Amazing Angkor

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Today was amazing, but exhausting.  It’s 5pm and I’ve been awake now for 13 hours.  I feel like I’m going to fall asleep on the table.  We met this morning, breakfast boxes in hand, to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat.  It was so dark as we walked down the path that I had no idea what surrounded me.  The sun slowly lit up the sky and the towers of Angkor Wat emerged from the darkness, reflecting on the water in the moat.  Tourists lined the water snapping shots of the temple, although the cloud cover was a bit too heavy for a beautiful sunrise.

Sunrise at Angkor Wat

A bit of background on the Angkor temples from my Footprint guidebook before I continue:

            “The temples at Angkor were modeled on those of the kingdom of Chenla a mountain kingdom centered on northern Cambodia and southern Laos), which in turn were modeled on Indian temples.  They represent Mount Meru – the home of the gobs of Indian cosmology.  The central towers symbolize the peaks of Mouth Meru, surrounded by a wall representing the earth and moats and basins representing the oceans.  The devaraja, or god-king, was enshrined in the center of the religious complex, which acted as the spiritual axis of the kingdom.  The people believed their apotheosized king communicated directly with the gods.

            The central tower sanctuaries housed the images of the Hindu gods to whom the temples were dedicated.  Dead members of the royal and priestly families were accorded a status on a par with these gods.  Libraries to store the sacred scriptures were also built within the ceremonial center.  The temples were mainly built to shelter the images of the gods – unlike Christian churches, Moslem mosques and some Buddhist pagodas, they were not intended to accommodate worshippers.  Only priests, the servants of the god, were allowed into the interiors.  The ‘congregation’ would mill around in the open courtyards of wooden pavilions.

            The first temples were of a very simple design, but with time they became more grandiose and doors and galleries were added.  Most of Angkor’s buildings are made from a soft sandstone which is easy to work.  It was transported to the site from Phnom Kulen, about 30 km to the northeast.  Laterite was used for foundations, core material, and enclosure walls, as it was widely available and could be easily cut into blocks.  A common feature of Khmer temples was false doors and windows on the sides and backs of sanctuaries and other buildings .  In most cases there was no need for well-lit rooms and corridors as hardly anyone ever went into them.  That said, the galleries round the central towers in later temples, such as Angkor Wat, indicate that worshippers did use the temples for ceremonial circumambulation when they would contemplate the inspiring bas-reliefs from the important Hindu epic, Ramayana and Mahabharata (written between 400 BC and AD 200).

            Despite the court’s conversion to Mahayana Buddhism in the 12^th century, the architectural ground-plans of temples did not alter much – even though they were based on Hindu cosmology.  The idea of the god-king was simply grafted onto the new state religion and statues of the Buddha rather than the gods of the Hindu pantheon were used to represent the god-king.  One particular image of the Buddha predominated at Angkor in which he wears an Angkor-style crown, with a conical top which is encrusted with jewellery.”

Around 6:30 we were getting ready to leave Angkor Wat when J.P. got stung in the head.  He walked towards us grabbing his head and looked to be in pain.  After sitting for a minutes he was ready to go again.  Always our fearless leader.  Our first temple visit was Ta Prohm, well known because it featured in Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie.  It was incredible seeing the enormous trees growing out of the ruins of the temple.  The trees are so much a part of the structure now that they can’t be removed.

Some background from my Footprint guidebook:

“The temple of Ta Prohm is the perfect lost-in-the-jungle experience.  Unlike most of the other monuments at Angkor, it has been only minimally cleared of its undergrowth, fig trees and creepers.  It is widely regarded as one of Angkor’s most enchanting temples.

Ta Prohm was consecrated in 1186 – five years after Jayavarman VII seized power.  It was built to house the divine image of the Queen Mother.  The outer enclosures of Ta Prohm are somewhat obscured by foliage but reach well-beyond the temple’s heart (1km by 650m).  The temple proper consists of a number of concentric galleries, featuring corner towers and the standard gopuras.  Other buildings and enclosures were built on a more ad hoc basis.

