In its 11th century heyday during the reign of King Udayādityavarman II, the temple was tended by its Brahmin patrons and supported with food and labor by the people of surrounding rice-farming villages.

In various places in the temple, there is extensive carving on stone, including floral decoration, Nāga serpents and a figure that appears to be the reclining Hindu god Viṣṇu.

The inscription (classified K. 235) is a 340-line composition, in both Sanskrit and ancient Khmer, carved on a gray sandstone stele 1.51 meters high that stood in the northeast corner of the temple's court.

Dating to 8 February 1053, it recounts two and a half centuries of service that members of the temple's founding family provided to the Khmer court, mainly as chief chaplains to kings.

In laying out this long role, the text provides a remarkable and often poetically worded look at the faith, royal lineage, history and social structure of the times.

“In battle he held a sword which became red with the blood of the shattered enemy kings and spread on all sides its rising lustre, as if it were a red lotus come out of its chalice [or, applied to the sword: drawn out of its scabbard], which he had delightedly seized from the Fortune of war by holding her by the hair(or better, correcting lakṣmyāḥ in to lakṣmyā: which the Fortune of war, after he had seized her hair, had delightedly offered him).” [3] The earliest king mentioned is Jayavarman II,[4]: 100  who historians generally consider, partly on the authority of this inscription, to have founded the Khmer empire in c.

Scholars have paid special attention to the inscription's account of the cult of the devarāja, a key part of the Khmer court's religious ritual.

“After carefully extracting the quintessence of the treatises by his experience and understanding of the mysteries, this brahmin contrived the magic rites bearing the name of Devarāja, for increasing the prosperity of the world.” [7] But the description is sufficiently enigmatic that scholars cannot agree on the cult's function.

Court religious ritual, as described repeatedly in the inscription, focused on maintaining a linga, or holy shaft, in which Śiva's essence was believed to reside.

The inscription is also key to understanding important events in Khmer history, such as the late 9th Century relocation of the capital from the area around the present-day village of Roluos.

Historians generally believe that Sūryavarman fought his way to power, eventually driving out of Angkor a king named Jayavīravarman (who significantly is not mentioned in the inscription).

The final member of the line, now in his role as construction chief, "erected a stone temple with valabhi [spire], dug a reservoir, built dikes and laid out fields and gardens.

"[9] The precise boundaries of its land and the size, duty schedules and male-female breakdown of local work teams that maintained the temple are listed.

Overall, there is general consensus among scholars that the words chiseled out at Sdok Kok Thom are perhaps the most important written explanation that the Khmer empire provided of itself.

Many scholars conclude firmly that Sadasiva wrote it, at least his lineage;[10]: 376  Sak-Humphry believes the text was likely drafted in consultation with the Brahman, but was meant to represent declarations of his king, Udayādityavarman II.

Hinduism began to die out in the Khmer Empire starting in the 12th Century, giving way first to Mahayana Buddhism, then to the Theravada form of the faith that today predominates in Thailand and Cambodia.

In 2002, with the Cambodian conflict long settled and the refugees gone, the Japan Alliance for Humanitarian Demining Support, the Thailand Mine Action Center and the General Chatichai Choonhavan Foundation began cooperating on a program to remove landmines and other unexploded ordnance from the area.