Angkor Wat: The Kingdom of Dreams

Our family embarked on a much-awaited trip to Cambodia in 2011 over the “holy week” holidays in the Philippines where we then resided.  As soon as we landed at the Siem Reap international airport and were greeted with hands folded in Namaste by everyone including the customs officer, we knew that a magical trip was about to begin.  Going into our hotel, we were stunned to see a brass mural depicting the Sagar Manthan, churning of the sea, with the Devas on one side, Asuras on the other, Indra in the centre and Vishnu in the avatar of Kuruma at the bottom. The lasting image of this country, Cambodia, 2000 miles away from India is the frequent depiction of this ancient tale of the churning of the ocean almost wherever you go.

It was my desire to visit Angkor ever since I was aware that such a place exists; an ancient Hindu kingdom in a far flung corner of Asia. The idea was fascinating and the monuments lived up to every bit of charm and magic that I imagined. The Angkor Empire existed for 600 years from AD 800 to AD 1432, only to be mysteriously abandoned and then accidently rediscovered 400 years later by a French naturalist in 1860. 

The most impressive of all is Angkor Wat which means city temple. It is the world’s largest monument built by King Suryavarman II in the early 12^th century. Surrounded by a 4 mile long moat, it is considered to be an unparalleled engineering feat in the pre-industrialized world. Flanked by nagas and lions, stand the 5 towers representing the complete microcosm of the Hindu religion, Mount Meru and its surroundings. In one of the side entrances we had the opportunity to pay obeisance to a gigantic statue of Vishnu with 6 arms and a beard! There it stood 20 feet tall glancing impassively at the millions of visitors over many centuries. 

Such beauty, such grandeur all came to an abrupt end in the 15^th century. What transpired?  The king wanted the holy Ganga to flow through his kingdom. So at the source of the river he constructed a thousand Shivalingas to bless the water as it flowed down into the city. The people of Angkor Wat developed a most sophisticated irrigation and water management system. The entire river was diverted through various canals into huge reservoirs, two measuring 16 square kms, dug by hand.  Plenty of water, blessed by the Gods, to irrigate the rice fields and make the land fertile and therefore plenty of food supply to support a vast army and to feed a population of about a million people. 

However, over 600 years, the people became victims of their own genius. The water in the canals that ran through the city, bore into the ground, making the levels drop wreaking havoc with the food supply. The Siams (Thai) were always waiting for opportunities to attack. Gradually the territory started getting chipped away, the kingdom began to shrink.