Cambodia 5: Angkor

The Khmer Temples of Angkor Wat; Ta Prohm; Angkor Thom and the Bayon

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In today’s final article on my travels in Vietnam and Cambodia, let me take you to the ancient, atmospheric lost capital Angkor and its Khmer temples.

Map: Angkor

Introduction:

Angkor, Late Monsoon Season, 1177

The temple of Angkor Wat had been designed to house the Hindu Gods but looked as if it had been built by them. Rising from the top of the massive, terraced temple were five towers shaped like lotus buds, the central and tallest of which stretched upward for two hundred feet. These towers symbolises the peaks of Mount Meru, the core of the Hindu universe, where the Gods resided and from where all creation sprang. The wide, square moat surrounding Angkor Wat represented the cosmic ocean, and the walls near the moat were meant to remind Hindus of the mountain ranges at the distant edges of the world.

Dedicated to the God Vishnu, Angkor Wat could hardly have been more imposing. Each tower was tiered and tapered, coming to a point at the top and as wide as a tree's canopy at the base. The towers were situated on the highest of three rectangular terraces, each stacked on top of another. Though visible from miles away, the towers weren't the only element of Angkor Wat to inspire visitors. Large swaths of the temple were rich in carvings depicting heroic images of Vishnu and Shiva, as well as of the king who had ordered the temple built and everyday Khmer people. Many of these bas-reliefs were painted. Others were covered in gold.

Temple of a Thousand Faces, A Novel, John Shors, 2013.

Photos, author

At dawn, I was privileged to witness the soft, haunting, watercolour pink and orange early morning light over the eerie temples of Angkor, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Encircled by verdant steamy jungle, shrouded in mist and with a tropical dawn chorus reverberating in the air, this is something I will never forget.

Photo, author

Photo, author, moat surrounding Angkor Wat

Photo, author, close up of woman and fishing boat on the moat at Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat:

Photo, author

Angkor Wat is one of the largest religious structure in the world. Its temples have unique importance to Hindu and Buddhist history.

Photo, author

The area enclosed inside the moats of Angkor Wat temple is four hundred acres, equivalent to four times the area of the Vatican city, Rome. Angkor, a megacity, extended for several kilometres in all directions, around the Angkor Wat Temple.

Angkor, capital of the once powerful Khmer Empire of Southeast Asia between the 9th and the 15th centuries, was the largest and most advanced city on earth at the time, outside China. The ancient capital city was populated by between eight hundred thousand and one million people. The megacity supported at least 0.1% of the global population between 1010 and 1220 A.D. The local Khmer people were skilled artisans, warriors and scholars. Angkor had global trade networks, extending as far as Europe, India and China.

Angkor Wat temple, built by King Suryavarman II almost one thousand years ago, between 1113 and 1150 A.D., was the pinnacle of the city of Angkor.

Cambodia is rich in sandstone deposits. Throughout the Angkorian period, sandstone was quarried from the Kulen Hills, the site of the original 9th century Khmer capital, 40 kilometres to the north east of Angkor. With the help of four thousand elephants, approximately ten million huge quarried sandstone slabs were floated on rafts along a waterway of rivers and a canal with a width equivalent to a six lane motorway (30 metre wide x 45 kilometre long), to the temple building sites at Angkor city, on the plain.

The Angkor Wat temple complex was built by fifty thousand Khmer artisans and labourers, over a forty year period. The temple was constructed from five million tonnes of Kulen Hills grey sandstone. The temple was built first, then the sandstone was subsequently carved.

The joints between the sandstone blocks have no filling. The complex is built on sand. The structure and the stability of the buildings depend on the water in the moat keeping the sand sufficiently moist. The moat water maintains the foundations. If the water in the moat dried out completely, Angkor Wat would not be structurally secure and would collapse.

Map: Angkor, tourismcambodia.com

For centuries, the Khmers fought the Chams, who flourished in what is now central Vietnam, for the spoils of Southeast Asia. Forces from both sides crossed borders, plundered treasuries and captured slaves.

