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55 temple. The unearthing of such a large number of statues implied the occurrence of some major event in the background. Nevertheless however, what does this eradication of Buddhism signify? And what was its political setting? Judging by the few historical sources remaining with us, the king succeeding Jayavarman VII appears to have accepted Buddhism. Yet, Jayavarman VIII who followed later (and who ruled from 1243 to 1295) was a believer in Hinduism, and he had no blood relationship with Jayavarman VII. Since it appears as though he was crowned king after a ruthless war of succession, he was perhaps urged on by a compelling desire to abolish Buddhism, owing to his hostility towards the Buddhist forces. It was this King Jayavarman VIII who did away with the reliefs of Buddhist statues in traditional Buddhist temples, and who converted the Bayon into a Hindu temple. The history of the Angkor dynasty attained its zenith from the 12th to the start of the 13th century, and concluded in the first half of the 15th century. At its peak period, many people were mobilized to erect massive temples such as Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom. According to the commonly accepted theory of French scholars who have been involved so far in Angkor research, the erection of such large-scale temples fatigued the nation and its people, and gradually led to their decline. This is the ‘temple building fatigue’ theory. However, the historical fact revealed by this abandonment of Buddhism is that in the middle of the 13th century, after the nation’s prime, that is, during the reign of Jayavarman VIII, the authority of the king continued to persist all over the nation in the form of the abolition order. This indicates that even assuming clashes arose between Hinduism and Buddhism the nation continued to prosper, and this calls into question the ‘temple building fatigue’ theory of the EFEO. This compels us to conduct a re-examination of the history that has been accepted thus far.