Introduction
In northern Cambodia, north of
the Great Lake of the Tonlé Sap, the magnificent ruins of a bygone
civilization shoot rebelliously through the thick jungle canopy. Rendered variously
in brick, red and blue sandstone and laterite, the monuments of the vast Angkor
group are so stunning in their refinement of style, architectural ingenuity,
and sheer magnitude that the first whispers of their existence met with
disbelief in Europe. Those few Westerners who wrote accounts of the "Indian Babel"
in the 17th and 18th centuries were eager to agree with
the natives' belief that these ruins must have been built by foreigners (Dagens
32). One particularly ridiculous 1647 account asserted that "A learned man
supposed these to be the work of Trajan." (Higham 3) Whatever resemblance to Roman
architecture this observer might have seen is extremely superficial1,
and upon even a cursory view of these ruins it is obvious that they are the
sublimely original work of a society that apparently no longer exists.
Built between the 9th
and 14th centuries C.E., Angkor is a massive complex of temples,
monuments, and shrines that was at one time a city, the center of a flourishing
empire. While many of these structures display considerable sophistication and
complexity, it is generally agreed that the finest of all of the monuments is
the early 12th century temple-mountain Angkor Wat2.
Dating from the reign of the Khmer ruler Suryavarman II, Angkor Wat is the
largest free-standing stone structure in the world. Unlike the other monuments
of the Angkor group, Angkor Wat has been occupied continuously since its
construction, despite the abandonment of the rest of the city around 1431 (Laur
2002).
Of all the monuments in the Angkor
group, Angkor Wat is perhaps the most interesting; due to its constant
occupation by monks, scholars, and pilgrims from across the Asian world, its
estimated 1 sq km of bas-reliefs has been rather well preserved. These
extensive bas-reliefs, carved into sandstone, attain extraordinary levels of
artistic sophistication and narrative power. Study of this great monument
provides a window into the lives of a people otherwise forgotten (ibid).
Angkor
Wat: Environment and Structure
The Angkor group, a series of
some thirty major monuments and hundreds of smaller ruins, was built in the Cambodian
lowlands between the years 800 and 1432 C.E. by a civilization now known as the
Khmer (Highham, 2001). The climate of this area is extraordinarily hot and
humid, with a wet season during which most waterways reach flood stage. This
climate, along with the dense deciduous forest it nurtures, proved formative
to the Khmer people, and its influence can be seen in many aspects of their
technology and culture3.
While there is some debate as to what sort of system was used for irrigation,
it seems clear that rice was the primary crop. Some contemporary reports
claimed that complex irrigation systems were used to produce three or four
harvests a year in the vicinity of Angkor, but subsequent investigation has
found this possibility remote4.
(Mabbett and Chandler, 1995)
The soils, mostly sandy or
alluvial, are poorly drained, perfect for rice cultivation. The clay found at
relatively shallow depths (0.3-1m) over much of Angkor inhibited the growth
of more demanding crops, but provided a good building material in the form of laterite.
(Mabbett and Chandler, 1995, Fujioka et al., 1972)
The monuments themselves are built
of various materials, most of which could be found within a few tens of
kilometers of Angkor. The early monuments were constructed using clay bricks,
which were made of a mixture of clay and quartz sand. These strong bricks
were easy to manufacture and were strong, but they were extremely difficult to
carve. Thus, brick continued to be used in small shrines, but around the 10th
century there was a shift to the use of stone in larger monuments (Fujioka et
al., 1972). For the larger monuments, such as Angkor Wat, this meant the use
of both laterite and sandstone5.
The substructure, foundation, and retaining walls of these earth-filled monuments
(which could be quite substantial) were built from durable laterite (Leisen,
2002). For the exterior of the temple, the blue variety of sandstone was laid
over the top of the laterite (with the exception of Banteay Srei, which uses
the more durable red sandstone, hence that monument's exceptional state of
preservation) (Laur, 2002).
Angkor Wat, the largest single
monument of the Angkor group, is a temple-mountain surrounded by three
enclosures, a laterite wall, and a moat. It has five main towers in a quincunx
arrangement, with the four subsidiary towers emerging from the first enclosures
and the main tower reaching the astounding height of 58 m above ground level.
The curbed moat alone is an extremely impressive achievement, measuring 200m
wide and 2m deep in most places. It is calculated that digging this moat
required the transportation of 1,700,000 m3 of earth. Including the
moat, the temple measures 1,470 m by 1,650 m and therefore covers an area in
excess of 240 ha (ibid).
The inner island is served by a
long causeway from the west (an unusual feature for an Angkorean temple, in
this case probably due to the association of this temple with the cult of the
dead) which connects to the island at a large, three-towered entry pavilion, or
gopura. (Fujioka et al., 1972) These gopuras are an elaborate form of
entranceway, and were built wherever a path intersects an enclosure.
The 3rd, outer enclosure
which defines the temple proper measures 187 m by 215 m and consists of an
enclosed rectangular gallery with a corbelled roof (Laur, 2002). The
interior of this gallery contains some of the finest and most important bas-reliefs
in the temple, such as the Churning of the Ocean of Milk and the so-called
Historical Parade. These bas-reliefs are important because they give an
enlightening perspective on the symbolic purposes of the temple (to be
discussed later in detail), as well as giving us a glimpse into the life of 13th
century Khmer (Rooney, 2001).
The 2nd enclosure is
raised 5 m from the ground, and is notable for its cruciform gallery, which
divides the southern courtyard into four basins (Laur, 2002). These basins may
have numerological significance as circumambulatory centers (Manikka, 1996).
