Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat (1113-1150)

Angkor Wat was built by King Suriyavarman II in 1113 to 1150, dedicated to Hinduism Lord Vishnu. It’s about 7 Km north of Siem Reap province.

In the middle of man-made moat, 1300 meters by 1500 meters with its depth in average 4.5 meters and 200 meters wide. Angkor Wat is the world largest religious structure, covering some 400 acres (160 hectares), and marks the high point of Khmer architecture. The central tower 65 meters height and the three towers have become a symbol on the Cambodia national flag.

The five central towers of Angkor Wat symbolize the peaks of Mount Meru, which according to Hindu mythology is the dwelling place of the gods. The mountain is said to be surrounded by an ocean, and the complex’s enormous moat suggests the oceans at the edge of the world.

The temple walls are covered with bas-relief sculptures of very high quality, representing Hindu gods and ancient Khmer scenes as well as scenes from the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.

Scientists have discovered that Angkor Wat stands solidly due to its sandstone construction and the sandstone foundations beneath the moat. According to scientists, if the moat dries out, the foundations being exposed must surely be problematic.

In fact Suriyavarman II claimed to have seized power from two kings; one was his uncle Dharanindravarman I, the other Nripatindravarman. The name “Parama Vishnuloka" which became the posthumous name of this king, was inscribed on a stone of temple, which has made some researchers wonder whether Angkor Wat was built as a temple or as a tomb.

In the early 15^th century Angkor was abandoned. Still Theravada Buddhist monks maintained Angkor Wat, which remained an important pilgrimage site and continues to attract European visitors. Angkor Wat was “rediscovered” after the French Colonial regime was established in 1863.

During the 16th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in Santa Fe in United States of America, Angkor was inscribed in the World Heritage List in Danger on 14th December in 1992 .

 

Suryavarman II - The builder of Angkor Wat (1113-1150)

 

After defeating rivals from the capital of Angkor, Suryavarman II was crowned King of the Earth in 1113.

 

The reign of Suryavarman II is particularly marked by the construction of Angkor Wat, a world-famous temple. During the war, his mighty army fought many times against the Viet Cong and the Cham in the east. In the west, Khmer troops repulsed Burmese troops. At the same time, in order to establish ties with China, he sent envoys several times to the Chinese emperor. At the time of his death, the Khmer Kingdom extended from China to the sea and from the Kingdom of Burma to the Kingdom of Champa. But in the palace, the Brahmins were not very happy. For some time they observed that Buddhism was so widespread that it endangered Brahmanism. At the same time, to strengthen his power, he allocated more funds to support Shiva and Vishnu Council. In the field of construction, he continued to build Phnom Chisor, Wat Phu, Preah Vihear. The new building has the temple of Preah Pithu, Chao Say Tevta, Banteay Samre ... but his main work is the temple of Angkor Wat, a sacred work that is priceless, the pride of the Khmer nation and a world heritage.

 

 

TA REACH

This is the western gate, which is also known as “Kuk Ta Reach.” Ta Reach is the name of an eight-arm and three-meter-tall Vishnu statue erected at this gate. He is a sight of regular worship by both the Siem Reap residents and visitors who believe that he possesses a supreme might. Every year, on the third day of the waxing moon in the month of Makha, local residents gather to hold a ritual called Laeng Ta Reach (Ta Reach Rising) to pray for happiness. The annual ceremony, also generally knowns as Laeng Meak (Meak Rising), is observed to mark the closure of the rice season cycle. 

MAHABHARATA “BATTLE AT KURUKSHETRA”

This gallery, 48.5-meter long, holds carvings detailing the Kurukshetra battle – the final episode in the Mahabharata story. The Kauravas, led by Duryodhana, are on the left-hand side, and the Pandavas, led by Yudhishtra are on the right-hand side. Both of them are cousins.

