Trasak Paem

Trasak Paem is the first Khmer ruler known only from the Cambodian Royal Chronicles, said to have died around 1340. The chronicles make him a royal gardener to a king identified with Jayavarman IX, so skilled at growing sweet cucumbers that his title means master of the tasty cucumber. The king gave him his own spear to guard the crop. One night when the king came to test his zeal, he mortally wounded him; the dying man cleared him of blame.

With no heir, a white elephant at the royal election passed over the nobles to choose the gardener from the crowd. Facing the dignitaries' hostility, he withdrew to Banteay Samré and ruled quietly only after eliminating his predecessor's loyalists.

He married the old king's daughter Candravati, and the chronicles name his sons Nippean Bat and Sithean Reachea. Historians judge him probably legendary.