This enclosure also contains the famous devata sculptures, the celestial
maidens who have entranced so many visitors of the temple6
(Laur, 2002).
The 3rd enclosure, the
highest, is raised 12.5 m from the ground of the 2nd enclosure. Here
are four more basins, and also more devatas. Contained within this final
enclosure is the central shrine of Angkor Wat. Originally accessible by four
entrances (each with extremely high thresholds to keep out ground-hugging
spirits), it may now be reached by only one: Therevada Buddhists, zealous
iconoclasts who took over the temple in the 16th century, closed
three of them and placed Buddha statues in front of the niches. There is not
much to see, however, in the central shrine, because the floor was dug out in
1935 to reveal a central well. This well goes all the way down to the ground
and penetrates 23 m into the soil. At the bottom was the foundation stone of
the temple, with several gold leaves and white sapphires (Laur, 2002).
Discovery by the
West and a History of Research
Since the Eastern civilizations had
never forgotten about Angkor in the first place7,
it is somewhat amusing that Westerners have so frequently claimed to discover
it. Nonetheless, if it was not "discovered" in the strictest sense of the
world, there was certainly a brief decade which saw the ruins of Angkor
projected into the minds and hearts of most of intellectual Europe. While much
of the information disseminated was sensationalized and of little real value,
the important fact was that the West was made aware of a new object for the studies
of its burgeoning archaeological institutions. (Dagens, 1995)
This rapid spread of knowledge was
begun in 1864 with the belated publication of the accounts and illustrations of
the French naturalist Henri Mouhot, who had traveled to Angkor in 1858-608.
In the same year, Cambodia became a French protectorate, and an exploratory
mission was sent under Doudart de Lagrée. It was soon determined that the ruins
at Angkor deserved archaeological attention. Although Thailand had annexed Angkor
with the province of Siem Reap in 1794, French explorers returned statues and
artifacts piecemeal until the province came under Cambodian (and thus French)
control again in 1907 (ibid).
Once Angkor was officially under
the control of the Ecole Française d'Extrême-Orient, the scientific branch of
the colonial authority in Phnom Penh, study and restoration of the Angkor
group could be carried out in earnest. Initially, much of the work done was to
shore up monuments in imminent danger of collapse. Much of the encroaching jungle
was also hacked away to allow access to the monuments. But the EFEO wished to
take a more active role in the curatorship of the Angkor monuments. In 1927,
the restorers began to use a process called anastylosis, which attempted to
restore monuments to their original condition using clearly marked new work to
replace whatever had been lost to the ages (Laur, 2002). While the results may
have been more aesthetically pleasing to Westerners, some feel today that it is
more important to respect the integrity of the site as a whole than to attempt
to restore it to pristine condition9
(Dagens, 1995).
These early efforts were often
ineffective and did little to stabilize the monuments, at the cost of a great
disturbance to the local region. Far more important was the work of numerous
epigraphists at translating the tens of thousands of Sanskrit inscriptions
left behind by the Khmer over the centuries. With the deciphering and
cataloguing of these inscriptions, historians could slowly begin to piece
together the historical record of the Khmer. The purpose of Angkor Wat was
now clear (ibid).
Symbolic
Significance of Angkor Wat
The inscriptions left by the Khmer have made
it possible for us to definitively date many monuments, as well as reconstruct
the dynasties of the Angkorean state. From inscriptions at Angkor Wat, we
know that the temple was built during the reign of Suryavarman II, which
lasted from 1113 C.E. until 1150 C.E. It can be postulated that the temple took
at least this long to complete, as certain bas-reliefs in the 3rd
enclosure were left uncompleted10
(Higham, 2001).
The temple is a mausoleum for the
king, but also a place of communion with the gods; it, like other temple-mounts,
is an earthly representation of Mount Meru, the center of the universe in Brahmanic
cosmology. Every feature of the temple corresponds to this mythical mountain;
the five peaks of Mount Meru to the five towers, the four rivers of Mount Meru
to the four paths of the temple, and the surrounding ocean to the temple's moat.
And these are just the obvious similarities. Eleanor Manikka has argued
persuasively for another level of symbolic significance based on astronomical
alignments and numerological measurements. While this approach has attracted
much skepticism, the evidence is hard to ignore: when converted into cubits,
many apparently arbitrary measurements are shown to be values with deep religious
numerological significance. For example, an area on the cruciform terrace from
which certain lunar alignments can be made with the subsidiary towers is shown
to possess measurements in modules of 27 cubits, 27 being the length of the lunar
month in days. The towers themselves are each 27 phyeam tall, phyeam being
equivalent to 4 cubits. Another example is that the vertical dimensions of
all five towers add up to 540 cubits, exactly the same length as the entrance
causeway. While some of the significances cited by Manikka may be artifacts of
the process used to select the measurements (that is, trial and error), the
case for the significance of Ankgor Wat as a mandala, or geometric diagram,
seems very strong (1996).
Recent
Conservation and Research
In recent years, work at the Angkor
site has taken on international proportions, as archaeological teams have been
sent from just about every developed nation. Much progress is being made with
new technologies, revealing information that was once thought irrevocably lost.
First, evidence has been found
through remote sensing of a larger urban complex underneath and surrounding the
Angkor group monuments. Using a ground-penetrating synthetic aperture radar,
NASA scientists discovered hidden groundworks fitting ancient descriptions of
an extended infrastructure at Angkor11.
This "low-density urban complex" could have housed perhaps one million people,
more than enough to constitute the vibrant cities that Chou Ta-Kuan saw in
1296 (Fletcher and Pottier, 1996).
With regards to Angkor Wat
itself, a Japanese team has used the magnetic susceptibility of