The carvings about this battle are displayed in three sections. At the bottom we have the first section which features a band of gong, trumpet, conch, drum, and infantry soldiers armed with swords and spears and on the march to the battlefield. The second section – which is in the middle of the gallery – shows mid-ranking commanders riding horses, elephants and horse-drawn carriages and armed with spears, swords, machetes, and arrows as they fight each other viciously. The top level has the third section that show supreme commanders from both sides engaged in a bloody battle. In this episode, Bhisma, the supreme commander of the Kaurava forces, is seen lying dead with his body being hit by countless arrows fired by Arjuna, the Pandavas’ commander. The Kaurava also has another supreme commander by the name of Dronacharya, a royal preceptor, riding a carriage while shooting arrows at the Pandavas but to no avail. At the right corner we can see the four-arm Krishna, who drives Arjuna’s carriage, is charging towards the Kaurava forces. Finally, the Padavas prevailed over the Kauravas after 18 days of fierce battle in which Duryodhana was killed. After the battle, Yudhishtira, the eldest son of the five Pandava children, ascended to the throne at Hastinapura.

Corner pavilion (southwest)

Enter the pavilion and view the scenes facing you. Then continue clockwise around the pavilion. The bas-reliefs in this pavilion depict scenes from epic the Ramayana.

EAST

A- Left, Water festival; two ships (superimposed) with Apsaras, chess players (top ship)

B- Center, above the door: A god receiving offerings.

SOUTH

C- Left, top to bottom. A fight between Vali and Sugriva, the monkey king; Rama shoots Vali with an arrow who lies in the arms of his wife (three pointed headdress); monkeys mourn his death

D- Center, above the door: Murder of a demon; Krisna extinguishes a fire west.

E- Left: Siva sits with his wife Paravati on Mount Kailasa

F- Center, above the door: Krisna uproots trees with a stone he is tied to.

G- Right: Ravana, disguised as a chameleon, presents himself at the palace of Indra.

NORTH

H- Left: The Churning of the Ocean of Milk.

I - Center, above the door: Rama kills Marica, who, disguised as a golden stag, helped in the abduction of Sita.

J- Right: Krisna lifts Mount Govardhana to shelter their shepherds and their herds from the storm ignited by the anger of Indra.

THE MILITARY PARADE OF KING SURYAVARMAN II

This gallery, 94-meter long, describes, from left to right, the military parade of King Suryavarman II on Shivabat’s mountain (mountain of Lord Shiva’s palm foot). The troops are marching downhill – an indication that the king was on the top of the mountain. On the left section of the gallery, King Suryavarman II is seen issuing command to the royal officials. At the bottom row, we have ladies-in-waiting and the music band, accompanied by jewelry bearers and God of fire, marching in a procession towards an unknown location. On the right, we have troop commanders – some on horses, some on elephants – who are shielded by parasols in numbers corresponding to their ranks and hierarchy. Twenty commanders ride elephants and their respective ranks are indicated by the number of parasols erected on the elephant back, and names are inscribed on stone display nearby. The king is on an elephant shielded by 15 parasols, a crowned head, and Vishnu with four-arm on Garuda, symbolizing the king. The infantry soldiers march in rows – many of them wearing body armor and armed with swords, spears, bows and arrows. Other members of the entourage are in different kinds of uniform. At the head of the parade, Brahmins lead a religious ritual for the troops and the procession of God of fire, with the company of musical troupe beating gongs and blowing horns, conch and pipes. According to the stone inscriptions, the troops consist of “Syām Kuk” and “L’vo” divisions.

HEAVEN AND HELL

The carvings on this gallery, 66-meter long, depict heaven and hell. Heaven is above and consists of two tiers. Unfortunately, we cannot see any descriptions about heaven. In the opposite, hell, below, is well described by the carvings. It consists of 32 tiers with each having its own name. The inscriptions also tell what kind of sin a person may have committed in the previous life judging by the tier he/she ended up on after death. For example:

-          The Avici (the hell with constant inferno) tier holds those who were affluent but still committed sin when they were alive.

-          The Taptalākshāmaya tier holds those who burned someone’s house or forest, and poison others.

-          The Tālavrikshavana tier is reserved for those who cut trees that should not have been cut, those who fell trees or relieve themselves in a deva sanctuary.

A giant “Yama” (the god of the dead) is seen riding a buffalo, his 18 arms wielding batons.

CHURNING OF THE SEA OF MILK

The “Churning of the Sea of Milk” is depicted by carvings on a 48.5-meter gallery. It tells a story about a deal reached between the asuras and the devas to churn the sea of milk in order to extract the amrita to drink to become 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 as an avatar beneath. The story explains that as the churning goes on, the mount began to sink that the churning could not be continued. Therefore, Vishnu intervened under the form of tortoise Kurma by using its shell to prop up Mount Mandara, effectively preventing it from sinking further. The churning went on for many more years, and as Mount Mandara was constantly shaking, Vishnu appeared again, this time in his own self, at the top in a bid to stabilize the mount. Finally, before the amrita started to emerge, many goddesses – Apsaras – began first to emerge from the sea.

