Before we start, I just want to say that this is not doggerel. There is no such thing as doggerel in Khmer poetry, unless you count imperfect or near-rhymes as such. This is about chbab, which is one genre in Khmer poetry. Chbab is the Khmer word for law, but in poetry, it means code of conduct; it is referred to a series of didactic poems mostly composed by Buddhist monks to teach reading, writing, and morality in the monastery schools between the 15th to 19th centuries. But the origin of chbab dated back long before the arrival of Buddhism in Cambodia in the 3rd century CE. The oldest of these poems were passed down orally. They were only put on paper, or rather palm leaves, by Buddist monks near the end of the Angkor Era in the 15th century, when Hinduism was in decline and Khmer started to replace Sanskrit as the language of literature proper.

Most poems from the chbab genre are short, the shortest is only 27 stanza long. They deal with all kinds of themes, from how to raise children to how to safe-keep cultural heritage to how to take pride and feel enthusiastic in one’s own work. And their subjects range from etiquette to finance, education to marital issues to religion. As stated above, most of these poems were transcripted/composed by Buddhist monks, and as such, elements of Buddhism presented prominently in them, the oldest ones included.

In Chbab Kun Cau (Children and Grandchildren), which is among the oldest, the poet lauded the Buddha as follows:

The sage says that fire is bright.
Is that not so?
But it is not equal to the sun.
He says the sun’s rays
Are resplendent in the heavens
But are not equal to
The dharma of the Lord Buddha.
The fire blazes with all its might
But at the end of its time it is gone,
Used up, extinguished.
The sun is brilliant,
Magnificent, it is true
But, when it sets, it is dimmed.
You can not see its light.

Sri Dharmaraja II (reign 1628-1630) was even more explicit in his opening of Chbab Rajaneti (The King’s Neither This nor That)

O, you good people
This work is composed according to the Pali text.
A treatise on the principle of dharma,
It is imperative that you take it as your duty
To be bound and to conform.
This dharma offers rules
To guide all living beings,
To ensure their success here and in the afterlife.
It is alive, it is immortal,
This dharma constitutes a code
By laying bare the aspects of success.

In Chbab Kerti Kal (Hereafter), sensible advice is offered as follows:

Let your house be spick and span
With no dust rising.
Clean, rake, and sweep the ground
So that its neatness will cause content.
Put your needles away safely
And keep carefully the money in your purse.
When you give orders to your servants, look at their faces
To see whether they are good or ill-natured.

The oldest poem in the genre, Chbab Peak Chasa (Old Words), has some weighty subjects to impart:

Stanzas 1-7

Old words from ancient times
Tell us
You could not see your own faults,
The faults of others,
No matter how small they were,
They were as big as a mountain.
In the forest full of wild beasts
You implored others to join you,
Had sugar and honey
You hid in your home and ate alone.
You kept wanting,
Wanting this, wanting that without forethought,
It is all about you
Never a second thought of others.
You ate just to eat
But too lazy to chew properly,
You thought a fishing rod for a fishing net
You took a hook for a bait.
You assumed grandpas for grandmas
You mistook a son for a nephew,
You misread two for one
You misunderstood restlessness for contentment.
You assumed offense for gratitude
You thought compassion for apathy,
You mistook goodness for wickedness
You assumed excrement for flowers.
You donned the monk robe
But declined to shave your head,
You looked into a mirror with your eyes closed,
You thought a horse for a donkey
You assumed a lion for a mouse.

In Cambodia, chbab poetry is part of secondary school curriculum with Chbab Srey and Chbab Pross (female and male) being the most popular ones among students. Chbab Srey deals with how a proper woman should behave, especially toward her husband. By the early 2000s, however, it had attracted a lot of attention from NGOs and activists who thought that the poem taught young girls to feel worthless, essentially a slave to her husband. There are many versions of the female and male poems. From the late 1700s onward, it seemed many poets wrote a pair of these gendered poems, including Sri Hariraksha Surya Adipati (reign 1841-1860) to Krom Ngoy (the Father of modern Khmer poetry), from famous to non-famous. But the most popular and well-known version came from Mern Mai, written in the late 1800s. And it was his version that was at the center of the controversy. Under a lot of pressure, in 2007 the Ministry of Education finally yanked Chbab Srey, all versions of Chbab Srey, from the curriculum.

Stanzas 14-16, 39-41 of Chbab Srey by Dr. Mern Mai

As a woman
Be mindful of your speech.
Do not giggle like a simple girl.
Nor flirt without a care.
Like a loose girl
Who prefers the company of young men.
Respect your husband.
Keep the flame of your marriage alive.
Otherwise, it will burn you.
Do not bring outside problems into your home
Nor should you take family problems out of the home.

Khmer poetry is at its deathbed at this moment, but the chbab genre remains a popular one among the people, young and old alike. Practically anyone in Cambodia can recite some bits and pieces from the repertoire.
I leave you with the closing stanzas from Chbab Kun Cau

O, my children! Listen carefully!
These words form a code,
A discourse on education;
These words form a path of passage
That must be kept piously.
O, my children!
Together, listen carefully!
O, all children!
In the future generations
Of your family,
Learn to care for one another,
And to stay together.
Whether false or righteous, wicked or good,
Know how to endure and forgive.
O, my children!
Your father being well aged
Will not be long among you.
Who will stay
To guide you, my children?
Who then will be able
To replace your father?
But your father once gone
Leaves behind a word
To guide and inform you.
This word, your father
Will make a bridge
To allow you all
To reach the other Shore.
That word in question, then,
Should you reject it,
You will likely face hard time ahead
But, if your boat breaks,
If your junk rips apart,
Even in the distant Lanka,
You can always come home.