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THE MYSTERIES OF ANGKOR WAT- FORGOTTEN WONDER!
http://pharos.bu.edu/Egypt/Wonders/Forgotten/angkor.html
Located in Northwestern Cambodia, Angkor, the Capital of the Ancient Khmer Empire was possibly founded around the Ninth Century AD by King Jayavarman II. However, the city reached its peak glory in the 12th Century under Kings uryavarman II and Jayavarman VII. The most beautiful and most famous monument in the city, Angkor Wat, lies about one kilometer south of the Royal town of Angkor Thom which was founded by Jayavarman VII.

The Temple of Angkor Wat was dedicated to the Hindu God Vishnu by King Suryavarman II, who reigned between 1131 and 1150 AD. The Temple was constructed over a period of 30 years, and illustrates some of the most beautiful examples of Khmer and Hindu art. Covering an area of about 81 hectares, the complex consists of five towers, which are presently shown on the Cambodian national flag. These towers are believed to represent the five peaks of Mount Meru, the Home of Gods and Center of the Hindu Universe. Angkor Wat features the longest continuous bas-relief in the world, which runs along the outer gallery walls, narrating stories from Hindu Mythology.
With the decline of the Ancient Khmer Empire, Angkor Wat was turned into a preservation. In 1992, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee declared the monument, and the whole city of Angkor, a World Heritage Site.

http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1848/angkor.html
Angkor Wat, one of the most beautiful and mysterious historical sites in the world. Located over 192 miles to the North-West of Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh, Angkor has been "protected" from tourism, and the customs and the cultures of the people living there have not changed much. However, intense internal warfare for over fifty years has impacted on the people and to an extent on the physical structure of the temples at Angkor.

For many years, Angkor Wat was totally isolated from the Western World. Large, thick jungles covers the area, and it is located in the center of Cambodia. The French colonialists were the first westerners to get exposed to Angkor. They heard rumors from the local population about "temples built by gods or by giants." Most of the colonialists referred these rumors to folk tales, but some believed that there really was a "lost city of a Cambodian empire", which had once been powerful and wealthy. The history of Angkor Wat dates back to the kingdom of Funan. This kingdom was established by an Indian Brahmin, and in AD200, the country was peacefully settled by Indian traders. Four hundred years later, the kingdom had become a prosperous trading region. As the area was located on the Pilgrim rout between China and India, Hinduism and Chinese Buddhism was adopted by the new settlers. The Indian and Chinese influence can still be felt in Cambodia, and the temples of Angkor Wat closely resembles Hindu and Buddhist temples that can be found in Northern India and in Nepal. In the end of AD600, the Funan Empire lost much of its power to the kingdom of Chenla. The capital of this new empire, Sambor, was located about 40 miles to the Southeast of Angkor. During this time, beautiful sculptures and carvings in sand-stone was popular. In AD750, a king with a reputation of being a war-like person, who was able to expand the Chenla kingdom. However, trade with India stopped, and the Indonesian Empire raised to power.

In AD800, the kingdom of Kambuja was established, and king Jayavarman I took control over the kingdom. He built several capitals near Angkor Wat, were responsible for many social changes, and was able to size land to the North and to the East. In AD889, a nephew of Jayavaram became the new emperor, andhe was able to bring peace and unity to the Khmer Kingdom. In AD944, Jayavarman V established many Mahayana Buddhist temples near Angkor, and moved the court to Yasodharapura, at Angkor. Cultures prospered, and so didthe Khmer empire. In AD1000, Suryavarman, a young man who may have come fromthe Malayan provinces of the empire, ascends the throne of Kambuja. He wouldbecome the king of Kambuja for over 50 years. He is responsible for theplanning and foundations of the city of Angkor. In AD1051, UdayadityavarmanII succeed Suryavarman, and continued to build the city of Angkor, andrestored many of the temples. Angkor was now both a sacred temple city andthe center of a vast irrigation system.

