Highest Sageness -46

s a c r e d    a n g k o r

Situated between India and China, Southeast Asia has been the birthplace of several cultures, some of which rank among the world’s greatest civilizations. Among the Indianized kingdoms which sprang up in Southeast Asia before the Common era, the great Khmer civilization and its capital, Angkor, in modern day Cambodia. The advent of Indians in Southeast Asia has hardly a parallel in history. In view of the ethnic affinities between the prehistoric Austro-Asiatic races of India and those of Suvarnabhumi, contact between the two regions may well go back to the remotest antiquity. Most of the countries of Southeast Asia came under the cultural and religious influence of India. This region was broadly referred to by ancient Indians as Suvarnabhumi (the Land of Gold) or Suvarnadvipa (the Island of Gold). Vedic Indians must have charted Java, Yawadvip, thousands of years ago because Yawadvip is mentioned in India's earliest epic, the Ramayana. The Ramayana reveals some knowledge of the eastern regions beyond seas; for instance Sugriva dispatched his men to Yavadvipa, the island of Java, in search of Sita. 

Southeast Asia was often called by many British, French and Indian scholars as Farther India, Greater India, L’Inde Exterieure, and the Hinduized or Indianized States. The whole area was so influenced by India, that according to a European scholar who wrote in 1861, that "the Indian countries situated beyond the Ganges hardly deserve the attention of History." The various states established in this region can therefore be called Indianized kingdoms. Invasion nor proselystism was by no means the main factor in the process of Indianization which took place in the Indian Archipelago. International trade was very important. Angkor Wat indeed deserves to play the leading part not only because of its exceptional artistic and architectural achievements but also on account of the hydrological, agricultural and ecological problems solved there. 

Angkor wat is often hailed as one of the most extraordinary architectural creations ever built, with its intricate bas-reliefs, strange acoustics and magnificent soaring towers. Angkor Wat, originally named Vrah Vishnulok - the sacred abode of Lord Vishnu, is the largest temple in the world. It was built by King Suryavarman II in the 12th century. The Sanskrit Nagara (capital) was modified by the Cambodian tongue to Nokor and then to Angkor. The word Angkor is derived from the Sanskrit word 'nagara' meaning 'holy city'. Vatika is Sanskrit word for  temple. "The city which is a temple," Angkor Wat is a majestic monument, the world's largest religious construction in stone, and an architectural masterpiece. The Khmers adhered to the Indian belief that a temple must be built according to a mathematical system in order for it to function in harmony with the universe. Distances between certain architectural elements of the temple reflect numbers related to Indian mythology and cosmology. The sheer size of the place leaves visitors in awe and the complex designs illustrate the skills of long gone priest architects.  Every spare inch has been carved with intricate works of art. The sculptures of Indian icons produced in Cambodia during the 6th to the 8th centuries A D are masterpieces, monumental, subtle, highly sophisticated, mature in style and unrivalled for sheer beauty anywhere in India says Philip Rawson. The scale of Angkor Wat enabled the Khmer to give full expression to religious symbolism. It is, above all else, a microcosm of the Hindu universe.
It is frequently said that Angkor was 'discovered' by the Europeans but this is patently nonsense and simply reflects a Eurocentric view. The Khmer never forgot the existence of their monuments. French naturalist Henri Mouhot stumbled across the city complex of Angkor Wat while on a zoological expedition. He was overwhelmed by the magnificence of these ruins hidden in the jungle and wrote: “One of these temples – a rival to that of Solomon, and erected by some ancient Michael Angelo  - might take its place besides our most beautiful buildings – Grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome …it makes the traveler forget all the fatigues of the journey, filling him with admiration and delight, such as should be experienced on finding a verdant oasis in the sandy desert."
The grandeur of this ancient civilization is truly astounding. Covering an area of one square mile, Angkor Wat is one of the largest temple complex in the world. The temple is dedicated to the Lord Vishnu from whom the king was considered a reincarnation. Essentially a three-layered pyramid, Angkor Wat has five distinctive towers, 64 meters high. On the outer wall are eight panels of bas-relief depicting scenes of Hindu epics Ramayana and Mahabharata. These relics of past grandeur bear mute testimony tone of the least known yet most glorious chapters in the history of mankind: that of the classical culture of ‘Greater India.’ 
Unlike other countries, Cambodia does not minimize Indian influence on the local culture. On the contrary, the people of the country generously acknowledge it. Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia recalled the close cultural ties that have existed for two thousand years between India and Cambodia. He said: "When we refer to 2000 year old ties which unite us with India, it is not at all a hyperbole. In fact, it was about 2000 years ago that the first navigators, Indian merchants, and Brahmins brought to our ancestors their gods, their techniques, their organization. Briefly India was for us what Greece was for the Latin Occident."

Introduction

Jon Ortner ( ? ) author of Sacred Places of Asia: Where Every Breath Is A Prayer has remarked:
"As I walked along the huge, ancient stone of the causeway leading to Angkor Wat, I was forced to look inward and question my own significance in the universe. Everything here, from the huge moat protecting the complex to the giant nagas flanking my path, is designed to make one shrink before the majesty of Vishnu. 
"After passing through a succession of courtyards, each grander and more elaborate than the last, I arrived at an enormous Meru with its five soaring peaks and exquisitely carved walls. What a spectacle this all must have been long ago....Angkor Wat is the representation of the Khmer universe, reflecting a relationship to nature on such a deep level, that it makes modern architecture seem spiritually empty. The soul of the Khmer is alive in these temples and mirrored in the faces of today's Cambodians, the recipients of a rich artistic and spiritual heritage."
(source: Sacred Places of Asia: Where Every Breath Is A Prayer - By Jon Ortner  p. 113).

The sculptures of Indian icons produced in Cambodia during the 6th to the 8th centuries A D are masterpieces, monumental, subtle, highly sophisticated, mature in style and unrivalled for sheer beauty anywhere in India. - says Philip Rawson.

