Cambodian Buddhism, predominantly Theravāda, stands as the religious and cultural framework within which many other traditions in the region are negotiated. Rather than erasing earlier beliefs, it has long accommodated pre-Buddhist spirit cults, such as the veneration of neak ta, ancestor worship, and a wide range of protective and magical practices. This porous quality allows it to coexist with, and sometimes overlap, the animist cosmologies of neighboring communities. The result is less a clean doctrinal system and more a layered religious field, where Buddhist concepts and ritual forms are interwoven with older, localized understandings of spirits and sacred power.

The Cham communities illustrate a particularly complex relationship to this Buddhist landscape. Most Cham in Cambodia today are Muslim and maintain a religious identity distinct from Khmer Theravāda, though they share the same social and geographic space. Their direct influence on the broader Buddhist–animist synthesis appears limited, yet historical coexistence has fostered zones of mutual familiarity and occasional ritual borrowing. In some cases, Cham individuals or groups have become culturally “Khmerized,” adopting Khmer language and Buddhist ritual participation while still retaining Cham customs. Such situations show how ethnic and religious boundaries can soften without disappearing, producing lives lived at the intersection of multiple traditions.

Highland tribal groups, often referred to as Khmer Loeu and including peoples such as the Bunong, Jarai, Tampuan, and others, maintain robust animist systems centered on village spirits, sacred forests, and ancestral powers. Where these communities come into sustained contact with Khmer Buddhists, partial conversion and syncretism are common: tribal people may sponsor ceremonies at Khmer wats or invite monks for blessings, yet continue to perform their own sacrificial rites and spirit propitiations. Buddhist temples in such areas can exist alongside, rather than in place of, indigenous sacred sites, and villagers may turn to both monks and traditional ritual specialists for healing, agricultural success, or protection. Efforts by the state and monastic institutions to integrate these groups—through ordination of tribal men or discouragement of certain practices—tend to reshape, but not fully displace, animist belief.

Across these relationships, what stands out is a shared spiritual grammar rather than a single, unified creed. Cambodian Buddhism itself is already marked by folk-animist elements, which makes it more readily compatible with the spirit worlds of Cham and tribal communities. Protective amulets, spirit mediumship, and ritual responses to misfortune circulate among Buddhists, Muslims, and animists alike, creating a religious environment where boundaries are negotiated in practice rather than fixed in theory. In this setting, Theravāda Buddhism functions as the dominant idiom of sacred life, yet it continually absorbs, refracts, and coexists with the diverse indigenous and minority traditions that surround it.