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| Posted: 2009-10-02 16:21:06 | Replies: 0 |
Sacred Angkor (24)
Photo Above: Lord Shiva and Uma from Banteay Srei. 10the century, sandstone.
The chief iconic image from the site is a splendid sculpture of Shiva seated, holding his wife Uma on his left knee. The massive cubical forms give a grandiose impression of power.
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Indra's heaven: Stupendous architecture
Robert Joseph Casey (1890 - 1962) a reporter with Chicago Daily News, writing in his book Four faces of Shiva in 1926 wrote:
"Angkor vat, supreme architectural effort of this culture, not only the most grandiose temple of the group but probably the most stupendous undertaking attempted by man since the corner-stone was laid for the tower of Babel.
Angkor vat is the apotheosis of the Khmer people. If nothing else remained of all their works it would be enough to mark them as one of the great races that time has produced.
Jean Commaille (1868-1916) first Conservative of Angkor expressed it:
Angkor vat is isolated like an island in the middle of a lake."
"The faade of the temple proper is five times as wide as the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris. The central tower is more than two hundred feet high. The construction of the pyramids of Egypt was a task of minor importance compared with the building of Angkor vat. For the works of Ghizeh it was necessary to haul the stone only across the valley of the Nile from the quarries beyond the present city of Cairo. Some of the rock used in Angkor vat is believed to have come from points more than forty miles distant, part of it by water, much of it overland on rollers. And there is no group of structures in Egypt, not excepting even Karnak, as intricately carved as this.
"One is conscious instantly of a strange combination of delicacy, finely wrought detail and terrific immensity, a conception that is peculiarly typical of the Khmer arts. Here is at once a rocky uplift, whose very bulk is potent thaumaturgy, and a hanging garden whose banks of flowers are chiseled stone.
Never, if one looks at it for an hour or for a day or repeatedly for weeks on end, does Angkor vat seem real.
"The architects of the great temple were masters of their craft, but first of all they were close students of the human eye. They set out to build not only a tremendous pyramid but an ensemble which would instantly seize upon the vision of one who entered through West Gate and carry it irresistibly in a direct unwavering line to the climax of the central tower.
Angkor vat is built up from the fan of the multi-headed cobra at the end of the causeway through a series of buildings of increasing importance and cumulative effect. Without the twin libraries the eye might be distracted by the reaches of open space on the side of the road of honor. With them it is caught and centered. The pools that sparkle in the part are merely decorative fringes to a picture whose essential values are never for a moment in doubt.
It is one of the strangely fascinating features of Angkor vat that a person must go about the work deliberately if he is to study the building in detail. So long as he stands on the causeway before the first staircase he is conscious only of what lies ahead of him, a vision so ethereal that it might well be a mirage or a thing of moon-dust dropped from Indras heaven.
(source: Four Faces of Shiva - By Robert J Casey p. 270 - 277).
Splendid Sculptures
Most of the elegant bronze statues in the temples have all but disappeared, except portion of this huge statue of Lord Vishnu. It testifies to the excellent workmanship of the Khmer. The smaller statues and ornaments found reveal a high level of technical and artistic skill. They were made by the lost wax technique and some parts were often cast separately and then riveted together. Some were decorated with precious metals. Sadly none of the articles made of gold, silver or alloys of precious metals referred to in the Khmer inscriptions, known as samrit, have survived, apart from the magnificent Nandi, the bull ridden by Lord Shiva.
Another magnificent bronze of Shiva, from Por Loboeuk, suggests the wealth of metal art that once must have existed in Cambodia (Kamboja) at the height of its power."
Indian influences in early Khmer or Sambor art is so marked that some scholars have suggested the artists came form India. The statues are extremely beautiful, but only a few have survived. The most exquisite of these are the statues of Harihara, Uma and Lakshmi in the Phnom Penh museum. The chief iconic image from the site is a splendid sculpture of Shiva seated, holding his wife Uma on his left knee. The massive cubical forms give a grandiose impression of power.
No one knows in which of the temples in Wat Phu in Laos, the silver statue of Lord Vishnu was worshipped, only its head has been found in the waters of a little stream, near the Lingaparvata. This exquisite piece is probably of 8th century date. The sumptuous material, the fine workmanship, the nobility of the features and more than all else the infinite sweetness of its smile make this image, sadly mutilated though it is, one of the most extraordinary masterpieces of southeast Asia. It bears witness to the piety and splendor of the princes of Chenla from whom all the Khmer kings were to proclaim their descent.
(source: The Civilization of Angkor by Mideline Giteau p. 80 82)
Conclusion
Angkor Wat, the greatest of Khmer temples, is a text in itself. The hundreds of reliefs sculpted on its stones narrate the events from the Hindu Epics and the Puranas, and symbolically communicate the fundamental religious, philosophical, ethical and political principles of the Khmers at the time of Suryavarman. Varman was a title given to Kings and Pandita was title given to Brahmins.
