Angkor Wat
It is difficult to express one's own feeling at visiting the temple of Angkor, in Cambodia. It is undoubtedly an iconic monument that has been added to the list of the UNESCO World Heritage site but not to the new 7 World Wonders. A score of scholars have written books on the meaning of its structure, and nowadays thousands – if not millions of visitors come from sunrise to sunset to admire its majestic beauty and grandeur.
For the Khmers and also for many other people, the contemplation goes beyond a simple feeling of awe. It is a place of almost magical attraction, soliciting a deep human emotion that can either be religiously motivated or not. It is hard to come here and simply be rewarded by a simple architectural achievement. In fact, it creates a similar feeling to being facing the Pyramids of Gizeh, in Egypt.
This is my third visit there. Yet, I felt a profound elation at revisiting the monument and by attempting to decipher its underlying message. So, I will simply try to follow the rationale of what truly struck me while being there once again.
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| Map of Angkor Wat |
A phenomenal architecture and Art conservatory.
Angkor Wat reveals a symbiosis of Hinduism and Buddhism. It was first edified to honor Vishnu but in the 12thcentury, it became a Mahayana Buddhist temple.
Its architecture follows the southeast Asian standards of the ancient Khmer civilization. It uses the basic geometrical shapes of squares and circles. This is not a novelty as many other civilizations have also used these standards in constructing their monuments. But here, the towers are crowned with a lotus-like shape and the underlying overall symbol derives from the Indian mythology of Mount Meru, the sacred mountain.
All the other ancient temples in the region adopted a solar axial orientation from East to West, following the sun cosmic track. Traditionally, the main gate would open onto the East, land of the rising sun. But not Angkor Wat, which is oriented towards the West, land of the setting sun and kingdom of the Dead.
On an artistic consideration, Angkor Wat is known for its Apsara sculptures (holy female dancers).
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| Apsara |
And its outstanding bas-reliefs (an 800m-long series) are a historical account of the Khmer Kingdom of the Past.
The first thought one may have is that nothing here was built without strong human planning and that there is a clear will to account for an everlasting universal message. In other words, everything here seems to have meaning.
No matter how much you will read about Angkor Wat, at the end of the day what matters is what you see with your own eyes and the way you feel being there that counts most. Such a massive construction was first designed to initiate a deep internal feeling of awe in keeping with its cosmic symbolism. And by the way, this is what archaeologists say it is: an earthly image of the cosmos.
Amazing symmetry and a unique orientation.
The excruciating concept reveals a powerful human mind underlying the actual planning. This is due
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| Stone adjustment |
not only because of technical or artistic achievement but also because of extreme precision and in a formidable symmetry. Such a gigantic realization must have required a painstaking reflexion and tremendous backstage planning. This was done at a time when there were no computers!
Technically, the sandstone quarry was 50km away in the mountains to the North. They used the Siem Reap River to ship the finished stones on to the site. Huge blocks weighing tons were adjusted without any cement and with a precision that leaves us speechless. The reality is. that the older it is, the bigger the blocks are and the more precise the adjustments are.
Let's consider the general outlaying planning. The scale was done in gigantic proportions:
-an external rectangular moat (190m-wide on 1.5km by 1.3km) turns the site into an island,
-a first outer rectangular wall delimits the ground of the sanctuary (1025m by 800m),
-an elevated stone avenue (475m-long by 9.5m-wide) leads from the West main gate to the central temple,
-a central structure enclosed into three square-shaped laterite buildings,
-four round lotus-bud towers on the external central structure,
-and one taller tower in the middle (55m-high) known to be a symbolic representation of Mount Meru.
Archaeologists agree on the symbolic overall religious image representing a stone vision of the
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| A corner lotus-bud tower |
cosmic order. Mount Meru is at the center of this world and the four smaller towers may represent the other summits around Mount Meru; as well as perhaps the other continents. They are designed to form a cross [X] with a central higher structure. The temple outside enclosure represents the Earth and the 4-sided moat symbolizes the planet oceans.
The 12thcentury 800m-long series of bas-reliefs are meant to be seen in an anticlockwise direction, a clear symbol to create a feeling of traveling back into time until the first age of the creation of the universe.
