Cambodian Buddhist temple art offers a visual record of how Buddhist teachings have been woven together with older Khmer myths and regional cosmologies. One of the most pervasive motifs is the naga, the multi‑headed serpent. Beyond its pan‑Indic role, the naga in Cambodia carries the ancestral legend of a serpent princess who marries an Indian Brahmin, giving rise to Khmer civilization. This mythic ancestry is inscribed in stone through naga balustrades along stairways and causeways, naga forms framing doorways, and images of nagas sheltering sacred spaces or protecting the meditating Buddha. Such imagery allows the temple to present itself simultaneously as a Buddhist sanctuary and as a continuation of primordial Khmer origins.

Alongside the nagas, a whole pantheon of celestial and protective beings inhabits temple walls and gateways. Apsaras and devatā, graceful celestial dancers and deities, appear in profusion, embodying spiritual beauty, auspiciousness, and the blessings of the divine realm. Yakṣa‑like guardians, rakṣasa figures, lions, Garuda, and makara are positioned as fierce protectors of the Dharma and of the sacred precinct, visually dramatizing the taming and harnessing of powerful forces. These beings, some rooted in pre‑Buddhist or Hindu cosmology, are not rejected but reinterpreted as allies in safeguarding the Buddhist path.

Equally significant is the narrative dimension of Cambodian temple art, where epic and didactic stories are localized and reimagined. The Reamker, the Khmer adaptation of the Ramayana, unfolds across murals and reliefs: scenes of Rama, Hanuman, epic battles, and moral struggles are rendered in Khmer style and read through the lens of Buddhist ethics such as karma and righteous conduct. Jātaka tales, especially popular ones like the Vessantara Jātaka, are depicted with Cambodian landscapes, costumes, and familiar animal forms, so that the Buddha’s past lives appear to unfold within a recognizably Khmer world. Through these stories, the temple becomes a kind of open‑air scripture in which local culture and Buddhist doctrine mutually illuminate one another.

Finally, the presence of local spirits and ancestral powers is carefully integrated into the temple environment. Neak Ta, territorial and ancestral guardian spirits associated with particular places, are honored through shrines and offerings within or near temple grounds, and their protective role is echoed in guardian imagery at gates and boundaries. Royal and ancestral myths, including the idea of kings and forebears as semi‑divine protectors or bodhisattva‑like figures, further bind political and spiritual authority to the sacred architecture. In this way, Cambodian Buddhist temples do not merely house imported religious forms; they serve as living syntheses in which ancient serpent ancestors, village spirits, celestial dancers, epic heroes, and the Buddha’s own past lives all converge in a single, coherent sacred landscape.