Thus, though Indravarman III (1295-1307 A.D.), who succeeded Jayavarman VIII (1243-1295 A.D.), was not of royal blood, his claim to the throne was accepted when the king's daughter, who was his lover, stole the Preah Khan Reach and handed it to him.
Finally under French pressure, the Thai king agreed to solemnly return the Preah Khan Reach that Thailand had taken from Cambodia in August 1861.
On March 18, 1970, when Queen Kossamak heard that her son Sihanouk had been deposed by a coup d'état, she pulled the Preah Khan Reach from its scabbard and discovered that the blade was not gleaming but was a tarnished blackish color—a very bad omen.
[18] Piat was told by court Brahmins that the Preah Khan Reach was one of four sacred swords associated with “vassals that protect the kingdom at the four cardinal points”[19] — a possible reference to the Four Heavenly Kings (Chaturmahārājikādeva) of the Buddhist tradition.
Dating from the 13th century, the earliest description of the Preah Khan Reach is provided by Chinese envoy Zhou Daguan in his book The Customs of Cambodia after the ascension to the throne of Indravarman III describing it as a "golden sword".
At the top of the blade, a garuda flanked with nagas, a mask of Rahu, and Rama and Vishnu between more nagas.The handle is made of chiseled gold with repoussé and chasing and enhanced with colored enamels.
The baku were to protect the supposed magical powers of the royal swords through various rites and incantations: if drawn from its scabbard without the prescribed ritual, it would bring disaster upon the country.
[24] According to Ian Harris, a western scholar on Cambodian Buddhism, King Rama I of Thailand had a copy of the sword made for his own coronation in 1785.
Cambodian dancer Chey Chankethya from the Secondary School of Fine Arts of Phnom Penh created a Khmer ballet in 2006 based on the legend of the Preah Khan Reach.