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George Cœdès (1886-1969) was a French historian and archaeologist known for his work on the Indianized kingdoms of ancient Southeast Asia. He served as director of the National Library of Thailand and L'École française d'Extrême-Orient, and authored significant texts including 'The Indianized States of Southeast Asia' and 'The Making of South East Asia'. Cœdès is recognized for his contributions to the study of Khmer inscriptions and for rediscovering the kingdom of Srivijaya.

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40 views2 pages

Ede

George Cœdès (1886-1969) was a French historian and archaeologist known for his work on the Indianized kingdoms of ancient Southeast Asia. He served as director of the National Library of Thailand and L'École française d'Extrême-Orient, and authored significant texts including 'The Indianized States of Southeast Asia' and 'The Making of South East Asia'. Cœdès is recognized for his contributions to the study of Khmer inscriptions and for rediscovering the kingdom of Srivijaya.

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George Cœdès

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
George Cœdès

George Cœdès, n.d.


Born August 10, 1886
Paris, France
Died October 2, 1969 (aged 83)
Neuilly-sur-Seine, France
Nationality French
Spouse Neang Yap (m. 1935)
Academic background
Education École pratique des hautes études (1905)
Academic work
Discipline Historian, archeologist
Sub-discipline Indianized kingdoms of ancient Southeast Asia
Institutions National Library of Thailand (1918-1929)
École française d'Extrême-Orient (1929-1946)
Notable works Cœdès transliteration of Thai
Signature

George Cœdès (French: [ʒɔʁʒ sedɛs]; 10 August 1886 – 2 October 1969) was a French
scholar of southeast Asian archaeology and history.

Biography
Cœdès was born in Paris to a family known as having settled in the region of
Strasbourg before 1740. His ancestors worked for the royal Treasury.[1] His
grandfather, Louis-Eugène Cœdès [fr] was a painter, pupil of Léon Coignet. His
father Hippolyte worked as a banker. It has also, incorrectly, been asserted that
he was descended from Hungarian-Jewish émigrés.[2]
Cœdès became director of the National Library of Thailand in 1918, and in 1929
became director of L'École française d'Extrême-Orient, where he remained until
1946. Thereafter he lived in Paris until he died in 1969.

In 1935, he married a Cambodian woman named Neang Yap.

He was also an editor of the Journal of the Siam Society during the 1920s.

He wrote two texts in the field, The Indianized States of Southeast Asia (1968,
1975) (first published in 1948 as Les états hindouisés d'Indochine et d'Indonésie)
and The Making of South East Asia (1966), as well as innumerable articles, in which
he developed the concept of the Indianized kingdom. Perhaps his greatest lasting
scholarly accomplishment was his work on Sanskrit and Old Khmer inscriptions from
Cambodia. In addition to scores of articles (especially in the Bulletin of the
École française d'Extrême-Orient), his 8-volume work Inscriptions du Cambodge
(1937-1966) contains editions and translations of over a thousand inscriptions from
pre-Angkorian and Angkor-era monuments, and stands as Cœdès' magnum opus. One
stele, the recently rediscovered K-127, contains an inscription of what has been
dubbed the "Khmer Zero", the first known use of zero in the modern number system.
[3] The transliteration system that he devised for Thai (and Khmer) is used by
specialists of Thai and other writing systems derived from that of Khmer.

George Cœdès is credited with rediscovering the former kingdom of Srivijaya,


centred on the modern-day Indonesian city of Palembang, but with influence
extending from Sumatra through to the Malay Peninsula and Java.[4]

However, due to focusing on the history of lower Southeast Asia, Cœdès was
criticized by another historian Tatsuo Hoshino as having underestimated the
importance of northern Indochina, Yunnan, and the central Mekong Valley.[5]: 235

Decorations
Cœdès received the following decorations:

1919 – Commander (Third Class) of the Most Exalted Order of the White Elephant, a
royal decoration in the Honours System of Thailand[6]
1926 – Légion d'honneur (France).
Works
Textes d'auteurs grecs et latins relatifs à l'Extrême-Orient depuis le IVe siècle
av. J.-C. jusqu'au XIVe siècle, 1910
Études cambodgiennes, 1911–1956
Le Royaume de Çrīvijaya, 1918
"Some Problems in the Ancient History of the Hinduized States of South-East Asia",
Journal of Southeast Asian History, Vol.5, No.2, pp. 1–14
"À propos de l'origine des chiffres arabes",

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