Massive expansion of the city continued throughout the next 200 years, and ambitious building programs expanded the city. Many temples were built. The temples are spread out over about 40 miles around the village of Siem Reap. Temples and similar structures to the temples that can be found in the city of Angkor are common sights in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and in China. Perhaps the most famous temple, Angkor Wat, is a temple dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu was built during this period. Angkor Wat is the highest achievement of Khmer temple architecture, and is today the "flagship" of the temples at Angkor. The temple is a huge pyramid structure. The compound at Angkor Wat covers an area of 1,500 by 1,300 m (4,920 by 4,265 ft) and is surrounded by a vast moat 180 m (590 ft) wide. Along the causeway leading to the enormous entrance gate are balustrades shaped as giant serpents, which are believed to represent emblems of cosmic fertility. The temple consists of a towering complex of terraces and small buildings that are arranged in a series of three diminishing stories and surmounted by five towers. The roofed and unroofed structures are covered with bands of finely carved stone sculptures. The walls are covered with carved reliefs that illustrate Hindu mythology, principally scenes relating to the god Vishnu, to whom the temple was dedicated. The "mass of bas-relief carving is of the highest quality and the most beautifully executed in Angkor." All the temple mountains of Angkor were filled with three-dimensional images and every inch of the walls are covered by sculptures.

In the beginning of AD1200, the Angkor and the Khmer empire started to decline. When jayavarman VII died, the Thai Empire in the West emerged as a major power in the region. The Thai capital was moved to Ayudhya, near Angkor, and obviously threatened the Cambodian kingdom. In AD1389 the Thais attacked Angkor, and the city fell into the hands of the Thais. The 15th-century conquest of the Khmer kingdom by the Thais resulted (1431) in the final abandonment of Angkor. The city was deserted and the capital was moved to Eastward to the region of the present capital Phnom Penh.

The splendour that was Angkor
http://www.hinduonline.com/daily/980719/09/09190071.htm

Date: 19-07-1998 :: Pg: 26 :: Col: a
Angkor art, that ranged from grandiose works in sandstone to intricate bronzes, would have been lost in the depths of Cambodia's jungles had it not been for the publication of a Frenchman's illustrated diaries ... And then, the world discovered the splendor of an empire. S. RANGARAJAN on an exhibition in Washington that highlighted the rise and fall of a civilisation.

THE culture of India has been one of the world's most powerful civilising forces. Countries of the Far East, including China, Korea, Japan, Tibet and Mongolia one much of what is best in their own cultures to the inspiration of ideas imported from India... But the members of that circle of civilisations beyond Burma scattered around the Gulf of Siam and the Java Sea, virtually owe their very existence to the creative influence of Indian ideas. No conquest or invasion, no forced conversion imposed them. They were adopted because the people saw they were good and that they could use them.'' (Philip Rawson - The Art of South-east Asia, published in 1967).

The National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. in an exhibition entitled ``Sculpture of Angkor and Ancient Cambodia: Millennium of Glory'' captured the splendour that was Angkor and the wonder of India that made this historical legacy possible. In a period much before the sixth Century and one that continued for more than a 1, 000 years, Cambodian artists produced works of art glorifying many aspects of their culture belonging to both the Buddhist and Hindu religious traditions.


The sculpture ranged from grandiose and monumental works in sandstone representing goods, mythical guardians and legendary creatures to bronzes used for religious rituals and royal and aristocratic ceremonies.

Most of the exhibits were from the fabulous collections of the National Museum of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, and the Musse National des Arts Asiatiques -Guimet in Paris, which together possesses most of the world's richest Khmer art and are largely responsible for the discovery of Cambodia's cultural heritage.

How did this synthesis of civilizations come about? The clue is given by Philip Rawson when he says: ``The small colonies of Indian traders, who settled at points of vantage along the sea routes into the islands and around the coast of Indochina, merely imported with them their code of living, their conceptions of law and kingship, their rich literature and highly evolved philosophy of life. They intermarried with prominent local families: and dynasties evolved capable of organising extensive kingdoms within which their populations could live ordered and fruitful lives.''

A brief chronology of Indian and Cambodian historical features will highlight the unfolding of this great Asian cultural drama.
INDIA: First century A.D.: Indian culture spreads throughout Southeast Asia;decoration of the portals of the great stupa at Sanchi; 78 Saka era begins;2nd century: Amaravati stupa Buddhist reliefs, classical phase; 4th century:
320: Gupta period begins; 5th century: Image of Teaching Buddha at Sarnath;6th century: c. 550: Chalukya dynasty (until 750); Elephanta cave; 7thcentury: Height of Pallava dynasty (600-850); Height of Ellora art; 8thcentury: Pala dynasty in Bihar and Bengal; 10th century: Chola Empire; 11thcentury: c. 1000: Khandariya Mahadeva temple at Khajuraho; 1025: Chola raid on Srivijaya; 12th century: 1193: Sultanate of Delhi; 14th century:Vijayanagara Empire.
CAMBODIAN: Pre-Angkor period from early in the Christian era until the end of the 8th century that saw the rule of Rudravarman (514-539) and Bhavavarman I (c. 550) and the construction of Bhavapura as capital of Bhavavarman followed by the kingdoms of Isanavarman I (c. 616-635) and Bhavavarman II (635-656). This was the period as mentioned above that the Chalukya dynasty ruled in India for two centuries from c. 550 and also saw the magnificence of the Pallavas.