Henri Mouhot (1826 -1861) a French naturalist and explorer, who had gone to South-east Asia in the late 1850's and succumbed to fever there in 1861. Mesmerized 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.''

(source: Le Tour du Monde, 2-1863-299). 
He said: "See Angkor and Die."
He was staggered by his discovery. There was a city so vast and so sophisticated that it must have been built by people with an advanced knowledge of engineering, science, mathematics and art. The young Frenchman soon sent word back to Europe telling of the most beautiful lost city ever to be discovered. The monumental scale, grandeur and beauty of Angkor justifies its reputation as one of the world’s great creations.  
Mouhot wrote: What strikes the observer with not less admiration than the grandeur, regularity, and beauty of these majestic buildings, is the immense size and prodigious number of the blocks of stone of which they are constructed. In this temple alone are as many as 1532 columns. What means of transport, what a multitude of workmen, must this have required, seeing that the mountain out of which the stone was hewn is thirty miles distant!...."
(source: Angkor: Heart of an Asian Empire - By Bruno Dagens  p. 140-141).
"It is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome." "To obtain any idea of its splendor on one must imagine the most beautiful creations of architecture transported into depths of the forests in one of the more remote countries in the world."
Mahout recorded excitedly in his diary for January 1860 after gazing on the 200-ft temple of Angkor Vat.

(source: The World's Last Mysteries - Readers Digest  ASIN 089577044X  p. 243).
When he first brought it to the knowledge of the modern Western world in 1860, the explorer, Henri Mouhot, said of it, quite simply, “this architectural work perhaps has not, and perhaps never has had, its equal on the face of the globe.”
(source: The Culture of South-East Asia - By Reginald Le May p. 133)
Henri Mohout could hardly believe his eyes in 1860. He wrote of:
"ruins of such grandeur, remains of structures that must have been raised at such an immense cost of labor, that, at the first view, one is filled with profound admiration....One of these temples - a rival to that of Soloman, and erected by some ancient Michael Angleo - might take an honorable place besides our most beautiful buildings. It is grander than anything left to us by Greece and Rome, and presents a sad contrast to the state of barbarism in which the nation in now plunged."  To Mahout, those "prodigious works" were nothing short of astounding.

(source: Splendors of the Past: Lost Cities of the Ancient World - National Geographic Society. p. 186).
At Ongcor, there are ...ruins of such grandeur... that, at the first view, one is filled with profound admiration, and cannot but ask what has become of this powerful race, so civilized, so enlightened, the authors of these gigantic works?

(source: In Mouhot's Footsteps)

Francis Garnier (1839 – 1873), the Deputy leader of Louis Delaporte and the chronicler wrote of Angkor Wat: 

"Perhaps no where else in the world, has such an imposing mass of stone been arranged with more sense of art and science...a spark of sheer genius....what grandeur and at the same time what unity..." 

Garnier’s narrative and Louis Delaporte’s art together resurrected Angkor Wat from ruin and decay to restoration and eventually a World Heritage status.

(source: Mekong magnificent obsession - tribuneindia.com)

Bernard Philippe Groslier (1926 -1986)  the great French conservator and archaeologist discussing the genius of the Khmer empire, a restless creativity that left scattered over thousands of square miles of tropical forest some of the finest sculpture and architecture ever produced. To Professor Groslier, Angkor wat was “the highest architectural achievements of all Asia”  

“They were the masters of their world. It was quite wonderful. There was peace and order. Temples full of riches. Happy Brahmins full of good rice, good food. And, of course, some of the most magnificent temples ever built. Nothing in that part of the world would compare. Nothing! That’s quite something, n’est-ce pas? – isn’it?”  

"The Khmer took everything from India, from irrigation to astronomy and including Shiva and the rest of Hindu religion...And the Khmer built Angkor. "

“The expansion of India towards the countries of the East, at the very moment when by a striking coincidence China seemed to be moving southwards to encounter it, constitutes one of the turning points of history…”

(source: Splendors of the Past: Lost Cities of the Ancient World  - National Geographic Society  p. 184 - 190).
Groslier who was the author of Angkor: Art and Civilization, describing the incomparable perfection of Angkor Wat wrote:

"The Khmer civilization was the most important, the most brilliant and original in ancient Indo-China. The brilliant achievements of ancient Cambodia were due primarily to the country’s wealth of natural resources. No other country of the peninsula could boast of such an unbroken extent of fertile and well-watered. Cambodia, being a strictly defined and admirably situated geographical unit, was the cradle of a powerful and gifted race.  

But neither favorable environment nor limitless resources nor years of peace would have sufficed without the spiritual contribution of India. 

India was the spark that fired the blaze."

(source: Angkor: Art and Civilization - By Bernard-Philippe Groslier and Khmer: The Lost Empire of Cambodia - By Thierry Zephir  p. 114).

 "There is hardly anything in the world comparable to the Angkor complex in terms of the number, size and perfection of its buildings."
"one of the supreme architectural triumphs of all time. There can be no doubt that it was conceived by one man, by the genius of a great architect. It is a masterpiece without a successor." "All these details, together with the size of the building which bursts into sight at the end of the triumphal avenue and at every embrasure open to the view, contribute to the impressiveness of Angkor Wat "
(source: Can Angkor be saved? - Angkor Wat, Cambodia - By Frank  Bequette Feb 1994 and Sacred Places of Asia: Where Every Breath Is A Prayer - By Jon Ortner  p. 109 and Angkor and the Khmer empire - By John Audric p. 146)
Charles Carpeaux a photographer who worked with French archaeologist Henri Dafour in 1901, wrote:
"Not an inch of this stone that isn't carved with an incredible richness and a charming naivety of expression. The fifty two towers, each adorned with four colossal heads of Brahma, are capped with a tangle of creepers and even big trees....You can't imagine the effect produced by these heads of Brahma, with the patina of so many centuries, covered in lichen, enveloped in creepers through which rays of sunlight still manage to filter, playing on these enormous figures and giving each a different expression: some smile, others appear sad, yet others are impassive."