Within the complex walls lived 12,640 citizens.  It contained 39 sanctuaries or prasats, 566 stone dwellings and 288 brick dwellings.  Ta Prohm literally translates to the ‘Royal Monastery’ and that is what it functioned as, home to 18 abbots and 2740 monks.  By the 12^th century, temples were no longer exclusively places of worship – they also had to accommodate monks, so roofed halls were increasingly built within the complexes.”

Ta Prohm

Our next stop was Ta Keo.  We only had twenty minutes there, but Elli, Jacek and I took the challenge and climbed to the top.  The view was mostly trees but it was fascinating to see the temple complex from above. (I don’t have any written information on this temple.)

Continuing on… Victory gate of Angkor Thom, Terrace of the Elephants and Bayon, all part of the Angkor Thom complex.  We eventually left out of the South Gate, but I’ll get to that later.  As we just walked around to spend time exploring the various buildings  I will allow my guidebook to provide information of the Great City.

            “Construction of Jayavarman VII’s spacious walled capital, Angkor Thom (which means ‘great city’), began at the end of the 12^th century: he rebuilt the capital after it had been captured and destroyed by the Cham.  Angkor Thom was colossal: the 100-m-wide moat surrounding the city, which was probably stocked with crocodiles as a protection against the enemy, extended more than 12 km.  Inside the moat was an 8-m-high stone wall, buttressed on the inner side y a high mound of earth along the top of which ran a terrace for troops to man the ramparts.

            Four great gateways in the city wall face north, south, east and west and lead to the city’s geometric center, the Bayon.  The fifth, Victory Gate, leads from the royal palace (within the Royal Enclosure) to the East Baray.  The height of the gates was determined by the headroom needed to accommodate an elephant and howdah, complete with parasols.  The flanks of each gateway are decorated by three-headed stone elephants, and each gateway tower has four giant faces, which keep an eye on all four cardinal points.  Five causeways traverse the moat, each ordered by sculptured balustrades of nagas gripped, on one side, by 54 stern-looking giant gods and on the other by 54 fierce-faced demons.  The balustrade depicts the Hindu legend of the churning of the sea.

            The South Gate provides the most common access route to Angkor Thom, predominately because it sits on the path between the two great Angkor complexes.  The gate is a wonderful introduction to Angkor Thom, with well-restored statues of asuras (demons) and gods lining the bridge.  The figures on the left, exhibiting a serene expression, are the gods, while those on the right, with grimaced, fierce-looking heads, are the asuras.

            The Bayon was Jayavarman VII’s own temple-mountain, built right in the middle of Angkor Thom; its large faces have now become synonymous with the Angkor complex.  It is believed to have been built between the late 12^th century to early 13^th century, around 100 years after Angkor Wat.  The Bayon is a three-tiered, pyramid-temple with a 45-m-high tower, topped by four gigantic carved heads.  These faces are believed to be the images of Jayavarman VII as a Bodhisattra, and face the four compass points.  They are crowned with lotus flowers, symbol of enlightenment, and are surrounded by 51 smaller towers each with heads facing north, south, east and west.  There are more than 2,000 large faces carved throughout the structure.  The first two of the three levels feature galleries of bas-relief; a circular central sanctuary dominates the third level.  The bas-reliefs which decorate the walls of the Bayon are much less imposing than those at Angkor Wat.  The sculpture is carved deeper but is more naïve and less sophisticated than the bas-reliefs at Angkor Wat.  The relief on the outside depicts historical events; those on the inside are drawn from the epic world of gods and legends, representing the creatures who were supposed to haunt the subterranean depths of Mount Meru.  In fact the reliefs on the outer wall illustrating historical scenes and derring-do with marauding Cham were carved in the early 13^th century during the reign of Jayavarman; those on the inside which illuminate the Hindu cosmology were caved after the kind’s death when his successors turned from Mahayana Buddhism back to Hinduism.  Two recurring themes in the bas-reliefs are the powerful kind and the Hindu epics.  Jayavarman is depicted in the throes of battle with the Cham – who are recognizable thanks to their unusual and distinctive headdress, which looks like an inverted lotus flower.  The other bas-reliefs give good insight into Khmer life at the time – the warrior elephants, ox carts, fishing with nets, cockfights and skewered fish drying on racks.  Other vignettes show musicians, jugglers, hunters, chess layers, palm-readers and scenes of Angkor citizens enjoying drinking sessions.  In the naval battle scenes, the water around the war-canoes is depicted by the presence of fish, crocodiles and floating corpses….