Philip Rawson ( ) academic, artist, Keeper of the Gulbenkian Museum of Oriental Art and archaeology at the University of Durham and author of The Art of Southeast Asia says that Angkor Vat is the crowning work of Khmer architecture, carrying to their high point all the features of earlier styles. But Rawson could not help noting ``the ultimate foundations of the style remain what they always were, securely Indian, reminiscent of the late Pallava and Chola art in south-eastern India.''
Kampuchea in the national language of Khmer was the ancient Kambujadesa or Kambuja. Chinese chronicles of the third century have recorded the rise of an Indian state in the Mekong valley and named it Funan and by the fifth century it was known as Kambuja as recorded by Sanskrit inscriptions there. Kambuja was one of the many India-colonised states, which included Pagan in Burma, Srivijaya in the Indonesian isles and Champa in Vietnam. From 802 AD to the end of the 14th century there was continuity in Hindu and Buddhist kings ruling over the region with their dynasties. The most famous of them were Suryavarman II and Jayavarman VII who built the great Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom respectively in the 12th and 13th centuries.
The glory of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom which highlighted the perfection of the fusion of Indian and Khmer art and architecture was unparalleled in those times when they were constructed. These temple complexes included the palaces of the kings and dwelling places for numerous others.
The bas-reliefs in the temples depicting the epics of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are without compare. The apsaras of Angkor who number 1850 are rare specimens of art and no two are alike. Many western explorers and historians have written eloquently on these monuments: Undeniably an expression of the highest genius.
Its beauty and state of preservation are unrivalled. Its mightiness and magnificence bespeak a pomp and luxury surpassing that of a Pharaoh or a Shah Jahan, an impressiveness greater than that of the Pyramids, an artistic distinctiveness as fine as that of the Taj Mahal are some of their observations. The kings were Saivites, Vaishnavites and Buddhists and true to the Indian tradition the entire pantheon of gods and goddesses are there. The Kambuja kings were contemporaries of Chalukyas, Guptas, Pallavas and Cholas and they maintained close ties with them.
Every king added to the construction of temples to commemorate his rule and the extensive building of monuments over the years depleted the resources of the empire. The decline of the Cambodian or Khmer Kingdom was brought about by wars with Thailand whose kings defeated the Khmers and destroyed Angkor Thom. There was a long period of lawless drift for about four centuries and by the early 19th century the French colonisers had arrived and Cambodia became a French Protectorate in 1863. In the post second world war phase, Cambodia gained her freedom in 1953. Inevitably however, Cambodia got embroiled in the 20-year-long war which the Americans unleashed in the neighbouring Vietnam.
King Norodom Sihanouk tried to maintain a neutral posture which was a red rag to the Americans who manoeuvred to get him ousted and install a puppet regime headed by Lon Nol in 1970. The Americans carried out bombing raids in the eastern region of Cambodia, apart from Laos, to obliterate the famous Ho Chi Minh trail, which was the lifeline of the Vietcongs.
It is estimated that the US bombings killed up to four lakhs of Cambodians.
(source: The glory and the agony of Cambodia - By T. V. Rajeswar - tribuneindia.com). For more refer to chapter on Suvarnabhumi, Seafaring in Ancient India, War in Ancient India and India on Pacific Waves?
The culture is frozen in time, limited to concepts from the Vedas, Ramayana and Mahabharata, unlike temples in India that are Puranic. Every temple recreates the ancient concept of jambudvipa with Mount Meru at the center, as a tall multi-tiered pyramid. The garbagriha at the top of Meru is a literal recreation of the womb of the universe, and the deity within is the source of creation."
The outside walls are decorated with the gods, dvarapalas and beautiful apsaras with whom the local women identify. Indra on Airavata, Krishna lifting Govardhana, the Vali-Sugriva battle and Ravana shaking Kailasa are among the popular subjects. Often, Rahu and Ketu are carved on lintels, a rare sight in India.
The main object of veneration may be the Shiva Linga or Vishnu or the Buddha, but the walls would contain stories of Rama, Krishna and the ascetic Shiva on a hill. The most popular motif is the samudra manthana, the churning of the ocean by the devas and asuras for the divine nectar, where the tortoise is the base on which Mount Meru is placed and churned, unlike later Indian literature where Vishnu is identified with the tortoise. There are several Sanskrit inscriptions written in Pallava Grantha.
Surrounding the Angkor temples is the temple tank or Indratataka, a typically South Indian feature wrongly described as a moat by European.
(source: The Temples of Angkor - By Nandita Krishna)
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