Ta Prohm

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Ta Prohm

What color is the Ta Prohm temple? The ‘shyam’ color of the blue-green algae on its ponds? The color of blue bottle flies that feed off the dead? These images come to mind because the temple is dead, ruined.

If Angkor Thom is a monument to king Jayavarman VII’s arrogance, and Angkor Wat is a monument to the wealth of ‘Kuber’ king Suryavarman, then Ta Prohm is a reminder of the adage “pride before fall”. This was the first temple built by the same indefatigable king Jayavarman VII. The temple is a total ruin now. Intentionally it is left “un-restored” so that people can see how the other temples of the complex looked before they were restored. It is a tribute in itself to the people who have put in tremendous effort and restored the other temples.

Ta Prohm is mysterious, magical, mystical, monastical, romantic and hauntingly beautiful. All these adjectives are true, but the adjective most evocative of Ta Prohm is, the “Lost” adjective. It is a “Lost temple” in a “Lost city” of a “Lost civilization”.

The jungle around is cleared just enough, to make it safe for the tourists, to go in.

No one worships there any more. As a temple, it is dead, but as a “Corpse of a temple murdered by the jungle” it is fantastic.

This “Lost in the jungle” theme is so popular that books (by Rudyard Kipling), movies (Lara Croft the Tomb Raider, Romancing the stone etc. ), “Phantom,The Ghost Who Walks” comics, artificially created resorts (Suncity) that are made to look as though they were ‘Lost in the jungle’, all these and more, have now become multibillion-dollar industries.

I just wish that these industries would contribute a part of their profits for the restoration of Angkor Wat complex.

Normally, I love trees, and had never expected that I would entertain such murderous thoughts about the innocent fig trees and silk cotton trees, that I would wish to burn them, but at Ta Prohm, I did.

Fat, obscene roots looking like giant swollen leaches were silently sucking the lifeblood out of the temple. Tree trunks, encircling the masonry in a stranglehold, brought pythons, the very essence of evil, to the mind. The climbing creepers, probing the cracks and crevices in the stone with their fingers of tendrils, gave a creepy feeling. The temple was being smothered by the octopus tentacles of the vegetation. The very moss and lichen, the scum on the ponds, the fallen leaves, were hastening to put a shroud over the stone. The vegetation had triumphed over the works of man.

Even in death, Ta Prohm looked so beautiful in the dappled sunlight that we felt like telling it “Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, Rage against the dying of light”.



The temple of Ta Prohm being overtaken by the natural vegetation reminds me of the fate of Sanskrit language overtaken by the “prakrit” languages, which literally mean “natural” languages. As a corollary, does it mean that Sanskrit was NOT a ‘natural language? I am inclined to think that Sanskrit was indeed never a ‘natural’ language but was a formalized, “artificial” language created by the grammarians for communication between different civilizations in ancient times. Its very name suggests that it was “well created” or “cultured” language. (as like the “cultured” pearls) If so, then it was the world’s first, highly successful experiment in artificial languages. “Esperanto” is another one, but it has not achieved much success.

My hypothesis is that it was not the “mother” of “prakrit” languages but an amalgam, a integration of them. Indian grammarians like Panini and Patanjali made it possible for scholars (NOT the lay people) from different civilizations to communicate with each other through the medium of Sanskrit. As a medium of communication, Sanskrit became so widespread that you find Sanskrit ‘Loan’ words embedded in Dravidian, Polynesian, even in Mayan, Incan and Aztec languages, even though these languages belonged to different language groups and are spoken by people of different continents..

It was like the top layer of any communication model (OSI or TCP/IP) through which actual communication takes place, whereas the lower, ‘prakrit’ layers cannot talk with each other. It was not meant to replace natural languages, but to enhance them.

In today’s world, English seems to have acquired that position.

The temple of Ta Prohm looked like Sanskrit language to me - once beautiful, once powerful, once useful, but dead now, a mute testimony to the invincible Nature.

Anyway, it is my own hypothesis, that Sanskrit was an ‘Artificial’ language, though I am no authority on languages. (or for that matter, on anything else either ) That is why I am writing blogs. Otherwise, I would be writing thesises/theses/thesis thesis.



Ta Prohm is the color of brooding depression, of a blue mood so deep that even rowdy teenagers become silent here.

We said a silent prayer, a Requiem to the temple and hastened away from there.

Banteay Srei

If Ta Prohm takes you into a mood of depression, Banteay Srei takes you into a mood of elation. No wonder!! The company of women is a sure-shot antidote to the blue mood. (My husband’s opinion differs here. He says, that women are the CAUSE of every blue mood.)

Banteay Srei means citadel of the women. Originally, it was a ‘Shiva’ temple. Some wise people changed its name to Banteay Srei. It is a small, pink, richly decorated temple, which probably did not suit Shiva’s popular image as the Lord of Destruction. Its feminine charm also was directly in contradiction to the Shiva’s reputation as a “Lord of Abstinence”.

The temple is more like a Bandevi (Forest Goddess) temples that were built (and still exist) in Indian forests centuries ago.

We were enchanted by the carvings of monkeys, “Bali” and “Sugriva” on the lintel of a door. They were engaged in a deadly, mortal combat, as the story is told in Ramayana. The size of the monkeys was hardly 8 inches by 5 inches, but the carving was so fine and life-like that we could see even their bared fangs. The pink sandstone, which is a hard stone, still retained the sharpness of these fangs ten centuries after they were carved. Funny that Lakshman, who is giving Ram arrows to kill Bali with, has elongated ears like Buddha’s paintings at Ajanta and Ellora. Can somebody tell me what these ears signify? Do they represent a wise “bahushrut” man? (“well-read” or ‘learned’ in modern parlance i.e. after the development of the script. We had only oral tradition before that.)

The blue lotus pond that we visited on the way was also a thing of beauty. The broad lotus leaves, the blue flowers, the blue sky and blue hills and the blue water of the pond, all answered my question “What color is Siem Reap?”

It is the ‘shyam’ color of romantic love, the color of Krishna, the color of Meera’s devotion, the color of Radha’s “chunaria”.

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Photos

Ta Prohm
Ta Prohm temple being smothered by vegetation

Ta Prohm2
Trees growing out of Ta Prohm temple

Ta Prohm3
Unfortunately, our Ta Prohm photos are few. Please search the Net for more fabulous photos

Banteay Srei temple
Banteay Srei temple in the afternoon sun

Gajalakshmi
'Gajalakshmi' carved over the lintel of Banteay Srei temple

Mortal combat
Scene of mortal combat between Bali and Sugriva. Notice Lakshman's ears?

Inside view
Inside view of the Banteay Srei temple