A Biography of Krom Ngoy, the Father of Khmer Poetry

A Biography of Krom Ngoy, The Father of Khmer Poetry:
Compiled by Yi Thon and translated from Khmer to English by Khmerization
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Ouk Ou or Phirum Ngoy, better known as Krom Ngoy, can be considered as the Father of Khmer Poetry. Only two other poets, Oknha Suttantaprija Ind and Santhor Mok, came close to his calibre. His many prose and poems, sung in the forms of songs, such as the Law for Men and Women and Krom Ngoy’s Will, have been used as guides for many people throughout the country in raising their children. Many of his poems, which often aimed at guiding the people about their life, raising their children and about the preservation of the Khmer culture and literature, were used as texts at many Cambodian schools. Krom Ngoy comes to symbolise as a Khmer icon during his time and afterwards. His poems rhymed so perfect. They mesmerise and hypnotise and captivate the audience’s imagination when sang in the forms of the Chapei songs (singing while the singer plays a guitar-like instrument at the same time). As he had made a mark in the Cambodian literature history and being the icon of Khmer poetry his life accounts must be recorded, hence comes about the publication of his biography below:

Krom Ngoy (1865-1936)(1)

Language master Ou, or Phirum Ngoy, was born Ouk Ou, alias Ngoy, in the Christian era of 1865, the Buddhist era of 2408 in Andong Svay village, Kombol commune, Phnom Penh district, Kandal province. His father, Ouk, was the chief of Kombol commune with the royal title of Chao Ponhea Dharma Thearea. Chao Ponhea Ouk had a family lineage with the Lord Poc (who was a descendant of Chaova (Lord) Baen whose descendants ruled as the lord-governors of Batammbang province from 1796 until 1907). His mother’s name was Ieng who was a daughter of Chao Ponhea Poc, the chief of Spean Thmor commune of the same district (Phnom Penh). Both his father and mother were the second children in their respective family.
During his childhood he studied arithmetic and literature at Boeng Chork Temple in Baek Skor village, Baek Chan commune, in his native district. Young Ouk Ou was a very studious child. He had been ordained as a Buddhist novice in the village temple. A few years later he left the monkhood in order to work for his parents. He also served as a secretary to his father in his capacity as a tax collector for the royal treasury. When he was 21 years old he was once again ordained as a senior monk in his old temple under the guidance of Mr. Sass, Venerable Chrouk and Venerable Oung as his religious teachers. Venerable Ou (krom Ngoy) learned about the Buddhist teachings and learned how to translate the Buddhist Scripture, The Tripitaka, first under the guidance of Venerable Tith, a high priest of Ang Boeng Chork Temple. After that he went to practise Vipassana (meditation) with religious teachers in various places.
He stayed in the monkhood for 5 years. After obtaining enough knowledge he decided to live the life of a lay-person. After he left the monkhood he returned to work for his father as both a legal advisor and as his secretary. When the country was in turmoil he quit his government job and became just an ordinary farmer.
He was a talented poet who has the ability to remember many ancient stories, both religious and non-religious. He was as well a talented musician and singer who can beautifully sing and skilfully play the Ksedeav (the guitar-like instrument) at the same time. The villagers loved his Chapei song (the kind of prose which was sung while the singer was playing the Sadeav guitar at the same time) and they considered him as a scholar by presenting him a title of “Phirum Ngoy”, Ngoy the language master. Ngoy, the language master was a big man with bulging belly who liked
to have his hair cut short and growing his moustache. He liked to wear a Chorng Kben skirt, wearing a round-necked shirt with big buttons, wearing thongs and wearing a bird’s nest-like hat. Wherever he goes he always brought his walking stick and carrying his bag hanging from his shoulder. When he sang his poems he always play the Ksedeav (guitar-like instrument) along as well. His Ksedeav can be disassemble at any time and re-assemble as quickly as possible when he needed to play it. When he need to sing his Chapei song he will take out a gourd shell from his bag, join it with his walking stick, attach the strings from the gourd shell to the end of his walking stick to build an instant guitar with a very nice sound.
In Winter, after he finished with his farm works, he was always invited by villagers, from near and afar, to sing or chant for their festival events. He never charge the people for his performances but because they loved him and his performances they always collected the money and the rice from the villagers to give to him. When he travelled through Phnom Penh he always stayed at the Ounnalom Temple (the headquarter of the Cambodian Buddhist Patriarch) in order to use the opportunity to discuss about various religious issues with the senior Buddhist monks who resided at the temple.
The topics of his poetic songs or religious chants were always talked about the current issues of that time, such as the following topics:
1. About life as farmers
2. About the traditional marriage arrangements.
3. About poverty and its reasons.
4. About the lack of education and the illiteracy of the Khmer people.
5. About the lack of enthusiasm in one’s works.
6. About the divisions and conflicts, in both the lay-people and the cleric’s circles.
7. About foreign repression and oppression of the Khmer people.
8. About the lack of Khmer independence.
9. About the survival of the Khmer culture and Khmer literature.