***

Henri Parmentier (1871 -1949) has observed the intricacy of details at Angkor Wat:
"This decorative minuteness is pushed to the extreme; if one is stuck by the work and the formidable expense represented by the ten kilometers of border chiseled sandstone of the moats, one is no less stupefied when one thinks of the execution of the 10,000 ridge-crests which are aligned on all the ridges, so delicate that not a single entire specimen has come down to us."
(source: Angkor: The Hidden Glories - By Michael Freeman and Roger Warner  p. 182 - 190).

Diego do Couto (1543 - 1616) a 16^th century, Portuguese traveler became the first of many Western chroniclers to visit Angkor and he express amazement at its prodigious stone masterpieces, calling the city:

"one of the wonders of the world."

“Half a league from this city of Angkor Thom is a temple named Angkor, which is built on beautiful, flat and open terrain. This temple is hundred and sixty paces long and so strangely constructed that it cannot be described in writing any more than it can be compared to any other existing document. The central body of the building comprises four naves and their vaults rise up, heavily decorated, to form lofty, pointed domes supported by numerous columns worked with all the intricacy of which the human genius is capable. The temple is built on a magnificent platform of massive slabs of the same stone as the rest of the edifice. …These pointed towers with their globes can be seen from more than four leagues away..”

"The city is surrounded by a moat, crossed by five bridges. These have on each side a cordon held by giants. Their ears are all pierced and are very long. The stone blocks of the bridges are of astonishing size. The stones of the walls are of an extraordinary size and so jointed together that they look as if they are made of just one stone. The gates of each entrance are magnificently sculpted, so perfect, so delicate that Antonio de Magdelena, who was in the city, said that they looked as if they were made from one stone the source of which is, amazingly, over 20 leagues away. So you can judge the labor and organization dedicated to construction."

(source: Angkor: Heart of an Asian Empire - By Bruno Dagens  p.133 - 135 & The Civilization of Angkor - By Charles Higham p. 1 - 2).

Joao Dos Santos (  - 1622)  a Dominican missionary born in Portugal and died in Goa wrote in 1609:

“Half a league from the city is a temple called Angor. It is of such extraordinary construction that it is not possible to describe it with a pen, particularly since it is like no other building in the world. It has towers and decoration and all the refinements which the human genius can conceive of. One know nothing of the origins of the city, nor why it was abandoned.” 

Christoval de Jacques (  ? )  wrote in 1606

“In 1570, there was discovered an amazing city with numerous buildings. In the interior were great houses and fountains. There is a great bridge supported by sixty giants. The city is called Angkor, or the city of five peaks, because one can see five elevated towers with balls of gilded copper.”

(source: The Civilization of Angkor – By Charles Higham p. 1 - 3)

Sir Francis Osbert Sacheverell Sitwell, 5th Baronet (1892- 1969) in his book Escape with Me - an Oriental Sketch Book (1941),  has written:
"Let it be said immediately that Angkor, as it stands, ranks as chief wonder of the world to-day, one of the summits to which human genius has aspired in stone, infinitely more impressive, lovely and, as well, romantic, than anything that can be seen in China...
The material remains of a civilization that flashed its wings, of the utmost brilliance, for six centuries, and then perished so utterly that even his name has died on the lips of man." 'the neighboring Bayon can be said to be the most imaginative and singular in the world, more lovely than Angkor Vat, because more unearthly in its conception, a temple from a city in some other distant planet...imbued with the same elusive beauty that often lives between the lines of a great poem."
Round the great temple of Angkor Vat is a vast area of mighty ruins with artificial lakes and pools, and canals and bridges over them, and a great gate dominated by ' a vast sculptured head, a lovely, smiling but enigmatic Cambodian face, though one raised to the power and beauty of a god.' The face with its strangely fascinating and disturbing smile - the 'Angkor smile' is repeated again and again. 
(source: The Discovery of India - By Jawaharlal Nehru p. 208-209).

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."

Here at Angkor was the finest metropolis in Asia – a town whose splendor is permanently embossed in temple wall and tower and terrace. The people were called the Khmer and were either of Hindu extraction or the diligent pupils of Hindu teachers. There is mention of a kingdom under Hindu direction, if not domination, in Indo-China as early as the year 238 AD and there is evidence that the Khmer flourished during the 13^th and possibly into the 14^th century."     

(source: Four faces of Shiva - By Robert J Casey  p. 31 - 32)
Amaury de Riencourt (1918 - ) was born in Orleans, France. He is author of several books including The American empire and The Eye of Shiva and The Soul of India has written: 
"Art flourished in Kamboja as never before, centered around a capital city known to all Asia as Angkor, the Magnificent, a city of more than a million inhabitants - which when it was extricated from the jungle in modern times, contained not a single human being. 
Chinese and Indian envoys could hardly believe their eyes when they gazed at the splendid temple of Angkor Vat, a sublime work of art that was inspired by India but shaped by the genius of Khmer people."
"Indian inspiration provided the religion and the philosophy, the artistic forms and the technique with which Angkor was built."
(source: The Soul of India - By Amaury de Riencourt  ISBN 0907855032  p. 160-161).
Jeannine Auboyer ( ? ) was the curator of the Musee Guimet, Paris, and author of The Oriental World has said:
"Its splendid plan, the balance of its proportions, the elegance of its pillared cloisters and the beauty of its decoration make it one of the masterpieces of world architecture." 

(source: The Oriental World - By Jeannine Auboyer Landmarks of World's Art quoted from Appendix page). 

Sir H G Rawlinson (1880 -   ) the great historian has observed: 

“Had the Khmers left but this single monument, it would have placed them among the great artists of the world, so perfect is its architecture and so rare its art.”

Ramesh C Majumdar (1888-1980) eminent Indian historian, who points out that from a very remote past, the Indians possessed a vague idea of the countries in the Far East. Fabulous wealth earned by trade gave rise to stories of Suvarnabhumi or Golden Land. 