In 1177, the Cham king, Jaya Indravarman IV, sailed up the Mekong River with a massive army and sacked Angkor, destroying much of the city and subjugating its citizens.

Within two centuries, by the fifteenth century A.D., Angkor Wat had been abandoned by the Khmer people, who moved south eastwards towards a new capital at Phnom Penh.

Subsequently, the ancient Khmer capital city of Angkor and its temples, including Angkor Wat, were swallowed up by the jungle and were only rediscovered six hundred years later.

Cambodia became a protectorate of France in the mid 1800’s and French archaeologists became entranced by the rumours of the ancient Khmer temples at Angkor.

Henri Mouhot (1826 - 1861), was a naturalist and explorer from Montbéliard, France, who alerted the West to the ruins of Angkor (britannica.com). He received support from the Royal Geographical Society and the Zoological Society of London for a zoological mission to Indochina in 1858. While exploring the tributaries of the Mekong River in Thailand, Cambodia and Laos in 1859–1860, Mouhot came upon Angkor.

During the 1970’s, the Việt Nam War abruptly stopped any archaeological exploratory work at Angkor. The Viet Cong were hiding in the jungles on the border with Việt Nam. For eight years, the area was carpet bombed by three million bombs. This was more than the number of bombs dropped by the Allies in WWII.

In 1994, the World Monument Fund and the Royal Angkor Foundation approached American space agency NASA about the possibility of observing Angkor from space. The aim was to gather data to allow better documentation and monitoring of Angkor, as well as allowing a reinterpretation of the origins and prehistory of the ancient city. NASA responded by taking a unique look at Angkor from the space shuttle Endeavor.

As Endeavour passed overhead, SIR‑C/X‑SAR transmitted a wide beam of microwave radiation to the Earth. The reflected microwave radiation was recorded by the system which built up an image of a wide strip of land during each orbit. After a number of orbits the SIR‑C/X‑SAR covered the entire site being observed.

Microwave image: NASA 1994

In June 2021, the European Space Agency and Planet Lab’s SkySat constellation captured a satellite image of Angkor Wat from 400 km above in space, using a 50 cm high resolution lens.

Satellite image: Planet Labs PBC (2021)

Many of the symbolic architectural features are clearly visible in this satellite image. The unique pyramid temple complex is surrounded by a 174 metre wide moat, visible in the large image. A stone causeway leads through the Hindu universe to the temple home of the gods from the west, on the left side of the image. The temple complex itself is a series of buildings on rising terraces like the slopes of a mountain.

The five round towers at the centre of Angkor Wat mark out the corners and the centre of the innermost square of the complex. Like the mountain peaks they represent, the towers are pointed on top. The pinnacle of each tower is slightly lighter than the surrounding black stone in this satellite image above.

Photo, author

This visually spectacular massive three-tiered pyramid has become a symbol of Cambodia, appearing on its flag.

Photo: author, Cambodian Flag featuring Angkor Wat, at Tonlé Sap

Photo: author

I am so proud that I was able to competently and confidently climb the many steep steps to the top of Angkor Wat

Photo: author

Temple, after a year’s worth of four times weekly group physio classes, to strengthen my gluteal muscles, following a nasty experience of sciatica.

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The views from the top, as I walked around the perimeter and the five towers were truly breathtaking.

Photo: author

Photo: author

Photo: author

As mentioned earlier, the Angkor Wat temple was built first, then the sandstone was subsequently carved. The Hindu story “The Churning of the Sea of Milk” is depicted by bas-relief carvings on a 48.5 metre gallery.

It tells the story about a deal reached between the Devas (benevolent Hindu gods) and the Asuras (malevolent Hindu demons) to churn the sea of milk, to extract the Amrita, a drink believed to make one immortal.

