Temples of Siem Reap, Cambodia

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‘Shyamrang’ Siem Reap

What is this color ‘Shyam/Siam/Cyan’?

Is it the dark blue-black color of a nimbus cloud (Meghashyam) ? Is it light blue green of the ‘sasya-shyamal’ earth, the color of ripe harvest ready for the sickle? Is it azure like the blue sky above or is it deep sapphire blue like the color of the Tonle Sap lake (in Cambodia) stretching to the far horizon? What is the color of Siam Reap?

(Tonle Sap is a very curious river. It flows from Tonle Sap lake to the sea part of the year and from sea to the Tonle Sap lake the other part of the year, thus reversing its direction. Have you ever heard of any other river that does that?)

From the oval window of the airplane, Siam Reap looked as though God had painted it in the myriad hues of the blue-green ‘shyam’ color. The tops of the Angkor Wat temples showing through the dark blue-green of the forest alone were a reminder of the Man’s presence in this pristine landscape.

Siem Reap alone retains a vestige of that colorful name “Siam” which is Thailand now. Why the name ‘Siam’ was changed, I wonder.

The three major temples of Siem Reap, Angkor Thom (Bayon), Angkor Wat and Ta Prohm, which originally were (maybe) dedicated to the Hindu Trinity - Brahma The Lord of Creation, Vishnu, The Lord of Preservation and Shiva, the Lord of Destruction - are, interestingly enough, the best created, the best preserved and the most ruined one respectively.

A thumb rule (or, shall I say, a ‘head rule’) to the identity of Hindu Gods/Demons is: Ravana has 10 heads, Skand has six, Brahma has four and Dutta has 3, and all others have but one. So, the four 'smiling faces' facing the four cardinal directions of Bayon temple, most probably depict Lord Brahma.

Note: Here I must mention my own perception of these ‘heads’. Probably the original concept of the ‘ten-headedness’ of Ravana meant that he was a learned, erudite ‘Dashgranthi’ Brahmin, well-versed in the ten sacred scriptures (4 Vedas and 6 Puranas) of Hindus. Popular perception has reduced this savant to a monstrosity. Similarly, when you see an idol of Brahma with four heads facing four cardinal directions, perhaps, the original idea used to describe Him was “one with 360 degree vision.” That is the basic difference between concept and perception. Concept is what the originator meant to convey, and perception is how other see it

However, now those Gods have been reincarnated as Buddhist Deities. Depending upon which religion the King was following- Hinduism or Buddhism- the idols of Gods kept on changing their identities. Vishnu became Buddha, Brahma became Lokeshwar and so on. After-all, they were not drastically different, just as Buddhism is not starkly different from Hinduism.

So, regardless of their present nomenclature, I have renamed Bayon temple at Angkor Thom as the ‘Brahma temple”, the Angkor Wat temple as the “Vishnu temple” and Ta Prohm as the “Shiva temple”. We actually saw the Shiva’s (phallic) symbol at the Ta Prohm temple.

You still find idols or carvings of countless other Gods in these temples - may be in side temples or on the walls. That is because Hinduism is not a religion founded by a single person, but a moral and ethical code preached by a succession of seers or holy men. People keep on repeating that it is not a religion, but a “way of life”. I have not yet understood the exact meaning of this sentence, but I think it means that Hinduism is the total personal freedom of choosing your own Gods, your own tenets, your own beliefs. It is about the democracy of worship with hardly any regimentation. “Live and let live” appears to be its basic philosophy.

We sometimes say that every child that is born on the face of earth is born a Hindu. Its parents later convert it into Christian/Muslim/Buddhist/Sikh.

So, I will be writing about these temples in more detail in my next blogs.

Hinduism was widespread in those regions once upon a time, but it was later replaced by Buddhism. The monuments built to the Hindu/Buddhist gods are truly astonishing, especially when you take into consideration the fact that these temples were built without discovering the architectural principle of an ‘arch’.

Romans were using the arch for about a thousand years before these temples were built but that knowledge had not yet reached Siem Reap. The spread of knowledge was very slow in those days.

After all, they did not have the Internet.

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Comments

[Erik L]

Thanks for this intro of the temples. I guess it's good for me cause i'm planning 4 a trip to siam reap myself. But just wondering, where do u got these information?