Within Cambodian Buddhism, especially where it intersects with older Brahmanical lineages, one encounters a ritual world in which Hindu tantric elements have been absorbed and reinterpreted rather than simply discarded. Sanskrit mantras and dhāraṇī, including invocations to deities such as Śiva, Viṣṇu, Brahmā, Indra, and Gaṇeśa, continue to be recited for protection, empowerment, and blessing. These mantras are treated as potent sounds whose efficacy is assumed, even when their original doctrinal context is no longer foregrounded. In this way, the sonic technologies of tantra are preserved within a Buddhist cosmological and ethical frame, functioning as instruments of purification, protection, and worldly benefit.

Alongside mantra, visual and ritual technologies characteristic of tantra also persist. Yantra-like sacred diagrams and other forms of sacred geometry are drawn or inscribed for protection and blessing, often appearing in contexts such as consecrations, life‑cycle ceremonies, and other major rites. These diagrams, while now read through Buddhist symbolism, still bear the structural imprint of Hindu tantric cosmograms. Mudrās and other ritual gestures, too, are employed in consecration, blessing, and protective rites, echoing classical tantric hand‑gestures even when their technical explanations are no longer explicitly articulated.

The presence of Brahmanical deities within Cambodian Buddhist ritual further reveals this tantric inheritance. Deities such as Indra, Viṣṇu, Brahmā, Lakṣmī, Sarasvatī, and Gaṇeśa are invoked as powerful guardians and benefactors, particularly in temple consecrations, royal or state ceremonies, and major festivals. Their roles have been reframed so that they function as protective beings within a Buddhist universe rather than as exclusive objects of devotion. In this syncretic setting, the older Hindu tantric cults are not so much rejected as subordinated and integrated, their ritual power harnessed in the service of Buddhist aims.

Other ritual forms show a similar blending. Fire rituals modeled on homa, water‑blessing ceremonies using consecrated water, and protective thread rites all combine mantric recitation with symbolic materials and gestures that recall Hindu tantric practice. Astrological calculations, drawing on Hindu systems, guide the timing of important ceremonies and the selection of auspicious moments, further embedding this heritage in the fabric of religious life. Taken together, these elements suggest not a simple layering of traditions but a long process of mutual adaptation, in which tantric methods—mantra, yantra, deity‑invocation, and ritual consecration—have been steadily recontextualized within a Theravāda Buddhist vision of the path and its protections.