Botumthera Som was born in a rural area of Cambodia, in the village of Kamprau, Prey Veng Province, as the sixth of seven boys.
During that time he made great progress, learning how to compose poetry on his own and writing it using the traditional method, on palmyra palm leaves.
[2] In September 1915, at the age of sixty-three, Botumthera Som completed his best-known work, the palm leaf manuscript of Tum Teav.
His version of Tum Teav contains 1050 stanzas, including a 39-stanza preface in which Venerable Som gives the manuscript's date of composition and identifies himself as the author.
In 1935, three years after his death, another monk, Venerable Oum, copied Botumthera Som's Tum Teav manuscript on a new set of palm leaves.