In Praise of Sister Queens

Queen Indradevi is the earliest known female poet in Cambodia. "In Praise of Sister Queens," inscribed in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, reveals a nearly flawless command of the Sanskrit language and its complex poetic forms; the passage here includes verses in the indravajra, vamsastha, vasantatilaka, and sloka meters. This excerpt from the great stele of Phimeanakas includes just the final twelve stanzas of a 102-stanza poem, which was discovered in the rubble of the ancient royal palace near Angkor Thom in 1916. In 1297, the Chinese emissary Zhou Daguan described a gold tower within the royal palace, presumably a reference to Phimeanakas. The inscription eulogizes Indradevi and her younger sister Jayarajadevi, both queens to Jayavarman VII, the most powerful monarch in Cambodian history and a patron of Mahayana Buddhism. tw