“The Indian colonies in the Far East must ever remain as the high watermark of maritime and colonial enterprise of ancient Indians”

“In the domain of art, Kambuja towers head and shoulders above the rest. A general view of the city of Angkor Thom and of the monuments round about it creates a solemn impression of dazzling brilliance which does not suffer in diminution on a closer examination of the remains. Indeed it may be said with perfect truth, that no other equal space on earth can show anything comparable to Angkor monuments in massive grandeur…The Angkor wat is justly regarded as the grandest of the monuments in Kambuja.”  

"If art is an expression of national character and a fair index of the culture and civilization of a people, Kambuja easily takes the leading position among the Indian colonies in Indo-China and constitutes an important landmark and the greatest living testimony to the splendor of the civilization of which it is a product."

(source: Ancient India - By V D Mahajan  p. 752 - 769  and Greater India - By Arun Bhattacharjee  p. 120)

George Coedes (1886 - 1969) former Director of L'Ecole Francaise d'Extreme Orient, who had spent thirty-five years in French Indochina, eminent French scholar, author of The Indianized States of Southeast Asia. He has found that the story of India’s expansion is woven into the cultures of Southeast Asia.  “I am convinced that such research will reveal numerous facts which will indicate a much deeper Indianization of the mass of the population than the sociologists will at present admit.” 

He has written:

"Any attempt to understand the culture of Southeast Asia, and Cambodia in particular, must take account of Indian influence. "

India’s civilizing influence beyond the Ganges “is one of the outstanding events in the history of the world.” Although the peak of her influence was over by 1500, India’s heritage permeates the art, law, literature, religion, and politics of present day Southeast Asia. It is with justifiable pride that Indian scholars refer to the history of Southeast Asia as the history of “Greater India.” The geographic area called “Father India” consists of Indonesia, or island of Southeast Asia and the Indochinese Peninsula, or India beyond the Ganges, including the Malay Peninsula. Around the beginning of the Common Era, Southeast Asia was the “land of gold” toward which the Indian navigators sailed…” 

Culturally speaking, Farther India today is characterized by more or less deep traces of Indianization that occurred long ago:  the importance of the Sanskrit element in the vocabulary of the languages spoken there; the Indian origin of the alphabets with which those languages have been or still are written; the influence of Indian law and administrative organization; the persistence of certain Brahmanic traditions in the countries converted to Islam as well as those converted to Singhalese Buddhism; and the presence of ancient monuments which, in architecture and sculpture, are associated with the arts of India and bear inscriptions in Sanskrit.

The history of the expansion of Indian civilization to the east has not yet been told in its entirety. The relations between India proper and Farther India date back to prehistoric times. But from a certain period on, these relations resulted in the founding of Indian kingdoms on the Indochina Peninsula and in the islands of Indonesia. The oldest archaeological remains these states have left us are not necessarily evidence of the first civilizing wave. It is probable a priori, that the priests who consecrated the first Brahmanic or Buddhist sanctuaries and the scholars who composed the first Sanskrit inscriptions were preceded by seamen, traders, or immigrants – founders of first Indian settlements. These settlements, in turn, were not always entirely new creations; in many cases (Oc Eo in Cochin China, Kuala Selingsing in Perak, sempaga in Celebes etc). they were built on Neolithic sites that the seamen from India had frequented perhaps from time immemorial. 

Indianization must be understood essentially as the expansion of an organized culture that was founded upon the Indian conception of royalty, was characterized by Hindu or Buddhist ideas, the mythology of the Puranas, and the observance of the Dharmasastras, and expressed itself in the Sanskrit language. "

"A study of ancient India, viewed from the East, which has scarcely begun, seems to promise rich results."

(source: The spread of Indian culture in Southeast Asia - By George Coedes p. 98 - 99 and The Indianized States of Southeast Asia - By George Coedes  p. xv – xvii and p. 14)

Helen Churchill Hungerford Candee (1859 -1949) who was a noted author and lecturer on the arts and travel and survivor of the Titanic and author of Angkor the Magnificent, must have been standing on this terrace almost 70 years ago when she wrote:

"Away from the plateau of entry the causeway stretched over the moat, a veritable avenue to the temple walls. It is balustraded with Nagas on either side, it is 36 feet wide, and its length is the unbelievable width of the moat, over two hundred meters, nearly 700 feet. A moat for us means a grassy cincture sunk around a castle. The moat of Angkor vat has no such niggard measure. It is a lake in width, it is enclosed in masonry, and it measures about three miles around! Superb! 

"Few architects think in measurements as big as that."

“Any architect would thrill at the harmony of the facade, an unbroken stretch of repeated pillars leading from the far angles of the structure to the central opening, which is dominated, by three imposing towers with broken summits.”  

"The Vat rises in fair majesty against the heavens. "

"All the ancient power of the temple and its gods is puissant still. It surrounds those who look upon the wonder. The eyes sweep upwards over the rising storeys, up, up, to the mounting towers, to the pure firmament, and pause subdued.  It is ever thus. Some power overcomes, some mysterious spell is caste, one never look upon the ensemble of the Vat without a thrill, a pause, a feeling of being caught up into the heavens. Perhaps it is the most impressive sight in the world of edifices. The whole place is covered, once you open your eyes to it, columns, lintels, surbases, panels, pediments, jambs of doors and windows.  One says that this holy sanctuary contained a wondorus statue of God Vishnu carved from precious stone. "

"The portico is magnificent in a way not unfamiliar. One is at once in harmony with the plan. Nothing exotic about it, nothing that shocks Western traditions, simply grandeur and dignified beauty as we know it in our own architecture."

