In search of the lost City: travels in Angkor

"The rain god Indra seems to be angry today," said our tour guide, only half-jokingly, leaving me surprised by his ready reference to the Hindu god, as we skirted gathering puddles on the embankment of the moat surrounding the Angkor Wat.

Through my travels in the Angkorian lands, I was to discover how keenly Hinduism and Buddhism alternately waxed and waned across centuries under the reign of the powerful Khmer kings over large parts of mainland Southeast Asia. The Chinese wielded hard power, extracting tributes in return for peace, but the source of soft power was undoubtedly India, exporting culture, religions and folklore to ancient Angkor.

Holding umbrellas aloft, we legged it quickly into the first level of the famed structure to be led into a seemingly endless corridor to inspect the bas-relief on the walls. We joined a group of tourists examining the panels, spellbound by the size and detailing of the marvels commissioned by the Khmer king Suryavarman  II.

On a whirlwind tour, we cruised past a yellow-clad towering Vishnu statue, past panels depicting the Kurukshetra war, the king and his retinue, snapshots from the epics and the past the occasional pock-marked segments of the walls where bullets had once landed.

Finally, we joined the long queue for the ascent to the third and final level. At the topmost level of the temple complex, high above the humdrum of the mortal life of his subjects, the king was thought to receive divine inspiration to conduct the affairs of his kingdom. It was believed that the kings of the Khmer empire were no mere mortals, deriving their authority from god, with even images of gods being modelled after the king of the day in these temples.

After a rather steep climb, I surveyed the environs from a vantage point, at the sweeping views of the temple complex and the jungles beyond, the simple beauty of the carvings around me and I understood why the king had visited this tower to commune with the divine.

High up in the Angkor Wat towers

Soon, it was time to head a few centuries forward to the rajavihara or royal monastery of Ta Prohm, said to be dedicated to King Jayavarman VII's mother.

A Mahayana Buddhist, this king established a welfare state on Buddhist principles and left behind a legacy of a vast network of Buddhist temples. Religious u-turns appeared to  commonplace in this land, with the king of any given time dictating beliefs, swapping Hindu and Buddhist images and sculptures at will.

In contrast to the towering Angkor Wat that spans dizzying heights, Ta Prohm is almost all flat. Where Angkor Wat has been carefully restored by men, Ta Prohm has been left to the artistry of nature. Giant trees have sprung from the laterite walls, with their coiling roots gripping the structures with a firm grasp. The combination of the exquisite ruins and the towering trees lent an ethereal quality to this monument. It has been carefully restored, with attention paid to retaining its quaint atmosphere.

 Ta Prohm - unshakeable Nature vs. frail man-made structures

We left Ta Prohm for Bayon, another temple of the same period. On a smaller scale than Angkor Wat but no less impressive, the Bayon temple was said to have had 54 towers originally, with giant faces carved on to each of the four sides of the towers. The impression, on arrival, is of being greeted by a serene army watching over the city of Angkor Thom from all directions. We walked through the winding corridors, encountering apsaras, garudas and scenes from mythology, under the benign gaze of the multitude of faces.

Were the faces those of Brahma of four faces? Or of the Boddhisattva Avalokitesvara? Maybe both- to push religious transformation in a non-disruptive manner, according to our guide.

 At the upper levels, I looked closer at one of the faces, fascinated by its stoic expression. Our guide drew my attention to another face, saying, “Doesn't this look like the face of a lady?" Of course. Then another, "Doesn't this look like a demon?" Sure enough, there was a foreboding expression on the one indicated. Despite being unable to peel eyes off these images all along, I had not noticed differences in their aspect. Suddenly, from an army of identical faces, the towers had been transformed into a horde of distinct sets of people. He pointed to yet another, this one calm and intriguing like the others. I felt the spell descending upon us again, and all faces seemed uniformly alike once more.

Faces at Bayon

I left Bayon, just as mystified and fascinated as I had been when I had arrived. As the tuk-tuk whirred out of the city gates, I shook myself off my reverie to hear the guide say, "This is the gate of Angkor Thom. Bayon is exactly at the centre of the city. And these," he waved to the human sized figures along either side of the causeway, "are the devas and asuras churning the ocean!" And indeed, the figures were holding what appeared to be a gigantic snake, evoking the well-known tale of the gods and demons churning the ocean for nectar.

And yet again, I felt a familiar thrill upon finding a well-known cultural reference thousands of miles from home in this lost city.