Bayon

            In the front of the Royal Palace, at the center of Angkor Thom, Suryavarman I laid out the first Grand Plaza with the Terrace of the Elephants.  The 300-m-long wall derives its name from the large, life-like carvings of elephants flanking the southern stairway.  It is believed it was the foundations of the royal reception hall.  Royalty once sat in gold-topped pavilions at the center of the pavilion, and here there are rows of garudas (bird-men), their wings lifted as if in flight.  They were intended to give the impression that the god-king’s palace was floating in the heavens, like the imagined flying celestial palaces of the gods.”

           

We had free time to wander Bayon and were told to meet at the bus on the south side at 11:10.  When I got on at 11, the only one missing was Ros.  J.P. went out to look for her, even though she still had 15 minutes to spare.  Then it was 11:15 and she still wasn’t back.  At 11:30am when no one had spotted her, our guide Kim joined J.P. in the search for Ros.  J.P. had made a point at the beginning of the day that we needed to keep on a tight schedule in order to get to the temples before the crowds so at 11:45 we were about to make a circle around the temple when Ros pulled up in a tuk tuk.  She claimed that she got lost and had been walking around the temple, but that’s hard to believe since we’d all been sitting on the bus watching and no one spotted her.  It was pretty irritating and the fact that it took her 30 minutes to figure out a way to find us is a bit sad.  Maybe I sound harsh, but if you’d spent close to three weeks with this woman you would feel the same.

J.P. stopped at the South Gate as promised before we dashed to lunch.  He’s been to Angkor so many times the guy in the restaurant knows him by name and we were served quickly.  In the end, we got out of lunch on time.  We all ate pretty quickly.  Then it was back to Angkor Wat to go inside the famous temple.  What a magnificent sight.  We walked over the moat, through the front gates and into the main area of the temple.  Jacek, Norm, Elli and I climbed to the top terrace to visit the principal sanctuary.  A stunning piece of religious history.

            “The awe-inspiring sight of Angkor Wat, first thing in the morning, is something you’re not likely to forget.  Angkor literally means ‘city’ or ‘capital’ and it is the biggest religious monument ever built and certainly one of the most spectacular.  The temple complex covers 81 ha.  Its five towers are emblazoned on the Cambodian flag and the 12^th century masterpiece is considered by art historians to be the prime example of classical Khmer art and architecture.  It took more than 30 years to build and is dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu, personified in the earthly form by its builder, the god-king Suryavarman II, and is aligned east to west.

            Angkor Wat differs from other temples, primarily because it is facing westward, symbolically the direction of death, leading many to originally believe it was a tomb.  However, as Vishnu is associated with the west, it is now generally accepted that it served both as a temple and a mausoleum for the king.  Like other Khmer temple-mountains, Angkor Wat is an architectural allegory, depicting in stone the epic tales of Hindu mythology.  The central sanctuary of the temple complex represents the sacred Mount Meru, the center of the Hindu universe, on whose summit the gods reside.  Angkor Wat’s fiver towers symbolize Meru’s five peaks; the enclosing wall represents the mountains at the edge of the world and the surrounding moat, the ocean beyond.