The Angkor dynasty was founded by Jayavarman II after his return from ``Java'' c. 790 and proclaimed himself universal king. He founded the cult of god-king or devaraja with the significant event of the installation of devaraja in 802 A.D. on Phnom Kulen (Mahendraparvata) by the Brahman Sivakaivalya, (``Khmer royal names are Sanskrit compounds that end in the word varman, meaning `shield'. Jayavarman is therefore the king `protected by jaya (victory), and Isanavarman the king `protected by Isana (a name for Siva)', etc.) - From ``Ancient Cambodia: A Historical Glimpse by Albert Le Bonheur.

 Jayavarman II was succeeded through the centuries by rulers whose names and deeds (Indravarman II with a capital at Harihaaralaya; Yasovarman, who established a capital at Yashodharaprua and built an island temple at Indrataka and constructed the Bakheng temple- mountain; Harsavarman I; Rajendravarman II, under whose rule the construction of the Royal palace at Angkor began and was consecrated by the Brahmin priest Yajnavaraha in 967 setting in motion the Banteay Srei style of architecture; Udayadityavarman II, whose reign saw the coming of the Baphuon temple mountain and the unique art culture that has been associated with Baphuon) reveal a panoramic picture and sound of the clanging of metals, the rolling of stones and the chanting of hymns in praise of Visnu and Siva.

It was in the first half of the 12th century, during the rule of Suryavarman II (1113-at least 1143) that the temple mountain of Angkor Vat, one of the largest religious structures in the world, was built. Famous for its intricate bas-reliefs depicting stories from the two great Indian epics, Ramayana and Mahabaratha, the colossal work marked the apogee of Khmer architecture.
It is acknowledged that the last great emperor of Angkor was Jayavarman VII (1181-1218?), who built more monuments than any other Khmer ruler, as if to go with great hubris in a burst of fame and renown. The huge temple of the Bayon that he erected in the centre of the royal city of Angkor Thom gave its name to the style of the period. Jayavarman VII made Mahayana Buddhism as the state religion.

The next two centuries saw the revival of Hinduism as the state religion by Jayavarman VIII (1243-1295), increasing Thai raids on Angkor, the growing importance of Theravada Buddhism in Cambodia and the abandonment of Angkor and the location of the capital in Srei Santhor region to the south. It was becoming obvious that the Khmer empire was becoming a weakened power by alien onslaughts.
Slowly but steadily the breathtaking Angkor art was getting out of the sight of the world under the dense foliage of Cambodian forests until the publication in 1863 of the illustrated travel diaries of Henri Mauhot, a French naturalist and explorer, who had gone to South-east Asia in the late 1850's and succumbed to fever there in 1861.
Mesmerised by what he saw at the temple of Angkor Vat, Mouhot in lyrical descriptions said: ``At the sight of this temple, one feels one's spirit crushed, one's imagination surpassed. One looks, one admires, and, seized with respect, one is silent. For where are the words to praise a work of art that may not have its equal anywhere on the globe? ... What genius this Michalangelo of the East had, that he was capable of concaving such a work.'' (Le Tour du Monde, 2-1863-299).

The outpouring of words were hyperbolic but his accounts of the lost city and the historical treasures that were swallowed by trees and mountains, fired the imagination of scholars and archaeologists to rediscover Angkor.Cambodia which had become a French protectorate in 1863 lured artists, writers and tourists to the ancient sites. In the beginning of this century, the newly founded Ecole franchised'Extreme-Orient undertook the Herculean task of clearing and restoration of the monuments. Early explorers brought some works of sculpture to Paris, where they finally became the nucleus of the collections of Khmer art in the Musee national des Arts asiatiques-Guimet.
In 1918, the National Museum of Cambodia was founded in Phnom Penh to store and exhibit the pieces that had to be removed from the monuments to prevent theft and vandalism.

The restoration of the works of Angkor art, chronicling and cataloguing them in a historical sequence and throwing light on their grandeur is a fascinating story of the pioneering study done by French savants in this domain. Retracing of the genealogy of the Cambodian kings, an understanding of their religious affiliations and an aesthetic appreciation of the divine works of art that were produced during their periods of rule was done by Indologists and Sanskrit masters and colonial administrators in a painstaking and arduous process involving decades of dedication. The key to their success lay in decoding histories written on blackened stone.