 

WAR BETWEEN ASURAS AND LORD KRISHNA, A VISHNU’S AVATAR

In this episode, Krishna is battling the Asura army whose king goes by the name of “Hell.” This gallery, 51.5-meter long, and the next beyond it did not have any carvings on them during Angkor Wat construction period. Only in 1546 AD that the carvings, ordered by King Ang Chan, were completed to wrap up all Vishnu-related mythology. It should also be noted that the artistic quality of the carvings of the 16th century was not as outstanding as it was in the 12th century. This noticeable decline was part of the large decline of the Khmer empire following the abandonment of Angkor City – a long period where the Khmer Kingdom did not undertake the construction of new, gigantic monuments, anymore.

 

WAR BETWEEN LORD KRISHNA AND ASURA VANA

This gallery is 66-meter long, and like the gallery at the eastern flank in the north, did not have any carvings on them until King Ang Chan moved to Angkor City. These two carvings were completed in 1564 AD.

Similar to the gallery just before it, this gallery holds carvings based on a Vishnu scripture known as “Harivong”. The carvings depict a battle between Lord Krishna and an Asura with 1,000 arms. In the previous gallery, we have an Asura named “Hell”, while in this gallery we have an Asura name “Vana”. Both of them – who ruled over two kingdoms next to each other – represent evil although they worshipped Vishnu.

WAR BETWEEN DEVAS AND ASURAS

This 94-meter-long gallery depicts a battle between the Devas and the Asuras. Twenty-one Devas are fighting the Asuras, each with its own attributes and vehicles. The Devas march from the east and the Asuras from the west. The Devas are led by Lord Vishnu and the Asuras are led by Kalanemi. Among the Devas, the God of Fire (Lord Agni) is on rhinoceros, Skanda on a peacock, Lord Vishnu on a garuda, Asura Kalanemi, with nine heads and 30 arms, on a horse-drawn chariot, Indra on a three-headed elephant, the Yama (the god of the dead) on a buffalo, Lord Shiva is on an oxcart, Lord Brahma on a swan, Surya on a horse-drawn chariot, and Viruna on an eight-headed naga.

CORNER PAVILION (NORTHWEST)

Enter the pavilion and walk counter-clockwise. Several of the scenes are in good condition.

NORTH

A- Right: The women's quarters of a palace.

B- Center, above the door: An attempt to abduct site in the forest.

C- Left, badly damaged: A scene from the Ramayana.

Above: Tiers of monkeys and a pyre

WEST

D- Right: rama in his chariot (drawn by geese) returns victorious to Ayodhya

E- Center, above the door: Rama and Laksmana surrounded by monkeys.

F- Left: A conversation between Sita and Hanuman in the forest; Hanuman gives Rama’s ring to Sita.

SOUTH

G- Right Visnu (seated, four arms) surrounded by Apsaras.

H- Center, above the door: Rama and Laksmana battle a monster (headless, face on stomach)

I-   Left: Rama wins an archery competition; Rama and Sita sitting together.

EAST

J- Right: Visnu (four arms) on a Garuda; Krisna (mounted on a Garuda) bring back Mount Maniparvata which he took from a demon he killed; his army carries the remains of the demon.

K- Center, above the door: Discussions on an alliance.

Left: Rama and his brother Laksmana.

Right: Suryva, the monkey king

L- Left: Visnu reclines on the serpent Anent.

Below: A group of nine gods with their mounts

(1) Surya in a chariot pulled by horses

(2) Kubera standing on the shoulders of a Yaksa

(3) Brahma riding a goose

(4) Skanda on a peacock

(5) An unidentified god on a horse

(6) Indra on a three-headed elephant

(7) Yama riding a buffalo

(8)Siva on a bull

(9) An unidentified god on a lion

RAMAYANA (THE BATTLE OF LANKA)

The carvings on this 51.5-meter-long gallery depict a scene of the Battle of Lanka, between Ravana and Rama. The battle took place following Ravana’s abduction of Sita, Rama’s wife. Rama and Lakshmana, his younger brother, backed by monkey troops with Hanuman as their commander, marched towards Lanka to rescue Sita from Ravana. We shall see that, at the center of the panel of carvings, Rama is on Hanuman’s shoulders, followed by sword-holding Lakshmana. The 10-headed and 20-arm Ravana rides a lion-drawn coach. The battle between the monkey troops and the Asura soldiers was fierce and long. Ultimately, the monkey troops prevailed over their rivals. Rama killed Ravana and Sita was rescued.