(source: Angkor the Magnificent - By Helen Churchill Candee   p. 65 - 90)
Will Durant (1885-1981) American historian, would like the West to learn from India, tolerance and gentleness and love for all living things:

“Angkor wat is a masterpiece equal to the finest architectural achievements of the Egyptians, the Greeks, or the cathedral builders of Europe. An enormous moat, twelve miles in length, surrounds the temple; over the moat runs a paved bridge guarded by dissuasive Nagas in stone; then an ornate enclosing wall; then spacious galleries, whose reliefs tell again the tales of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana; then the stately edifice itself, rising upon a broad base, by level after level of a terraced pyramid, to the sanctuary of the God, two hundred feet high. Here magnitude does not detract from beauty, but helps it to an imposing magnificence that startles the Western mind into some weak realization of the ancient grandeur once possessed by Oriental civilization." 

"Indian art had accompanied Indian religion across straits and frontiers into Sri Lanka, Java, Cambodia, Siam, Burma, Tibet, Khotan, Turkestan, Mongolia, China, Korea and Japan; “in Asia all roads lead from India.” 

(source: Story of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage - By Will Durant MJF Books. 1935. p. 605).

Lonely Planet  travel guide gives this description of Angkor wat:
“Angkor Wat, with its soaring towers and extraordinary bas-reliefs, is considered by many to be one of the most inspired and spectacular monuments ever conceived by the human mind. It was built by King Suryavarman II reigned 1112-52) to honour God Vishnu..

***

The central temple complex consists of three storeys, each of which encloses a square surrounded by intricately interlinked galleries. Rising 31m [102 feet] above the third level and 55m above the ground is the central tower, which gives the whole ensemble its sublime unity. The temple is surrounded by a vast moat, which forms a rectangle 1.5km by 1.3km.... “

Han Suyin (1917 - )  is a prominent writer on modern Chinese and Asian subjects. Author of several books including A Many-splendoured Thing. 

She has observed:

“No film, no photograph, nothing can prepare one for Angkor and its impact. It is even difficult to speak of it in other than superlative terms. For it is colossal, enormous, prodigious, startling, awesome…” 

"But what formidable, what enormous, what impossibly incomparable monuments! Testimony to the greatness and beauty, the vast wealth and strength of the Angkorean civilization, which lasted for some five centuries. 

"And along the galleries, hundreds of yards long, are the scenes from the great Indian epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. There is a superb Vishnu Churning of the Sea of Milk to gain the elixir of life: a great serpent coils itself around a mountain, and the gods and demons pull and spin the mountain to churn the sea, and all sorts of wonderful things come of the sea, all the creatures of the world, including Vishnu's wife Lakshmo, born of the sea spray....there are so many sculptures that each stone on the outside is covered with carvings; some are delicate as lace, others are monumental. "

(source: Ancient Cambodia - By Donatella Mazzeo and Chiara Antonini - Foreward  p. 6 - 8)

Lord Alfred Harmsworth Northcliffe (1865 - 1922) remarked when he went to Cambodia as a reporter for his newspaper, 

“No Sultan’, he cabled, ‘no Mikado, No Viceroy of India could offer his guests a comparable spectacle.” 

(source: The Road to Angkor - By Christopher Pym  p. 176 - 180). For more refer to Glimpses XIX.

K M Srivastava (1927 -  ) who has served for 33 years with the Archaeological Survey of India, and has conducted several excavations at many important sites in India. In 1982 he led a nine member team to Kampuchea to prepare a project report on the preservation of the temple of Angkor Wat.  

“The Hindu culture was deeply rooted in the soil of Kambuja as is evident from the perfect Sanskrit kavya style used in the inscriptions at Mebon and Pre-Rup which clearly indicates that their authors possessed deep knowledge of all the metres. They were also acquainted with Sanskrit rhetoric and prosody. An adequate knowledge of the Indian epic, Kavyas Puranas and other literature was also possessed by them. Indian philosophical theories and spiritual conceptions, besides religious and mythological beliefs of various sects in India were very well known to them. They were well versed in the grammatical treatise of Panini. Four verses of Pre-Rup, inscription allude without any doubt to Kalidasa’s Raghuvamsa, sometimes repeating the words used by the great poet. “

(source: Angkor Wat and cultural ties with India - By K M Srivastava  p. 25)

Helen Ibbitson Jessup (? )  author of Sculpture of Angkor and Ancient Cambodia: Millennium of Glory captures to near perfection the overwhelming sensation of awe and mystery that Angkor – among the greatest, and the most ambitious, of architectural monuments in the world – produces in the heart of even the most hardened, or casual, visitor. For the site, with its sprawling, seemingly endless, expanse and decay does not sum up the past of Cambodia alone, but, in some ways, of mankind itself.  The majestic site: miles of ‘gallery and tower’, ancient temples soaring heavenwards and crumbling at the same time, monuments to man’s faith and energy, stone and root and dust.
(source: Angkor: The curling roots of time - tribuneindia.com).  

Dr. H G (Horace Geoffrey) Quaritch Wales (1900 -   )  author of The Making of Greater India: A Study in South-East Asian Culture Change and Towards Angkor in the footsteps of the Indian invaders. Lecturer in Thailand from 1936 - 48). He was a great lover of Indian civilization, and expert upon it, who yet writes of Cambodian art, and of the Hindu influence upon it, in these very just terms: 

“When the guiding hand of India was removed, her inspiration was not forgotten, but the Khmer genius was released to mould from it vast new conceptions of amazing vitality different from, and hence not properly to be compared with, anything matured in a purely Indian environment…It is true that Khmer culture is essentially based on the inspiration of India, without which the Khmers at best might have produced nothing greater than the barbaric splendor of the Central American Mayas; but at the same time it must be admitted that here, more than anywhere else in Greater India, this inspiration fell on fertile soil.” 

(source: Escape with me – By Sir Osbert Sitwell p. 82 – 83).  Refer to chapter on Seafaring in Ancient India, War in Ancient India and India on Pacific Waves? 

