Venerable Pang Khat also known as Bhikkhu Viriyapandito was a Cambodian Theravada bikkhu monk who was notorious from 1940 to 1975[1] and who is most famous for his translations from Sanskrit language to Khmer.
[3] After being ordained as a monk, Pang Khat came to study in Phnom Penh, where he stayed at Wat Ounalom in the pavilion of Huot Tat who was also his teacher and master for the rest of his life.
"[11] While he expressed support for the students who led a demonstration against the policies of the Cambodian republican government in 1973,[12] he was publicly reprimanded by the Supreme Patriarch as the movements had been infiltrated by Khmers Rouges elements trying to overthrow the regime.
[13] At the same time, Pang Khat was seen preaching in favour of the Khmer Republic and often paid tributes to the families of warriors who sacrificed their lives in the battlefield, for example, in places such as Wat Bo in Siem Reap.
Along with the Supreme Patriarch and many other notorious intellectual monks such as Ponn Sompeach, Pang Khat was executed by the Khmers Rouges after the fall of Phnom Penh.
Pang Khat wrote a major contribution to the history of Buddhism in Cambodia, which had been largely disregarded by French archeologists who had been more interested in the presence of brahmanic religions since Angkorian times.
In December 1948, Pang Khat asked Suzanne Karpeles to intervene so that Sri Lanka would share some of the three relics of Buddha which are kept in Cambodia until this day for Buddhist worship.