zhou wrote his account some time before 1312.

The text was translated from Chinese into French by Paul Pelliot and published in 1902. It is here edited and newly translated from the French by Michael Smithies.

As Pelliot pointed out in his translation of the text in 1902, Zhou Daguan’s is the only account t come down to us describing daily life in the Khmer empire. …”