Sankashti Chaturthi Mandal
Photo: Photo Dharma from Penang, Malaysia / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
Among the stone inscriptions left by the Khmer kings at Prasat Bakong, part of the ancient Angkor region, are records establishing court and religious protocol — including instructions concerning the order in which deities were to be honored.
A Precedence Set in Stone
These inscriptions reflect the same broader convention found throughout much of the Hindu world: that Shree Ganesh, as remover of obstacles, should be invoked and honored first, before other deities receive their due worship, a precedence the Khmer kings formalized within their own royal and religious records.
A Kingdom's Devotion, Recorded
That such instructions were considered important enough to inscribe permanently in stone reflects how seriously the Khmer court took its religious protocol, and how firmly established Shree Ganesh's precedence had become within the empire's own Hindu-influenced governance.
What These Inscriptions Reveal
Prasat Bakong's stone records offer a rare, dated glimpse of a principle still followed by devotees today — that any significant undertaking, royal or humble, rightly begins with Shree Ganesh.