Sardar Kavalam Madhava Panikkar (1896-1963) Indian historian, in his book A Survey of Indian History, was the most impressive in depicting how South India’s expansion into “further India” was achieved by the very sea power that ten centuries later was to open India to colonization by the West: 

“At the end of the fifth century the area of the Mekong valley, Malaya and the Indonesian islands were dotted with Hindu principalities some of which, like the kingdom of Funan, had attained considerable importance and prosperity. This was the formative period. Hindu culture and organization had been established on a firm basis, and the local population – at least the higher strata – assimilated with the Indian emigrants and colonists. The next five centuries witness a great flowering of Indian culture in these areas which properly belong to Indian history, because at least till the twelfth century, these people considered themselves as integrally belonging to the Indian world.” 

"The early inscriptions are in classical Sanskrit, full of allusions to ancient India..."Kambuja was ardently Hindu till the middle of the seventh century when Buddhism is first alluded to. The two religions co-existed as in India, though till the very end Hinduism continued predominant."

(source: Under Western Eyes  - By Balachandra Rajan  p. 37 – 38 and A Survey of Indian History - By K M Panikkar p. 94)

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) poet, author, philosopher, Nobel prize laureate. Tagore was deeply critical of the British Raj in India.

He has remarked: 

“To know my country in truth he wrote in 1934, one has to travel to that age when he realized her soul and thus transcended her physical boundaries; when she revealed her being in a radiant magnanimity which illumined the Eastern horizon."

(source: The Journal of the Greater India Society - Preface By Rabindranath Tagore vol 1, 1934).

Benjamin Rowland (  - 1972) Curator of American Art and author of The Art and Architecture of India

"Perhaps it might be compared’, ‘to the impression that would be produced on a wanderer in another millennium coming suddenly upon the ruins of Manhattan rising silent and empty above the Hudson."

(source: The Art and Architecture of India - By Benjamin Rowland and The Road to Angkor - By Christopher Pym  p. 176 - 180).

Wim Swaan ( ? )  author of The Lost Cities of Asia has observed:

"Gupta India is in its heyday could well claim to be the best governed and most civilized country in the world. Such was the culture and the extraordinarily rich and complex body of religion and philosophy which Indian traders and missionaries carried throughout ‘Greater India’. To these lands she brought also her knowledge in irrigation, husbandry and metallurgy, mathematics and astronomy, a literary language and an alphabet. Significantly, the cultural dominance of India was achieved not through force but by the voluntary acceptance of her manifestly superior gifts on the part of eager and apt pupils. This was in marked contrast to the southward march of China, an armed expansion on the regular Roman model. 

A fascinating question, and one which has had a far-reaching effect on world history, is why China – particularly in the case of Indo-China – did not exercise a dominant influence during these early years. Chinese ships and navigation methods were both greatly inferior. Long after Indian ships were able to strike out boldly across the open seas, Chinese ships were still forced to hug the shore, and this made them all the more vulnerable to the attacks of the numerous pirates that infested the waters off her southernmost provinces. The zenith of Indian power during the Gupta Period coincided with the most unsettled period in Chinese history.  

Louis De La Haba ( ? )  in the book Splendors of the Past: Lost Cities of the Ancient World wrote:

“This was the time of the great Indian expansion, when seafaring merchants fanned out across the Indian Ocean and brought to Southeast Asia a seething ferment of new ideas. From Burma to Indonesia, they established a chain of settlements along the coasts from which they traded for gold, precious stones, perfumes, and spices. The merchants brought with them their religions, Hinduism and then Buddhism; their literary language, Sanskrit, their art and technology; their science and mathematics.

It would be difficult to overestimate the influence India brought to bear on the native cultures of Southeast Asia and on the civilizations that evolved there over the next millennium."

(source: Splendors of the Past: Lost Cities of the Ancient World  - National Geographic Society p. 184 - 190).

Heinrich Zimmer (1890-1943) the great German Indologist, in the noblest of many books, in his book, Asia before Europe: Economy and Civilization of the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750, writes of the Indian cultural world: 

“Each of the colonial cultures and art styles of Ceylon, Indonesia, and Further India, as well as that of Tibet, China, Korea and Japan, took over in a worthy way the Indian heritage, giving to it an original and happy local application. Out of various ethnological and biological requirements self-contained styles were formed that were the peers in originality, nobility and delicacy of the Indian.” 

India remains “the creative hearth”: Indeed, whenever the incredible brightness of the spiritual, the balanced repose of the dynamic, or the brilliant power of the triumphantly omnipotent are made effectively manifestation in Oriental art, an Indian model is not far to seek.”

(source: Under Western Eyes  - By Balachandra Rajan  p. 37 – 38). Recently an Ancient statue of Lord Vishnu has been found in Russian town of the Volga region.  

Dr. Ananda Kentish Cooraswamy (1877-1947) the late curator of Indian art at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, was unexcelled in his knowledge of the art of the Orient, and unmatched in his understanding of Indian culture, language, religion and philosophy. 

He so aptly put it: “although Far-Eastern races developed independently elements of culture no less important than those of India – almost all that belongs to the common spiritual consciousness of Asia, the ambient in which its diversities are reconcilable, is of Indian origin.” 

Indeed, the whole of Asia was to remain forever heavily in debt to India."

(source: Lost Cities of Asia - By Wim Swaan  p. 13 - 16).

Geoffrey Gorer (1904 -  ?) British anthropologist and author of Bali and Angkor, a trenchant critic of Khmer architecture, found much that is worthy of high praise at Angkor Wat:

"...Angkor Wat is the most perfect building in Angkor, and one of the loveliest pieces of architecture in the world...it makes it almost unique in the big buildings of the world. Space is treated as a constituent part of the whole." 

Remarking to Andre Malraux (1901-1976) author of Anti-memoir, profound thinker and French prolific writer, about the Apsaras at Angkor, he remarked: 
"to me the Apsaras are Grace personified, the highest expression of femininity ever conceived by the human mind."
(source: Angkor: The Hidden Glories - By Michael Freeman and Roger Warner p. 182 - 190).

Footprint handbook on Cambodia has said:

"Angkor architecture is remarkable both for its majestic scale and its intimate and intricate details.  

