Cambodian pilgrimage sites can be read as living palimpsests, where earlier Hindu layers remain visible beneath and within later Buddhist devotion. Monumental complexes such as Angkor Wat were first conceived in explicitly Brahmanical terms—dedicated to deities like Vishnu and structured as vast mandalas embodying Mount Meru and the cosmic ocean—yet they now function as active Theravāda Buddhist centers of worship. Pilgrims move through spaces whose moats, causeways, and temple-mountains were designed according to Hindu cosmology, while engaging in recognizably Buddhist practices of merit-making, meditation, and offerings before Buddha images. In this way, the Hindu architectural and cosmological framework is not erased but reinterpreted through a Buddhist devotional lens.

This intertwining of traditions is especially evident in the iconography and ritual life of these sites. Reliefs and carvings may present scenes from Hindu epics and figures such as Shiva, Vishnu, Brahmā, Indra, nāga, Garuḍa, and Kâla, while the central sanctuaries now enshrine Buddha statues, relic shrines, or bodhisattva images. Pilgrims commonly light incense, offer flowers, and circumambulate shrines that bear both Hindu and Buddhist associations, treating old lingas or Vishnu images alongside Buddha images as potent sources of blessing. Sanskrit or Pali mantras, Brahmanical calculations, and Theravāda chanting can coexist in the same ritual field, especially where Brahmin priests and Buddhist monks both serve royal or communal ceremonies.

Sacred geography further reveals this synthesis. Mountains, hills, caves, and river confluences long associated with Hindu notions of divine abodes and purifying waters have become important Buddhist pilgrimage destinations, sometimes marked by stupas or reclining Buddha statues set within an older Hindu landscape. Local spirit cults—such as the veneration of neak ta and nāga—draw on Indic cosmology yet are fully integrated into Buddhist practice, so that pilgrims may simultaneously seek protection from these beings and accumulate Buddhist merit. Through such layered practices, the land itself is experienced as a shared sacred tapestry rather than as the exclusive domain of a single tradition.

Historical memory and narrative complete this picture of Cambodian Brahmanism as a dynamic synthesis rather than a simple succession. Kings once associated with Hindu deities through the devarāja cult are now remembered within a Buddhist ethical framework as rulers who upheld the dharma, and stories told at major temples weave together Hindu gods, the Buddha, and local spirits into a single sacred history. Cambodian pilgrimage sites thus embody a continuity in which Hindu cosmology and symbolism provide much of the structural and mythic foundation, while Buddhist devotion, ethics, and ritual predominate in contemporary religious life.