Ou’s reputation as a talented poet has been told to the king of Cambodia. His Majesty King Sisowath invited Ou to come to sing for him in the Royal Palace. King Sisowath admired his poetry skills and he invited Ou to join the Royal Band and presented him with the royal title of “Ou, the language master”. But because there was someone in the Royal Band named Ou already His Majesty asked everyone to call him “Ngoy” instead, so as not to be confused with the other Ou. Since then he was called Ngoy or Krom Ngoy (Ngoy, the expert).
Ngoy’s reputation as a poetry expert was not confined in within Cambodia alone, it has spread to the Kingdom of Thailand as well. The Siamese prince named Krom Pra Thamrung Rajanupharp and a French man named (Georges?) Coedes had an audience with King Sisowath. During the musical performances for the two foreign guests in the royal palace Krom Ngoy had outperformed the other musicians with his Ksedeav. His reputation had spread to the people of Thailand. The Thai King sent a royal letter to the Khmer King asking for a royal permission to invite Krom Ngoy to sing for him in Bangkok. Krom Ngoy went to Thailand for three months and received a cordial royal reception from the Thai King and his officials. The Thai King then presented him with a title as the language master “phai roh leou kern” (the master of the melodious voice). The King also presented him with silver buttons, money and other paraphernalia.
There was a story circulated around that when Krom Ngoy returned to Cambodia through Battambang he met another skilful poetry singer named Phirum Yu, Yu the language master. Because he had heard that Phirum Ngoy was a skilful poetry singer Phirum Yu asked him for a competition. In the song Pirum Yu asked Phirum Ngoy “ where is Meru Mountain? Where is it located? How high is it? How far is it from here?” Phirum Ngoy replied “if you are so curious like this, do you want me to tell you the truth or do you want me to lie?” Phirum Yu retorted that “I asked in a bona fide therefore you, Phirum Ngoy must answer in bona fide“. So Phirum Ngoy answered how big, how tall and how far was Meru Mountain from Battambang and if Phirun Yu did not believe him he must go and see it for himself. Phirum Yu responded that he believed what Phirum Ngoy had just described to him. So, in return, Phirum Ngoy asked Phirum Yu “ how far is Battambang Market from Phnom Penh if one travels by road? And how many kilometres if one travels by way of Tonle Sap river?” Phirum Yu cannot answer. Phirum Ngoy then sang by throwing critical sarcastic comments at Phirum Yu that “a place and a country where you used to live, you cannot answer me. And you asked me a place where I had never been to. Even if I lied to you, you wouldn’t know if I lied or not.” Phirum Ngoy continued to throw critical sarcastic comments at Phirum Yu until he felt so embarrassed and walked off the stage. The audience enjoyed the poetic exchanges and cheered for Phirum Ngoy when Phirum Yu walked off the stage. The governor of Battambang presented Phirum Ngoy with winning trophies of one white horse and 400 riels in cash (a huge sum at that time). Since then many prose singers were afraid to sing in a competition with him. Only a village chief named Sann of Pleung Chhess Rotess commune, Phnom Penh district, who was his very good friend and his usual duet, who can face up to his poetic skills. Wherever these two went to sing people from near and afar came in their big crowd to listen to them sing.
Later after that, Mr. (Georges?) Coedes introduced Phirum Ngoy to Miss Suzanne Karpeles, who was the director of the Buddhist Institute in Phnom Penh.
In 1930 Miss Suzanne Karpeles asked Phirum Ngoy to sing all his poetry songs again so that the scholars at the Buddhist Institute can record and publish them in books. As a reward Miss Karpeles gave Phirum Ngoy 1 riels in cash as a token of his love for the Khmer culture. In order to preserve his masterpiece the Buddhist Institute published his poetry into four books and later combined them into only one book.
In fact Phirum Ngoy had verbally authored many poetry songs which were not published in books because Phirum Ngoy, the poet, just sang from his mouth and did not write his poetry on papers. His masterpieces which we had found in books to this present day are:
1. Chbab Laboek Thmey (the law of the new prose- a ballad of four rhyming words) 1922.
2. Chbab Kekal Thmey (the law of the new inheritance- a poem of 4, 5 and 6 rhyming words) 1922.
3. The Advice on Life (a poem of 7 rhyming words)- 1931
4. The Law for Men and Women (a poem of 7 rhyming words)- dates unknown.
5. Bandam Krom Ngoy (Krom Ngoy’s Will- a poem of 7 rhyming words) dates unknown.
Other than the abovementioned works there were many other works which survived up until today but they were not attributed to any writers . Many past scholars considered them to be the works of Phirum Ngoy, such as the following titles: The Gratitude, The Three Attributes, The Law for Men and Women.
Language master Ou (Phirum Ngoy) was married to Mrs. In and had six sons. They are 1. Dong, 2. Cheng, 3. Cha, 4. Chen, 5. Chong and, 6.Chev.
Among his six sons there was one son who inherited his poetry skills. He was Chong, the sixth son who was respectfully called Achar Chong. (Achar meaning “a learned man”). There were some people who knew that Phirum Ngoy had one grandson who inherited his poetry skills and became the Ayai singer (Ayai is another form of a duet poetry song performance, often between a man and a woman throwing sarcastic comments at each other while they sing). This grandson had a very thin build and people called him Neay Sloek (Mr. Leaf) because he was as thin as a leaf. When he sang the Ayai song he always introduced himself this way: “My birth village is located west of Pochentong and I am the son of Achar Chong and the grandson of Achar Ngoy”.
Language master Ou (Phirum Ngoy) passed away on Friday, the sixth day of the Moonrise in the Lunar calendar, the 12th month of the Buddhist era of 2479, the Christian era of 1936 at age 71 years old, due to constipation.

