Devaraja

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Devaraja (Sanskrit: देवराज, romanized: Devarāja) was a religious order of the "god-king," or deified monarch in medieval Southeast Asia.^[1] The devarāja order grew out of both Hinduism and separate local traditions depending on the area.^[2] It taught that the king was a divine universal ruler, a manifestation of Bhagavan (often attributed to Shiva or Vishnu). The concept viewed the monarch to possess transcendental quality, the king as the living god on earth. The concept is closely related to the Indian concept of Chakravarti (universal monarch). In politics, it is viewed as the divine justification of a king's rule. The concept was institutionalized and gained its elaborate manifestations in ancient Java and Cambodia, where monuments such as Prambanan and Angkor Wat were erected to celebrate the king's divine rule on earth.

The devaraja concept of divine right of kings was adopted by the Indianised Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms of Southeast Asia through Indian Hindu Brahmins scholars deployed in the courts. It was first adopted by Javanese kings and through them by various Malay kingdoms, then by the Khmer empire, and subsequently by the Thai monarchies.