The Khmer People and Khmer-Kamboja Kingdom
Khmer are the indigenous peoples of western interior South East Asia. Linguistically they are also distinct.
The adoption of Hinduism and origin of the Khmer-Kamboja Hindu dynasty/Kingdom possibly began in the early CE-BCE with the settlement of a Kaundinya Brahmana from Mithila in the region through marriage with a Khmer woman. Contact with Suvarnabhumi / South East Asia is recorded centuries earlier and the brahmana would have been accompanying the influx and the Khmer people would have been aware/accustomed to Bharatiya people/culture by this time. This Khmer woman is the first historical person among the Khmer people and variously named as Soma, Mera, She was likely the daughter of the chief of the Khmer people and thus their son would have become the head of the Khmer people.
It is for certain that a couple hundred years later, the now Hindu - Khmer people came in contact with the Pallava kingdom/dynasty of Tamil Nadu which is said to have been established in 200-250 CE. Whatever may have been the exact nature of this contact - the Khmer Hindu chief/king adopted the title of "Varman" from the Pallava as well as naming the kingdom Kamboja. It is also from around this time (285 CE) that Chinese records are available of the kingdom (which they called Funan). Thus by 300 CE an actual Hindu Khmer kingdom was in place.
The history thereafter is somewhat well known - 2 kingdom of Hindu Khmer people come to exist until about 600 CE when one is subsumed by the other.
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