Mount Mandara was the churning object. Naga Vasuki, coiled around Mount Mandara, was the churning rope. Holding the naga's head were 92 Asuras and grabbing its tail were 88 Devas.

In the middle of the rope, Vishnu is standing, with a tortoise avatar beneath.

Photo: author, Vishnu standing on the Tortoise; Asuras (on the left) and Devas (on the right) pulling and tugging on the Naga Serpent

The story explains that as the churning continued, Mount Mandara began to sink Therefore, the churning would have to stop.

Vishnu intervened, in the avatar form of the tortoise Kurma, using the tortoise shell to prop up Mount Mandara, effectively preventing it from sinking further.

The churning went on for many more years. As Mount Mandara was constantly shaking, Vishnu appeared again, this time as his own self, at the top of Mount Mandara, in a bid to stabilise the mount. Finally, before the Amrita (the elixir of immortality) started to emerge, many goddesses - the heavenly Apsara dancers - began to emerge from the sea.

Photo: author, the heavenly Apsara dancers

Photo: Carol Barrett, a Buddhist monk at Angkor Wat

Wandering along the pathways by the water as I exited Angkor Wat Temple on the western side, I passed a young couple in traditional formal Cambodian dress, in a perfect composition for their wedding photograph.

Photo: author

Photo: author, Looking westwards from the top of Angkor Wat temple, in the direction of the gopura

Leaving Angkor Wat by the western gopura (entrance gate), I looked back eastwards to crystallise in my mind one final image of Angkor Wat temple, reflected perfectly in the still water. An unforgettable moment.

Photo: author, Angkor Wat, looking eastwards, reflected in the water

Ta Prohm:

Photo: author

We next visited the smaller temple of Ta Prohm, built in the late 12th to early 13th centuries, which has been left in its natural unrestored state, with giant tropical trees bursting through the ruins, their roots entwined like vast tentacles across the moss-covered, weathered walls and roofs.

Photo: author

Because of its natural state, at Ta Prohm, it is possible to experience the wonder of the early explorers when they came upon these monuments in the middle of the nineteenth century.

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Map: Ta Prohm

Ta Prohm is engulfed in octopus-like creeping roots of silvery sponge, beng and Cheung teal trees.

Photo: author

We entered Ta Prohm by the eastern entrance. Overhead, I could hear the jungle sounds of squawking parrots, clicking cicadas and scampering squirrels.

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Ta Prohm was a Buddhist temple dedicated to the mother of King Jayavarman VII.

Photo: author

It is one of the few temples in the Angkor region where an inscription provides information about the temple’s dependents and inhabitants.

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The Sanskrit inscription on stone, still in place, gives details of the temple, when it was built in the late 12th century:

It took 79,365 people to maintain the temple including 18 great priests, 2,740 officials, 2,202 assistants and 615 dancers. Amongst the property belonging to the temple was a set of golden dishes weighing more than 500 kilograms, 35 diamonds, 40,620 pearls, 4,540 precious stones, 876 veils from China, 512 silk beds and 523 parasols.

Photo: author

Even considering that these numbers were probably exaggerated to glorify the king, Ta Prohm must have been an important and impressive monument.

Photo: author

The complex included 260 statues of gods, 39 towers with pinnacles and 566 groups of residences.

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Ta Prohm comprises a series of long low buildings standing on one level, which are enclosed by a rectangular laterite wall (600 by 1000 metres).

Photo: author

Only traces of the wall are still visible. The centre of the monument is reached by a series of towers, connected by passages. Three square galleries enclose the area.

Photo: author

Ta Prohm is a temple of towers, closed courtyards and narrow corridors. Many of the corridors are impassable, clogged with jumbled piles of delicately carved stone blocks, dislodged by the roots of long-decayed trees.

Photo: author

Photo: author

Ta Prohm was used as a filming location for the 2001 movie Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, starring Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft, an adventurer. When it was shot in 2000, it was the first time that a film had been filmed in Cambodia since 1964’s Lord Jim.