Ramayana has penetrated all forms of Khmer arts – from prose to songs, paintings, carvings, and different performing arts. Episodes of Ramayana are regularly featured in the Royal Ballet, Lakhon Khol, shadow theater, murals inside pagodas and the royal palace, and in the carvings on ancient monuments.

 

ONE THOUSAND BUDDHAS GALLERY

This gallery is known as ‘One thousand Buddhas gallery.’ During the middle period, people worshipped Buddhism by using Buddhas made of wood, stone, copper, and bronze as sacred worshipping symbols. Back then Angkor Wat had become a major Buddhism pilgrimage center in Asia. They left behind the statues the number of which gradually grew over the years, today the spot is known as “a thousand Buddhas gallery”. The majority of the statues had been transferred for safe-keeping at the Angkor Conservation and at the National Museum in Phnom Penh.

There are about 40 panels of inscriptions from the middle era, most were inscribed in this gallery. Some of the inscriptions were made by kings and royal family members, while some were made by senior members of the royal court. Some inscriptions are in Chinese, Japanese, and Burmese. The Khmer inscriptions narrate the rituals taking place here and describe a master giving freedom to his servants and the ordination ceremony for them to become monks, the donated Buddha statues, and the erection of sacred items for worship, such as the ceiling. They made pledges to reaffirm to the purity of the Buddhism. There are Japanese inscriptions at separate 14 locations and they were inscribed in black ink between 1612 and 1632. The most well-known inscription at Angkor Wat is the one made by pilgrim Morimoto Ukondayu Kassifusa.

This gallery has four water pools referred to by the locals as ponds and had long significant symbol in the religion.

BAKAN

Bakan is the central tower of Angkor Wat. Originally, the principal sanctuary of Angkor Wat was open to the four cardinal points and probably also sheltered a statue of Vishnu. Later, when Angkor Wat became a center of Buddhist pilgrimage, the four entranceways into the central sanctuary were filled in with sandstone; each of the newly constituted walls was then sculpted with a relief of the standing Buddha. Throughout the 20th century, a series of investigations inside the sanctuary revealed multiple statues and pedestal fragments, of which two pieces are of particular note:

-          A statue of the Buddha seated on a naga, which is now venereated in Bakan’s eastern gallery.

-          A rectangular stone object, which is comparable to other rectangular stone, with and without a lid, that can be sighted across Angkor city, like the one at Banteay Samre temple. Researchers believed that the rectangular stone may have been assigned a function as a sarcophagus in which a royal body would have been squeezed in to position as a fetus in a mother’s womb.

Research was conducted into a dept of 23 meters, revealing two pieces gold sheets and some gem stones that were believed to have been dropped in as a deposit for good fortune.

 

Suryavarman II - The builder of Angkor Wat (1113-1150)

After defeating rivals from the capital of Angkor, Suryavarman II was crowned King of the Earth in 1113.

The reign of Suryavarman II is particularly marked by the construction of Angkor Wat, a world-famous temple. During the war, his mighty army fought many times against the Viet Cong and the Cham in the east. In the west, Khmer troops repulsed Burmese troops. At the same time, in order to establish ties with China, he sent envoys several times to the Chinese emperor. At the time of his death, the Khmer Kingdom extended from China to the sea and from the Kingdom of Burma to the Kingdom of Champa. But in the palace, the Brahmins were not very happy. For some time they observed that Buddhism was so widespread that it endangered Brahmanism. At the same time, to strengthen his power, he allocated more funds to support Shiva and Vishnu Council. In the field of construction, he continued to build Phnom Chisor, Wat Phu, Preah Vihear. The new building has the temple of Preah Pithu, Chao Say Tevta, Banteay Samre ... but his main work is the temple of Angkor Wat, a sacred work that is priceless, the pride of the Khmer nation and a world heritage.