The critical epigraphic scholarship so essential in this exercise was set in motion by an eminent Indologist from Leiden, Hendrik Kern, who had no problem in deciphering the Sanskrit-based characters of the ancient Cambodian texts and stone inscriptions, which were related to those used in southern India.

    Kern's works which were translated in 1879 in French and appeared in the Annales d'Extreme Orient had a tremendous impact in France and produced in its wake a team of French Sanskritists headed by Auguste Barth and Abel Bergaigne. In a long-term project, Barth and Bergaigne produced an outline of Cambodian history, emphasising the lineage of the rulers. Helping them on the Khmer portion of the epigraphy was Etienne Aymonier, a French administrator with an admirable knowledge of the language. His voluminous work published as Le Cambodge (1900- 1904) is the classic reference on unravelling the evolution of Cambodian texts. Two types of characters were used from ancient India in the Cambodian inscriptions, the south Indian Chalukya-Pallava and the north Indian Nagari writing. ``On the evidence of the inscriptions, the first was more widely used from the early days until the middle of the ninth century. The second appears only in a few Sanskrit inscriptions; it had no real influence on the Cambodian calligraphic tradition. The south Indian type, which actually played a historical part, was known and used across all the former territory of Khmer.'' (Khmer Epigraphy - Saveros Pou).

  In understanding the religions of ancient Cambodia, a phenemonal contribution has been made by Kamaleswar Bhattacharya in ``Les religions brahmaniques dans I'ancien Cambodge, d'apres I' epigraphie et I' iconographie (1961).'' Bhattacharya was inspired and influenced by the great philologist-cum-historian, George Coedes, who in 1906, at the age of 20, published a long Sanskrit inscription from Cambodia and who over the next 60 years translated hundreds of complex Sanskrit and Khmer texts with wide-ranging significance and bearing.
``According to the Sanskrit epigraphy, iconography, and Chinese dynastic histories, Hinduism and Buddhism existed side by side in Cambodia during the fifth and sixth centuries. The main religion seems to have been Sivaism, one of the two major branches of Hinduism, but the other branch, Visnuism, also had adherents in the royal family.'' ``The grammatical work of Panini, the greatest grammarian of antuiquity, was highly prized in Cambodia, particularly among Sivaites. An Indian tradition held that it was Siva himself who had revealed the secrets of grammar to Panini.'' (The religions of ancient Cambodia, Bhattacharya.)

If Jayavarman II, the founder of the Angkor dynasty in 802, was an adherent of Sivaism and had a lingam installed with all the correct rituals in Phnom Kulen by a Brahmin well-versed in appropriate texts, ``his son and successor, Jayavarman III was a Visnuite,'' according to Bhattacharya, and the founder of Angkor Vat, King Suryavarman II (1113-1145?), believed in Visnuism, thus indicating that the faith in the two branches of Hinduism varied from ruler to ruler and that a sycretism existed not only between Sivaism and Visnuism, but between Sivaism and Buddhism, before the country embraced the Theravada form of Buddhism in the 14th century. The National Gallery of Art in a beautifully prepared pamphelt on Cambodian art by scholars on Khmer sculpture had outlined the broad contours in its development and the changes that were noticed from time to time over the
centuries. Since virtually all Khmer art was religious, a background of the philosophical moorings of the people and their rulers is essential to an understanding of their divine stone carvings and the temple towns of Angkor and Angkor Vat that astound the beholder by their sheer size and proportion.

 In turn hieratic and majestic, Khmer sculpture reflected the profound spirituality of the ancient Cambodian people, as well as their mastery of stone carrying and bronze casting. It is one of the misfortunes of history that few records survive to date the sculptures, and nothing is known about the artists who created these marvels. Thus the evolution of Khmer sculpture is traced by relying on a comparative study of architectural advancements over periods of time and a scrutiny of minute details, such as headdress styles, draperies and jewelry.
Pre-Angor art is distinguished from later Khmer art by its greater degree of realism, particularly in the anatomical proportions and the delicate modelling of the body. Almond-shaped eyes and long, thin are the other chief characteristics of works of this age. Also early Khmer statues were generally worked out from a single block of fine-grained sandstone and to ensure the stability of these thin, multi-armed figures, the artisans left elements of the block un carved to serve as support. Another device that served as a prop was an horseshoe-shaped arch that surrounded the body to reinforce the arms. These attribtues slowly disappeared in the ninth century.