The scene at Ta Prohm shows Lara exploring the grounds of the temple to find a way into (fictional) underground levels. Trying to reach the underground level before Lara’s rivals, a young girl helps Lara by pointing the way to where the entrance is.

Video: YouTube, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider scene in Ta Prohm

Photo: author

Photo: author

Photo: author

Photo: author, Leaving Ta Prohm at the western entrance

Angkor Thom and the Bayon:

Finally, I entered the huge fortified 13th century city of Angkor Thom, with its five monumental gates and 91 metre wide moat.

Angkor Thom was built as the new Khmer capital city, after the Cham people of modern-day Việt Nam sacked Angkor in 1177 and occupied the region for four years.

The centre of Angkor Thom contains the astonishing temple of the Bayon.

Photo: author

The Bayon was built nearly 100 years after Angkor Wat, by the later Khmer King Jayavarman VII, who converted from Hinduism to Buddhism. You can read more about the Khmer transition from Hinduism to Buddhism in my previous article here:

Since the Bayon was located at the centre of the new royal city of Angkor Thom, it seems possible that the Bayon would have originally been a temple-mountain conforming to the Hindu symbolism of a microcosm of Mount Meru.

Photo: author

Crowned with 54 towers, each with four colossal carved heads, over 2000 faces looking out in every direction give this temple its majestic character. The Bayon is an extraordinary masterpiece of Khmer art.

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The serene four-sided faces represent the Buddhist principle of the four sublime states of mind.

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It is generally accepted that the four faces on each of the tower are images of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara and that they signify the omnipresence of the king. The characteristics of these faces - a broad forehead, downcast eyes, wide nostrils, thick lips that curl upwards slightly at the ends - all combine to reflect the famous enigmatic Smile of Angkor.

Photo: author

The Bayon has a multitude of symbolic functions. When considered in relation to the walled city of Angkor Thom, the Bayon is the pivotal mountain that serves in the Hindu "Churning of the Sea of Milk" story, around which is coiled the Naga serpent Vasuki. This is the serpent belt that the Devas and Asuras continually pulled and rotated. Their exertions (as demonstrated on each causeway bridge at the five gates to the city) produced the Amrita drink, the “Elixir of Immortality”, from the depths of the water.

Photo: author

In itself, the Bayon is a Mahayana Buddhist temple, built for the Buddha seated under the Nãga named "Jayabuddhamahãnãtha", the name reflecting King Jayavarman VII, who was responsible for its construction.

The basic plan of the Bayon is a simple one, comprising three levels. The first and second levels are roofless square galleries, featuring 1.2km of extraordinary bas-reliefs on the walls, incorporating more than 11,000 figures.

A circular central sanctuary, including the many four faced towers, dominates the third level. Everywhere you walk, the huge smiling faces watch you, either at your eye level or from above, in profile or full face, following you wherever you wander in the Temple.

The bas-reliefs at the Bayon Temple eloquently portray a variety of scenes from the daily life of the 12th century Khmer people: a group of foot soldiers; shop owners with Khmer wives and in a drunken dance aboard a boat. Other bas-reliefs show small market stalls; construction workers planning a road; women preparing fish on skewers; fishing; festivals with cockfights and jugglers.

These bas-reliefs of everyday life are a marked departure from anything previously seen at Angkor.

In particular, one important bas-relief at the Bayon Temple illustrates a hospital, with two doctors: one treating physical ailments and the other treating mental health. This is significant, because it records a world first in national healthcare.

Current archaeological exploration and discoveries indicate that there were 102 Khmer hospitals in Cambodia. Each of the hospitals had the same inscription in front, which said, “all classes may enter here”. So it was a democratic, state sponsored, free national healthcare service. It's a template that had never been seen before, anywhere in the world.