Since Angkor Wat unusually faces the West (and not the East like in the other temples), it is commonly thought it was dedicated to Vishnu because the Hindu god is often associated with the West. The comparison with the Egyptian belief of an after-life in death comes into one's mind as a parallel. It is a reminder of the symbol of the life-cycle represented by the image of the Wheel. It seems to bring forth a sort of parallel between Osiris and Vishnu.
A display of mathematical symbols.
On a more personal account, I was struck by the mathematical order under the design of the
monument. This includes geometry as well as arithmetics.
The two basic geometrical forms are:
-a square or an elongated square (a rectangle) being the basic shape,
-a circle for the tower design.
Anthropology and ethnology have admitted there are two universal symbols: the circle being a representation of the cosmos and the square, a symbol of the earth. The combination of the two reveals a connection between the humane and the divine.
The basic shapes of the many windows (squares) or doors (rectangles) recall this as well. The circular base of the towers ends in a sort of pyramidal tip adopting a lotus-bud design. The circle encloses a space which is sacred. In the East, the lotus flower is a symbol of purity,
enlightenment, and rebirth. This circular flower design points to the sky. Here, we have an Asian representation of a mountain. We know mountains symbolize an ascent to spirituality. The pyramids are a simplified triangular representation of the mountain. All cultures have their own sacred mountains: Mount Sinaï for early Biblical Christianity, Mount Olympus for the Ancient Greeks, Mount Fuji in Japan, Mount Popocatepetl for the Aztecs, or just the Uluru Mountain (Ayers Rock) for the Australian Aborigines. For the Hindus and the Buddhists, it is Mount Meru in the Himalayas. Men's temples are just an architectural representation of the mountain.
But it also goes a step further in regard to basic numbers. The Indian Wheel or its most simplified appearance, the Swastika is a symbol of a life cycle as well as a
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| The Hindu Svastika |
representation of 0 (zero), a well-known Indian contribution to our decimal system. The so-called ''Arab numbers'' come from the Indian sub-continent. They were simply vehiculated by the former Arabian traders. It means that the ancient Khmers had this arithmetic knowledge in their possession.
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| Dharma chakra |
Keeping in mind that odd numbers like 3, 5, 7 or 9 are always used in spiritual concepts as having a mysterious value. Linguistically they are ''odd'' as opposed to ''even'', a bit like another physical classification in the ''right'' as opposed to the ''left''. So, by contemplating Angkor Wat, I randomly started to count how many steps there were, or how many windows and even how many columns each window had.
-First of all, the central structure of the temple is made of 3 square parts.
-There are 4 surrounding towers (32m-high) that delimit either a square or a cross.
-The highest towering structure (55m) is standing right in the center.
So, here we may well have the following figures: 0 (base of the central circular tower) giving birth to
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Vishnu statue at the
western entrance |
1 (highest tower in the middle); 3 is the symbol of the Hindu Trimurti, a Brahmanism trinity made of Brahma (the creator), Vishnu (the preserver), and Shiva (the destroyer). This is an important consideration because Vishnu, being the preserver, stands in the middle. Number 5 is a symbol of human microcosm and in Hinduism, it is often associated with Vishnu.
Number 7 is also used. The windows have 7 columns and there are seven-headed naga standing as the temple protectors.
It might be interesting to continue to explore the eventuality of the symbolism carried by numbers. For instance, on the outside wall of the central structure facing west, I counted 19 windows on each side of the main central entrance to the sanctuary. If symmetry was one of the architectural rules, why choosing 19 rather than 20? A possible answer is that it is in keeping with the mystery of odd numbers. And if you add 1+ 9, it gives you 10 or also 1+ 0 (like in the central tower dedicated to Lord Vishnu). It may also stand as a visual figuration of the basic numbers 1 to 9.
What legacy is inscribed in the stones?
These interpretations may sound a bit far-fetched. But they clearly pose the question of interpretation. A construction such as Angkor Wat served as a temple but also as a symbol of power aiming at hitting human sensibility. But the technique involved and the art displayed also reveal an obvious sense of legacy. These stone monuments, we can still see today, stand as a visual recipient of knowledge, of an ancient conception of the world or of the cosmic order, which has remained vivid in Men everywhere. It is up to us to read and interpret the message of the past.
Christian Sorand
PS: A rather new interpretation regarding the alignment of the major ancient sites relates to the existence of a line connecting them and called 'the tilted equator '.
