The city where the temple was built, Angkor, is located in modern-day Cambodia and was once the capital of the Khmer Empire. This city contains hundreds of temples. The population may have been over 1 million people. It was easily the largest city in the world until the Industrial Revolution.
Recent research using airborne laser scanning (lidar) has shown that Angkor contains an urban core that could have held 500,000 people and a vast hinterland that could have held many more inhabitants. Ralso identified a ‘lost’ city called Mahendraparvata, which is located about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Angkor Wat.
Vishnu and the king
The builder of Angkor Wat was a king named Suryavarman II. A usurper, he came to power in his teenage years by killing his great uncle, Dharanindravarman I, while he was riding an elephant. An inscription says that Suryavarman killed the man “as Garuda [a mythical bird] on a mountain ledge would kill a serpent.”
Suryavarman’s bloodlust would continue into his rule; he launched attacks into Vietnam in an effort to gain control over the territory. He also made peaceful diplomatic advances, re-opening relations which China.
He venerated the god Vishnu, a deity often depicted as a protector, and installed a statue of the god in Angkor Wat’s central tower. This devotion can also be seen in one of the most remarkable reliefs at Angkor Wat, located in the southeast of the temple. The relief shows a chapter in the Hindu story of creation known as the “churning of the sea of milk.”
As archaeologist Michael Coe writes, the relief “describes how the devas (gods) and the asuras (demons) churned the ocean under the aegis of Vishnu, to produce the divine elixir of immortality,” ("Angkor and the Khmer Civilization," Thames & Hudson, 2003). Scholars consider this relief to be one of the finest art pieces at Angkor Wat.
Suryavarman’s devotion to Vishnu is also shown in the posthumous name he was given, “Paramavishnuloka” which, according to researcher Hélène Legendre-De Koninck, means “he who is in the supreme abode of Vishnu.”
Angkor Wat (Khmer: អង្គរវត្ត) was first a Hindu, then subsequently
a Buddhist, temple complex in Cambodia and the largestreligious monument in the world. The temple was built by the Khmer
King Suryavarman II in
the early 12th century inYasodharapura (Khmer: យសោធរបុរៈ, present-day Angkor), the capital of
the Khmer Empire, as his state temple and eventual mausoleum.
Breaking from the Shaivism tradition
of previous kings, Angkor Wat was instead dedicated to Vishnu. As the
best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a
significant religious center since its foundation. The temple is at the top of
the high classical style of Khmer architecture. It has become a symbol of Cambodia,[1] appearing on its national flag, and it is the country's prime attraction for
visitors.
Angkor Wat combines two basic plans of Khmer
temple architecture: the temple mountain and the later galleried temple, based on early Dravidian Architecture, with key features such as the Jagati. It is designed to represent Mount Meru, home of the devas inHindu mythology: within a moat and an outer
wall 3.6 kilometres (2.2 mi) long are three rectangular galleries, each
raised above the next. At the centre of the temple stands a quincunx of towers. Unlike most Angkorian temples, Angkor Wat is
oriented to the west; scholars are divided as to the significance of this. The
temple is admired for the grandeur and harmony of the architecture, its
extensive bas-reliefs, and for the numerous devatas adorning
its walls.
The modern name, Angkor Wat, means
"Temple City" or "City of Temples" in Khmer; Angkor, meaning "city" or "capital
city", is a vernacular form of the word nokor (នគរ), which comes from
the Sanskrit word nagara (नगर).[2] Wat is the Khmer word for "temple grounds", derived from
the Pali word "vatta" (वत्त).[3] Prior to this time the temple was known as Preah
Pisnulok (Vara Vishnuloka in Sanskrit), after the posthumous title of
its founder.[4]
Purpose
Although Angkor Wat is dedicated to Vishnu, the full purpose of the temple is still debated. One question is whether the ashes of Suryavarman II were interred in the monument, perhaps in the same chamber where the deposits were found. If that were the case it would give the temple a funerary meaning.
Eleanor Mannikka has noted that Angkor Wat is located at 13.41 degrees north in latitude and that the north-south axis of the central tower’s chamber is 13.43 cubits long. This, Mannikka believes, is not an accident. “In the central sanctuary, Vishnu is not only placed at the latitude of Angkor Wat, he is also placed along the axis of the earth,” she writes, pointing out that the Khmer knew the Earth was round.
In addition, in her writing, Mannikka notes a dozen lunar alignments with Angkor Wat’s towers, suggesting that it served an important astronomical role. “During the long and clear Cambodian nights, when the stars filled every inch of the black sky, the astronomer-priests stood on the long western causeway ... and recorded the movements of the moon against the towers in the top two galleries of the temple.”
Comments
Post a Comment