Angkor wat has been described as the largest religious monument in the world. The first glimpse of its five heaven wards soaring towers cannot fail to stir the soul and quicken the pulse.  

Angkor wat is an architectural allegory, depicting in stone the epic ales of Hindu mythology. The temples greatest sculptural treasure is its 2 meters high bas reliefs, around the walls of the outer gallery. It is the longest continuous bas reliefs in the world. In some areas traces of paint and gilt that once covered the carvings can still be seen. The bas reliefs narrate stories from the Ramayana and Mahabharata, as well as legends of Lord Vishnu, and are reminiscent of Pallava and Chola art in Southeast India.  

The Angkor period  encapsulated the greatest and best of Cambodia's art and architecture. Much of it shows strong Indian influence."

(source: Cambodia - By Footprint handbook).

Dr. Nandita Krishna (  ?  )  Director, C.P.R. Ayar Environmental Education Centre, India has written:

“It is a pity India has forgotten the Angkors. A visit to Siem Reap is essential to understand Hinduism and to appreciate Indian art. There is a visible happiness in the deities that is rare in the more withdrawn imagery of India. 

The temples are mysterious and haunting as they brood over the dark jungle, guarding secrets of an ancient people lost in time. The tall pyramids of Meru give the impression of sanctums reaching the skies.  While the rest of the world has rushed to save the monuments, we have taken a tentative step to restore Ta Prohm (“grandfather Brahma”) temple."
(source: The Temples of Angkor - By Nandita Krishna).

Malcolm Macdonald ( ? ) author of the book, Angkor has remarked:

"Angkor vat is the supreme masterpiece of Khmer art. Built in the first half of the 12^th century, it is an Asian contemporary of Notre dame de Paris and Chartres Cathedral in France, and of Ely and Lincoln cathedral in England. But in spaciousness and splendor it is more ambitious than any of these. It is said to be the largest religious building ever constructed by man. 

One can best gain an impression of its size and plan by viewing it from the air. The measurements of the place are impressive. Each of the four sides of the moat, which forms an almost exact square, is about a mile in length. The outer and inner enclosures are huge open spaces to accommodate congregations of many thousands of people. Even the walls of the central sanctuary measure more than half a mile in circumference, and the pile is massive not only in length and width, but also in height. A pyramid temple, it climbs in three successive stages to its central cluster of five towers, the topmost of them rising two hundred and fifteen feet about the surrounding forest. Each tower is crowned with a soaring pinnacle shaped like a bursting lotus bud. That was the vision which took Henri Mouhot’s breath away, when he came upon it suddenly amongst the jungle trees.  

Fortunately Angkor vat is not only the finest but also one of the best-preserved of Khmer monuments. It was built with superb, enduring strength. It has handsome, masculine grace. It combines a glorious mixture of qualities. It sprawls spaciously, and yet its overall proportions are perfect; there is a suggestion of austerity about its simple, massive design, but the details of its decoration are in places riotously lovely; and the contrast between its wide, smooth, grassy enclosures and its acres of sculptured masonry is almost theatrical. The galleries, stairways, libraries and shrines in its courtyards are palatial, and they stand solidly. No building on earth seems more sure of itself. 

Angkor vat’s glory should abide unspoilt as long as any scrap of evidence of human civilization lasts on the planet Earth."

(source: Angkor - By Malcolm Macdonald  p. 101 - 108)

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 has written:

“The culture of India has been one of the world’s most powerful civilizing forces. Countries of the Far East, including China, Korea, Japan, Tibet and Mongolia owe much of what is best in their own culture to the inspiration of ideas imported from India. The West, too has its own debts. But the members of that circle of civilizations beyond Burma scattered around the Gulf of Siam and the Java Sea, virtually owe their very existence to the creative influences of Indian ideas. No conquest or invasion, no forced conversion imposed upon them. They were adopted because the people saw they were good and that they could use them. “ 

“The sculptures of Indian icons produced in Cambodia during the 6^th to the 8^th centuries A.D. are masterpieces, monumental, subtle, highly sophisticated, mature in style and unrivalled for sheer beauty….”   

“One of the most interesting pieces of all is a fragmentary bronze bust, from the western Mebon, of the God Vishnu lying asleep on the ocean of non-being. Head and shoulders and the two right arms survive. It shows the extraordinary, delicate integrity and subtle total convexity of surface, which these sculptors could achieve by modeling. Eyebrows, moustache and eyes seem to have been inlaid, perhaps with gold, silver or precious tone, though the inlay is gone and only the sockets remain. This was one of the world’s great sculptures. "

“One of the most interesting pieces of all is a fragmentary bronze bust, from the western Mebon, of the God Vishnu lying asleep on the ocean of non-being. The bust is 6 1/2 foot wide. It is the largest antique bronze sculpture discovered so far from Cambodia. This was one of the world’s great 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."

"The genius of the artists of that age was for relief. Indeed one might say that Angkor Wat is a repertory of some of the most magnificent relief art that the world has ever seen. The open colonnaded gallery on the first storey contains over a mile of such works,  six feet high. The main sources for the relief subject matter are the Mahabharata and Ramayana, as well as legends of Vishnu and his incarnation Krishna. The wars of classical legend, in which incarnations of the various persons of the Hindu deity triumph at length over demonic adversaries. The artists’ skill is everywhere apparent."
(source: The Art of Southeast Asia - By Philip Rawson p. 1 - 77.
Earl A. Powell III (  ? ) Director, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.   
"Angkor is utterly transforming. The jungle and the ruins intertwine in beautiful and mysterious harmony. Sunset from the top of Angkor Wat has to be one of the most extraordinary experiences any traveler could possibly have."    
P. Jennerat de Beerski (  ? ) author of  Angkor, Ruins in Cambodia has remarked: 
"Go to Angkor, my friend, to its ruins and to its dreams."  
(source: Angkor Ruins in Cambodia - By P. Jennerat de Beerski  Boston & New York: 1924  Houghton Mifflin p.20).