            The temple complex is enclosed by a square moat – more than 5 km in length and 190 m wide – and a high, galleried wall, which is covered in epic bas-reliefs and has four ceremonial tower gateways.  The main gateway faces west and the temple is approached by a 475-m-long road, built along a causeway, which is lined with naga balustrades.  At the far end of the causeway stands a cruciform platform, guarded by stone lions, from which the devaraja may have held audiences; his backdrop being the three-tiered central sanctuary.  Commonly referred to as the Terrace of Honor, it is entered through the colonnaded processional gateway of the outer gallery.  The transitional enclosure beyond it is again cruciform in shape.  Its four quadrants formed galleries, once stocked full of statues of the Buddha.  Only a handful of the original 1,000-odd images remain.

            The cluster of central towers, 12 m above the second terrace, is reached by 12 steep stairways, which represent the precipitous slopes of Mount Meru.  Many historians believe that the upwards hike to this terrace was reserved for the high priests and king himself.  Today, anyone is welcome but the difficult is best handled slowly by stepping sideways up the steep incline.  The five lotus flower-shaped sandstone towers – the first appearance of these features in Khmer architecture – are believed to have once been covered in gold.  The eight-storey towers are square – although they appear octagonal, and give the impression of a sprouting bud.  The central tower is dominant, as is the Siva shrine and principal sanctuary, whose pinnacle rises more than 30 m above the third level and, 55 m above ground level.  This sanctuary would have contained an image of Siva in the likeness of King Suryavarman II, s it was his temple-mountain.  But it is now a Buddhist shrine and contains statues of the Buddha.

            More than 1,000 sq m of bas-relief decorate the temple.  Its greatest sculptural treasure is the 2-m-high bas-reliefs, around the walls of the outer gallery.  It is the longest continuous bas-relief in the world.  In some areas traces of the paint and gilt that once covered the carvings can still be seen.  Most famous are the hundreds of figures of deities and apsaras in niches along the walls.” (Footprint)

Our last temple for the day was Preah Khan.  As Kim was explaining the history of the temple, a huge group of school children approached us.  They were adorable, and their English teacher was a 17-year old from Northern California who is spending part of her year before college (since she graduated early) teaching at a school in Siem Reap.  When the children left, we got back to focusing on the temple.  Preah Khan reminded me a bit of Ta Prohm due to the number of trees growing among the ruins.  It also has long, dimly lit corridors.

            “The 12^th century complex of Preah Khan, one of the largest complexes within the Angkor area, was Jayavarman VII’s first capital before Angkor Thom was completed.  Preah Khan means ‘sacred sword’ and is believed to have derived from a decisive battle against the Cham, which created a ‘lake of blood’, but was invariably won by Jayavarman VII.  It is similar in ground-plan to Ta Prohm but attention was paid to the approaches: its east and west entrance avenues leading to ornamental causeways are lined with carved-stone boundary posts.  Evidence of 1,000 teachers suggests that it was more than a mere Buddhist monastery but most likely a Buddhist university.  Nonetheless an abundance of Brahmanic iconography is still present on the site.  Around the rectangular complex, is a large laterite wall, surrounded by large garudas wielding the naga (each more than 5 m in height), the theme continues across the length of the whole 3-km external enclosure, with the motif dotted every 50 m.  Within these walls lies the surrounding moat.” (Footprint)

Preah Khan

By the time we finished at 4pm, everyone was exhausted.  Since we had the evening to ourselves, I decided to get dropped off in town to go to the Blue Pumpkin.  I sat on the second floor on their bed-like couch eating a brownie ice cream (coffee and Bailey’s flavor).  Additionally, I ordered a chicken wrap so that I could spend the night relaxing at the hotel and not have to run out to dinner.  And that brings me to now.  Spending the night writing and eating my delicious wrap.  We finally get to sleep in tomorrow (meeting at 8am) after a fabulous but tiring day around Angkor.