Cambodian Brahmanism took shape when Indian religious and political ideas flowed into the Mekong region through maritime trade and courtly exchange. Early polities such as Funan and later Chenla adopted Sanskrit, Hindu epics, and the ritual expertise of Brahmin priests, who provided a language of kingship and cosmic order. Shaivism and Vaishnavism became especially prominent, with royal cults centered on Śiva and Viṣṇu, and the concept of the devarāja, the “god-king,” gave sacred weight to political authority. These Hindu forms did not simply replace local beliefs; rather, indigenous spirits and powers were drawn into a Hindu cosmology and reinterpreted through it. Over time, this created a layered religious world in which Brahmanical rites, legal notions, and cosmological images framed both statecraft and everyday devotion.

Within this Brahmanical framework, Buddhism entered and gradually intertwined rather than standing apart as a rival system. Mahāyāna Buddhism gained particular prominence at the Angkorian court, where rulers could be seen both as devarāja and as bodhisattva-kings, embodying compassion while retaining the sacral aura of Hindu kingship. Temples and inscriptions from this period reflect a shared sacred space: images of Śiva and Viṣṇu stood alongside Buddhas and bodhisattvas, and royal rituals conducted by Brahmins could serve Buddhist as well as Hindu-oriented kings. Concepts such as karma and rebirth, articulated in Buddhist terms, were absorbed into an already Hindu-shaped understanding of the cosmos, so that the two traditions came to inform a single religious imagination rather than two separate paths.

Later, Theravāda Buddhism spread and gradually became the dominant monastic and doctrinal tradition, yet the Brahmanical layer did not vanish. Brahmins continued to serve at court as ritual specialists, astrologers, and guardians of auspicious rites, especially in matters of kingship and state ceremony. Many older Hindu and Mahāyāna sanctuaries were reused as Buddhist shrines, and popular religious life retained reverence for deities and spirits that had long been interpreted through Hindu categories. In this way, Cambodian religious culture came to rest on a Buddhist foundation that still carried within it the forms, symbols, and ritual habits of an earlier Brahmanical age, allowing both streams to flow together in a single, complex spiritual landscape.