Donatella Mazzeo (  ?  ) author of Ancient Cambodia has remarked:

"In an imaginary history of the masterpiece created by human genius through the centuries, Angkor wat would certainly be given its place as the supreme work of the “classical” period of the Khmer civilization. In fact, this is the monument that most effectively sums up the artistic, technical, and spiritual experiences of this people, and then expresses all this most creatively and thoroughly.  

Angkor wat stands as a mature classic. It is perhaps in its bas-reliefs that Angkor wat attains its pinnacle of artistry, and these made use of mythological, epic, or historical scenes for their subject matter. We meet these bas-reliefs in the galleries around the perimeter of the first level of the temple-mountain. "

(source: Ancient Cambodia - By Donatella Mazzeo and Chiara Antonini  p. 100 - 106)

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) first prime minister of free India, was more than a deeply moral human being. He yearned for spiritual light. He was particularly drawn to Swami Vivekananda and the Sri Ramakrishna Ashram. The Upanishads fascinated him.

He writes: 

“In Cambodia the mighty remains of Angkor the only artistic influence that has been so far detected came from India. But Indian art was flexible and adaptable and in each country it flowered afresh and in many new ways, always retaining that basic impress which it derived from India. The capital became famous in Asia and was known as ‘Angkor the Magnificent’, a city of a million inhabitants, larger and more splendid than the Rome of the Caesars.” 

(source: The Discovery of India - By Jawaharlal Nehru Oxford University Press. 1995  p. 204 – 205).

David P Chandler (  ? )  author of A History of Cambodia writes: 

“The close fit of these spatial relationships to notions of cosmic time, and the extraordinary accuracy and symmetry of all the measurements of Angkor, combine to confirm the notion that the temple was, in fact, a coded religious text that could be read by experts moving along its walkways from one dimension to the next. “

Rudolph Wurlitzer ( ? ) screenwriter, novelist and author of Hard Travel to Sacred Places has observed:

"We stumble around the massive solemnity of this temple mountain, which offers not so much solace or refuge as it does awe and even a shiver of atavistic fear at the omniscience of its precision. It is a place of power, once ruled by Hindu devarajas, under whose totality religious art and sculpture reflect Shiva and Vishnu…."

"One huge bas relief in particular stuns us with its fluid elegance in depicting the Hindu creation myth, “churning the sea of milk” In a union between gods and demons, the giant serpent Vasuki is pulled back and forth between the monkey god, Hanuman, and a line of demons. Vasuki who has wrapped himself around Mount Mandara, is supported by a giant turtle in the Sea of Milk, the ocean of immortality. As Vishnu overseas this divine rhythm of opposites, the gods and demons rotate the mountain and churn the sea into foam, releasing a seminal fluid which creates a divine ambrorsia, or amrita, the essence of elixir of life. Much of the bas relief has faded from centuries of worshippers rubbing their hands over the figures, but overall it is still exquisitely defined. 

Angkor wat has overpowered as much as inspired me. It is as if I’ve trapped myself my wishing for relief, for a transcendent moment, or even, on a more banal level, a catalyst that would revive our sagging energies. The magnificence of the sheer mass of Angkor Wat, the weight and abundance of imagery, has become oppressive. I am disoriented by so much visual grandeur."

(source: Hard Travel to Sacred Places  – By Rudolph Wurlitzer p. 128 - 138)

Maurice Glaize (1886 -1964)  was the conservator of Angkor from 1937 to 1945. In 1944 he published a guide to the temples, entitled Les Monuments du groupe Angkor (The Monuments of the Angkor Group), which is still widely read and used by visitors to the temple,

"If Angkor Wat is the largest and the best preserved of the monuments, it is also the most impressive in the character of its grand architectural composition, being comparable to the finest of architectural achievements anywhere." Angkor Wat is a work of power and reason.

"attains a classic perfection by the restrained monumentality of its finely balanced elements and the precise arrangement of its proportions. It is a work of power, unity and style."

(source: Angkor Wat - psychecentral.com).

Arun Bhattacharjee (  ?  ) author of Greater India has observed:

“This classic art of Kambuja is associated with Angkor and shows the high-water-mark of its glory. In massive grandeur on other equal space on earth cannot show anything comparable to Angkor monuments. The exquisite temples of Angkor provide the main example of Khmer art that has been left to us. Angkor ranked as a chief wonder of the world today – one of the summits to which human genius has ever aspired in stone.” 

The Angkor vat is not remarkable for architecture only. The walls of the galleries are covered with continuous friezes of bas reliefs and other sculptures. The scenes are largely drawn from the Indian epics and are full of life and movements. The plastic art of Kambuja is revealed at its best in the graceful and refined bas reliefs that decorate the long galleries. Thus Angkor shows the vastness of dimensions and fineness of decoration. So the artists of Kambuja conceived like giants and finished like jewelers.” 

(source: Greater India - By Arun Bhattacharjee  p. 118 - 119).

For more refer to chapter on Suvarnabhumi, Seafaring in Ancient India, War in Ancient India and India on Pacific Waves? and Glimpses XIX

Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) the great British historian. His massive research was published in 12 volumes between 1934 and 1961 as `A Study of History'. Author of several books, including Christianity: Among the Religions of the World and One World and India.

"Angkor is not orchestral; it is monumental. It is an epic poem which makes its effect, like the Odyssey and like Paradise Lost, by the grandeur of its structure, as well as by the beauty of its details. Angkor is an epic in rectangular forms imposed upon the Cambodian jungle."

(source: East to West: a journey round the world - By Arnold Toynbee Publisher: New York, Oxford).

Om Tat Sat

                                                        

(Continued...) 

( My humble Pranam, Honour  and also gratefulness  to   Ms. Sushma Londhe ji for her  noble, magnanimous and eminent works on the   peerless  Wisdom of our Sacred Scriptures)

  

_{(My humble salutations to   , H H Swamyjis, Hindu Wisdom, great Universal Philosophers, Historians, Professors and Devotees   for the discovering  collection)}

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