The Bayon Temple at Angkor Thom reflects a religious transition under the rule of the first Buddhist King Jayavarman VII, with a conscious shift away from the concept of an exclusive devaraja god-king towards a more inclusive Theravāda Buddhism, where there is an emphasis on compassion and monk led expertise in medicine and health care.

Terrace of Elephants:

The Terrace of Elephants is located 400m north of Ta Prohm Temple, in the Royal Square of Angkor Thom. It is accessible from the road at the east. It was built at the end of the 12^th century.

The terrace is a 2.5m tall and 300m long platform which was used by King Jayavarman VII to view his victorious returning armies.

Most of the original structure has disappeared because it was built with perishable materials such as wood. What can be seen today are the ornate foundations, which contain many carvings of elephants, hence the name “Terrace of the Elephants”.

The Terrace of Elephants depicts formidable elephants being ridden by servants and princes, hunting in the sombre forests of the Khmer kingdom. The forest through which they travel is impenetrable to all but tiny creatures able to squeeze between fissures in the undergrowth, and to these enormous elephants, who make passage by crashing through the virgin vegetation.

Photo: author

Angkor Thom South Gate:

Photo: author

We left Angkor Thom, crossing the moat at the south causeway gate.

All five bridges shared some similarities with the Angkorian Preah Toeus Bridge in Kampong Kdei, that we crossed en route from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, several days earlier. There is a similar nine headed Naga serpent.

Here, a long causeway leading to each entry tower is flanked by a row of 54 stone figures on each side – demons (Asuras) on the right and gods (Devas) on the left - to make a total of 108 mythical beings, guarding the city of Angkor Thom.

The Deva gods look serene with their almond-shaped eyes, wearing conical headdresses.

Photo: author, Devas (benevolent Hindu gods)

Photo: author, Deva (benevolent Hindu god)

In contrast, the Asura demons have a grimacing expression and wear military headdresses.

Photo: author, Asura (malevolent Hindu demon)

Photo: author, Asura (malevolent Hindu demon)

Photo: author, Asura (malevolent Hindu demon)

The Naga serpent spreads its nine heads in the shape of a fan at the beginning of the five causeway bridges. Its body extends the length of the causeway and is held by the gods and demons forming a serpent-like railing.

I believe that these later Khmer bridges seen at the Angkor Thom Buddhist city are a link to the bas-reliefs seen at the older Hindu Angkor Wat Temple earlier this morning, depicting the Hindu story “The Churning of the Sea of Milk”.

Reflections:

Photo: Antonia, tour guide, author in contemplation. Deva or Asura?

This is my last of 12 articles about my travels through Việt Nam and Cambodia. The extraordinary experience was bittersweet due to the absence of my husband, who was instructed by his doctor not to travel due to acute depression.

Everywhere I journeyed I met welcoming, kind people, luscious landscapes, flavoursome foods, astonishing architecture and harrowing histories.

I learnt much about the complex nature of mankind (the good, the bad and the downright ugly), through the historical stories, buildings, archaeology, graves and memorial stupas that I witnessed here in Việt Nam and Cambodia and in the current global news reaching me from the U.S., Russia, Europe and Ukraine.

I learnt more about myself. That I am still able to travel independently, laugh and enjoy other people’s company, making new friends, even after living together with my husband for 37 years. And I learnt that writing for me is compulsive and solitary. I was sociable every day, but at a certain time every evening, I withdrew to write, no matter how tired. Sometimes accompanied with a local beer, along with a green tea flavoured KitKat.

Photo: author, Angkor

Photo: author, Phnom Penh

Photo: author, everywhere

Photo: author, Ho Chi Minh City

Photo: author, Ha Long Bay

Photo: author, Hà Nội

The local beer photos map my journey. I should point out that I normally do not drink beer and I do not have a problem with alcohol, but a beer after a humid thirty four degree Celsius day spent exploring was quite refreshing. On other occasions, I preceded my nightly writing with a relaxing, traditional Khmer massage.

Free-Styling @60 indeed!

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