Tag Archives: Angkor Wat

Cambodia – Angkor Wat, the battles, the heavens, the hells

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Angkor Wat contains more bas-reliefs than just the Churning of the Sea of Milk, all epic in scale and astonishing in detail. Considering that they are almost one thousand years old, they are amazingly well preserved. There are lots of glorious battles scenes with armies marching on foot, on horseback, on elephants. Battles are so crowded and chaotic you can almost hear the shouts of the advancing soldiers and the screams of the wounded.

Larger-than-life kings and even many-armed gods preside over all. The dying fall to hells that have more tortures than Dante’s Inferno or rise to heavens full of earthly glories.

            

Cambodia – Angkor Wat, the churning of the ocean of milk

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Once upon a time–and maybe still today–there were gods and there were demons. Although they were half-siblings, they hated each other and fought terrible battles. But generally the gods had the upper hand.

One day, Indra, king of the gods accidentally insulted a great and powerful sage, who then cursed Indra and all the gods with him, causing them to lose their good fortune. Shortly afterwards, the demons defeated the gods in a great battle, and the demons gained control of the universe.

The gods appealed to Vishnu, who is the creator of everything, gods and demons alike. You can imagine how they moaned and cried, but Vishnu told them they were adults and had to fend for themselves. He advised diplomacy. You can just hear him telling them in his best parenting voice that they could catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

So the gods went to the demons and proposed a project of joint cooperation: Together they would churn the Ocean of Milk (which we call today the Milky Way) for the nectar of immortality, which they would share when they got it. The demons agreed.

It took all of the joint strength of the gods and the demons to churn the Ocean of Milk. They used Mt. Mandaranchal as a fulcrum. Vasuki, the five-headed king of the serpents, agreed to serve as the churning rope.

The demons, with their armies behind them, held Vasuki’s head.

    

The gods held his tail.

 

They took turns pulling, rotating the mountain this way and that, churning and churning. Sea creatures were stirred up in the ocean.

 

The gods and demons churned so hard that Mt. Mandaranchan began to sink into the ocean. To hold it up, Vishnu appeared in his incarnation as a turtle (Here we see both Vishnu and the turtle below him). Indra, king of the gods, flew above Vishnu to steady the mountain.

The gods and demons churned up a lot of good stuff (and a little bad): the moon, a seven-headed horse, a divine cow, Indra’s elephant, the most valuable jewel in the world, a powerful poison (fortunately swallowed by the god Shiva to prevent it from killing off everything, and the source of Shiva’s blue throat), a divine tree, the goddess of alcohol, the goddess of good fortune and wealth, the heavenly dancing nymphs (apsaras, which you can see flying above gods and demons alike), and finally, yes, the elixir of immortality.

A great battle ensued for possession of the elixir, and–tragedy!–the demons won. But Vishnu appeared disguised as an enticing maiden, who distracted the demons and then stole the elixir back for the gods. A second great battle ensued, this time with a decisive victory for the gods.

And so, that’s why we worhip gods and not demons to this very day.

 

Cambodia – Angkor Wat, the buildings

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We’re in for three postings about Angkor Wat over the next few days. Today, let’s look at the buildings and site. The next two posts will cover the wonderful friezes.

Most temples traditionally face east, the direction of the sunrise and hope. But Angkor Wat faces west, the direction of death. Some scholars have conjectured that the Wat was intended as a mausoleum, but no remains have ever been found. So… maybe not.

Construction was begun early in the reign of King Suryavarman II, who reigned from 1113 to 1150 AD, and the temple was mostly completed in the first half of his reign. Considering that this may be the world’s largest religious building, this is no small feat.

With an outer wall 2.2 miles long, the Wat encloses an area of over two hundred acres. It has more stone than the Great Pyramid. Sacked by the enemy Chams in 1177, Angkor Wat was never completely abandoned, even after a new Khmer king built the Bayon Temple at Angkor Thom in the following century.

We approached Angkor Wat from the east and then ascended the stairs to the galleries of carved stone friezes (more on these later).

   

 

After viewing the friezes, we crossed some inner galleries, to see some Buddhas still actively worshipped today. (I should note here that although the temple was originally consecrated to Vishnu, it became Buddhist when the Khmer people did.)

     

 

The friezes near the entrances and exits are apsaras, heavenly dancing girls who await the righteous, er, men. Cute, aren’t they? So welcoming! I wonder what they do for the righteous women.

Afterwards, we made our way out the western entrance, across a long stone causeway, past numerous ancillary structures and the remains of a great moat.

       

Looking back even just from the midway point, the temple was far away. And awesome.

 

Cambodia – Banteay Srei

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Banteay Srei, about fifteen miles northeast of the main Angkor Wat and Angkor Tom complexes, is small compared to those better-known temples. Small but really sweet. And perhaps this is why it came to be called “Banteay Srei,” which means “Ladies’ Citadel.” Some say this is because the structures, doorways, and so on, are small, as if they were built for women. Others say the name came from the fact that the stone was so delicately carved and in such detail that only a woman could have done it. (Ladies, watch out for those second sort of men…)

Banteay Srei was built in 967AD and used into the fifteenth century. Its original name (in Sanskrit) was (er, sounds like…) Shiri Tre Bhuvan Mahes Vara, which means “Sacred Home of the Great Lord of the World.” The Great Lord in question is Shiva.

The temple later fell into disuse and was then abandoned and lost, to be rediscovered by the French but not until 1914.

The temple was built mostly of red sandstone, which is amenable to detailed carving and strong enough to endure a long time. And indeed the carvings are still after all these centuries so breathtaking that I’ve had a hard time narrowing down the photos to include here.

       

 

Remember, these carvings are well over a thousand years old!

 

Here’s a detail of the above pediment.

 

  

 

Welcome to Cambodia

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Dear friends and followers,

After something like six days of travel and six weeks of blogging, we now leave Myanmar for the wonders of Cambodia. There will be more ruins, many of them absolutely stunning, more friendly people, more (yes!) silk weaving, and more great food.

The first several posts will cover the area in and near Angkor Wat. Here, for your reference is a map from the Wikimedia Commons. The first place Dan and I visited is the ancient temple of Banteay Srei, which is not actually on this map, but instead is about fifteen miles northeast beyond Ta Som, off the top righthand corner. The rest of the places will be on the map.