After the establishment of the Angkor monarchy, as if to assert their power and supremacy, the Cambodian Kings constructed imposing temples and encouraged creation of sculpture images devoted to the divinities they wished to pay homage. The art of the ninth and 10th centuries stressed the divine nature of the figures by giving the statues a more imposing stance and making their features more simplified.

  Some statues were erected on pedestals in sanctuaries exclusively meant for workship by the King and the priests. Others were placed in surrounding galleries where ordinary pilgrims made their prayer offerings. The 10th century Bakheng style, named after a major temple, was noted for male and female draperies that presented a unique type of narrow, vertical pleats, finely carved in relief all over the garments. The third quarter of the 10th century saw the marvel of Banteay Srei. Famous for its elegant pink sandstone and graceful decorations, the small Shiva temple of Banteay Srei was built around 967 with each doorway and each wall of the several gates and sanctuaries comprising the temple complex adorned with finely detailed relief sculpture.

The National Gallery exhibition included two carved pediments of Banteay Srei with scenes from Hindu mythology. One of them depicted two demon brothers fighting for the possession of a nymph sent by the gods to incite their rivalry and provoke a fatal fight to put an end to their crimes.  It is the style of the 12th century Angkor Vat (within an enclosure of 1700by 1500 yards) that is uniquely epoch-making in the annals of Khmer art. The approaches to the vast stone complex with shrine pinnacles resembling sprouting shoots conjure visions of an illusion. Philip Rawson 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.''

  Specially pertinent to this period is the image of Buddha seated on the mythological, multi-headed serpent or naga. The Buddha, deep in his meditation, does into see a storm coming. To protect him Mucilinda, the kind of serpents, spreads his heads in a hood over the Buddha while coiling underneath him to form his throne. Angkor Vat's new emphasis on ornamentation is seen in the decorative carving of the serpent's heads and the finely incised headdress of the Buddha.

The reign of Jayavarman VII, from late 12th century to early 13th century,proclaimed the reaching of the pinnacle with the construction of the Bayon temple. Many images of Bodhisattva Avalokiteswara (compassionate lord)
belong to this era, underlining the prevalent atmosphere of compassion and serenity. The trumpet and the glory of Angkor had lasted long and the decline was so on to set in with frequent attacks by neighbours in the late 13th and 14thecenturies. With the fall of the Khmer empire, the temples of Angkor were abandoned to the jungles until they came to the notice of the world of learning for restoration and preservation from the third quarter of the last century.

It was the misfortune of Angkor to suffer a second eclipse in 1970's due to a bloody and bitter civil was that was on the verge of wiping out an entire civilisation. When a semblance of political stability was reached and the burst of machine-gun fire and detonating mines stopped, work to save Angkor started with a few surviving conservators who had escaped the holocaust. India was the first to respond to the call for international help and the story of how the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) rose to the occasion is well described by C. M. Bhandari, former Ambassador of India to Cambodia,in hi shook ``Saving Angkor''.

In the face of intense international competition, the ASI was assigned thetask of restoration of Angkor Vat because (a) 11the better placement of the Indians to understand and respect the cultural heritage of Angkar .....(b)the competence of the ASI in handling the work since they had undertakensimilar restoration works in India for many decades.''
On April 25, 1986 India and Cambodia exchanged letters to formalise the Restoration Agreement for Angkor Vat.

With a civil war raging in the surrounding areas of Angkor, the security situation was perilous. With all educated and trained civilians brutally murdered in the ``killings fields'', unskilled labour had to be taught the lessons of the specialised work of conservation. There was no electricity, no communication with the outside world and the health facilities were nil. It was under these extreme conditions that the 15 to 18 ASI experts worked seven to eight months at a stretch for seven continuous years from December1986 to save the Angkor Vat.

   Highlights of ASI's restoration work at Angkor Vat included the SamudraManthan gallery, entrance porches, libraries and moat embankment and southwest corner pavilion of the third enclosure and chemical treatment. With the successful completion of its assignment by the ASI, history had made a complete circle. What the Indian genius had helped to found over a period of ten centuries from the fourth to the fourteenth in Cambodia, it was able to restore when the structure was about to crumble. The Cambodian exhibition held by the National Gallery of Art in Washington was, in a manner of speaking, a celebration of the peace accords, international cooperation for the restoration of the Khmer art and to emphasise the hope that all is not yet lost with the world.

 

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