The Environment of Cambodian Society From 1865 to 1937

During those past 70 years there were many important events which took place in Cambodia that caused widespread nationwide crises in all sectors in the society which affected the livelihood of the population throughout the country.
The Cambodian people has lost their freedom as the master of their country which they had enjoyed before. In 1884 (1) the French Colonialist authority used their power to violate Cambodian sovereignty and stopped recognising Cambodia as an independent country any longer. On the contrary, France forcibly put Cambodia under its colonial rule.
Since then we saw that the country’s administrative, economic, social, cultural and educational systems were changed into the French ways. Notable changes were:
1. Most administrative officials in Cambodia were foreigners.
2. There were land distributions and land titles were given to the population in order to make it easy to tax collections.
3. New money were printed in place of the silver coined that were used for generations.(2)
4. The transfer of properties from the Royal Treasury to the State Treasury called Tresor Unique du Cambodge.(3)
5. The introduction of Western culture and civilisation into the country including in many areas as literature, language, ways of life, costumes, arts, music, dances and songs and son on.
On the other hand, from 1914 to 1918 World War I broke out in Europe. Even though the war did not happen in Cambodia but the consequences of that war have affected the country severely due to the fact that Cambodia was a French colony. And so much of Khmer blood were spilled in Europe due to the French engagement in that war. At that time the French colonial authority conscripted Cambodian into the French army and many were sent to help France fight a war in Europe. Many have died on the battlefields and many bodies were not repatriated because they had no identifications.
The population inside the country suffered greatly due to the economic depression due to natural disasters such as floods and droughts which led to a general famine in the country. The were widespread diseases which spread fast due to the lack of medicine. And the French colonial authority still tax the population heavily which imposed on the cattle, farm equipments and other equipments in order to raise revenue to fund the war and to restore the country’s economic growth after the war ended. The tax collection on goods and the economic depression and the lack of harvests due to droughts caused high inflation which made the prices of goods to rise everyday. At the same time as these events occurred foreign traders and local businesspeople took advantage by exploiting the situations and profiteered from the Khmer population, which the majority of them were poor illiterate farmers who cannot read and write and who lacked arithmetic skills.//The End//

References
(1) Yi Thonn, http://www.khmercenter.ch/Bandam%20Kromngoy/History.htm
(2). Norodom Sihanouk, La Monarchie Cambodgienne et la Croisade Royale L’Independence, pages 53 and subsequent pages.
(3). Ministry of Information, Le Cambodge and La Monarchie Cambodgienne, 1962
(4). Eng Soth, Ekasar Mohaboross Khmer.(Documents About The Khmer Great Personalities).

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1. To read Krom Ngoy's biography in Khmer please click:http://www.khmercenter.ch/Bandam%20Kromngoy/Kramngoy.htm

2. To listen to Krom Ngoy's Chapei click:http://www.cambodianbuddhist.org/doc/boran.htm
3.To read another great Khmer writer click here. http://khmerization.blogspot.com/2008/01/lok-oknha-suttantaprija-ind-1859-1924.html
4. To read biographies of Princes Sisowath Yutevong, Norodom Chantaraigsey and Norodom Yukanthor click on their names.