Khmer Buddhist amulets and talismans embody a layered religious world in which Buddhist forms rest upon much older animistic and Brahmanical foundations. Figures such as local guardian spirits (Neak Ta), ancestral beings, and nature deities continue to appear, or are implicitly invoked, as protectors and benefactors. Their presence signals that the landscape itself is still perceived as alive with powers that can be petitioned for safety, prosperity, and healing. At the same time, these older beings are ritually framed within Buddhist consecration, so that their activity is interpreted through the language of merit and compassionate protection rather than raw, untamed force.

Animal and nature imagery provides another window into this continuity. Serpents (nagas), birds, tigers, elephants, and lion-like guardians all draw on pre-Buddhist associations with territorial protection, fertility, water, and forest power. In Buddhist usage they may be linked to stories of the Buddha or to the safeguarding of the Dhamma, yet their enduring popularity reflects a deep trust in the protective and auspicious qualities they carried long before Buddhism took root. In this way, the amulets do not erase earlier meanings but gather them into a broader symbolic field where Buddhist and older cosmologies coexist.

The visual language of sacred geometry and script further reveals this synthesis. Magic diagrams and yantras, composed of grids, circles, and other geometric forms, descend from older protective magic and cosmological speculation. These designs are now frequently inscribed with Pali or Sanskrit syllables, mantras, and Buddhist formulas, yet they continue to function as potent seals for defense, luck, and empowerment. The stylized letters and numbers themselves are treated as charged signs, preserving the ancient intuition that written form and numerical pattern possess an efficacy that operates alongside, not merely under, doctrinal teaching.

Hindu deities and Brahmanical motifs also find a place within this amuletic universe. Images of Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma, Hanuman, or Ganesha may be set within a Buddhist ritual frame, their long-standing reputation for strength, wisdom, and protection now enlisted to serve Buddhist devotees. Such figures often appear together with Buddha images, lotus emblems, and other explicitly Buddhist symbols, creating composite icons that speak simultaneously to royal power, cosmic order, and compassionate guardianship. The choice of materials—particular woods, stones, and metals believed to carry inherent potency—reinforces this sense that the physical world itself is suffused with spiritual force, which Buddhist ritual then seeks to align with ethical intention and the pursuit of merit.