The most dramatically situated of all the Angkorian monuments, 800m-long Prasat Preah Vihear (elevation 730m; admission 10,000r) perches high atop the south-facing cliff face of the Dangkrek Mountains. The views are breathtaking: lowland Cambodia 550m below, stretching as far as the eye can see, with the holy mountain of Phnom Kulen looming in the distance.
Prasat Preah Vihear, an important place of pilgrimage during the Angkorian period, was built by a succession of seven Khmer monarchs, beginning with Yasovarman I (r 889-910) and ending with Suryavarman II (r 1112-1152), builder of Angkor Wat. Like other temple-mountains from this period, it was designed to represent Mt Meru and was dedicated to the Hindu deity Shiva.
Start a visit at the monumental stairway, if possible from the bottom (near the market and the crossing from Thailand). As you walk south, you come to four cruciform gopuras (sanctuaries), decorated with a profusion of exquisite carvings and separated by esplanades up to 350m long. At the entrance to the Gopura of the Third Level, look for an early rendition of the Churning of the Ocean of Milk, a theme later depicted awesomely at Angkor Wat. The Central Sanctuary and its associated structures and galleries, in a remarkably good state of repair, are right at the edge of the cliff, which affords stupendous views of Cambodia’s northern plains – this is a fantastic spot for a picnic.
For more on the carvings of Prasat Preah Vihear and the temple’s history, look out for market vendors selling Preah Vihear by Vittorio Roveda, a readable souvenir book accompanied by some attractive photographs.
Classic Khmer Ritual Life
With their many thousands of Hindu devotional structures, from the state temples of Angkor down to the smallest village shrines, and with its huge Mahayana Buddhist complexes and attendant monks, Cambodia’s cities and countryside must have been bustling with religious activity. It is true that Theravada Buddhism had become strong by the time of Zhou’s visit, but the other two religious traditions continued to play important roles.
Brahmanic Hinduism had been all-pervasive during most of the Classic period, until temporarily (and only partially) eclipsed by Jayavarman VII’s Mahayanism. Hinduism is not a congregational religion such as Buddhism or Christianity, but is centred on individual devotion and worship of a god or goddess in a ritual that was always under the care of Brahmin priest. The temple or shrine was there to provide a house in which the deity could take up temporary residence; there he (or she) would have a place to eat, to be bathed, and even to sleep. If everything was well conducted, the god would then come to life in his/her own stone, wood or metal image.
Devotion was a two-way, supernatural contract. To the god the devotee gave offerings of flowers, incense, fruit, clarified butter, coconut juice and the like; in return, the devotee received back from the deity the now-blessed offering (prasad), along with the spiritual well-being (darshan) that resulted from eye contact with the now-live image. In this sense, each of the thousands of Classic Cambodian sculptures of the gods to be seen in museums, in collections, and in the Angkor conservation facility had once resided in a darkened shrine or sanctum at the centre of a temple establishment, and had been worshipped according to established Brahmanic practice.
The Khmer worshipper, alone or in a group, would have come to the temple with the appropriate offerings, and moved in a set way from the decorated outer structures of the complex towards the central shrine where the god lived, proceeding around the sacred space in an ever-decreasing, clockwise direction (this is pradakshina, the auspicious direction). As he neared the sanctum, he passed through structures outside of it in which were halls where the god was taken for his washing, sleeping or entertainment by dancers and musicians.
The sanctum itself was dark and undecorated, and entrance was only allowed to the Brahmin officiant, who acted as an intermediary between the devotee and the deity. The priest took the offering, and in turn offered it to the god, anointing it with the liquid oblations, and decorating the image with garlands. After the image was censed, the priest passed a lamp before it, which was then brought to the worshippers so that they could pass their hands quickly through the flames. Finally, with hands raised and folded palm to palm, the devotee established eye contact with the god, and was granted darshan.
We may be sure that for the wealthy, and for the ruler and members of the royal family, temple rituals were splendid affairs, with orchestral music, large troupes of temple dancers and temple elephants in procession. But even the king had to prostrate himself humbly before the gods, as Bayon relief scenes of Jayavarman VII worshipping at shrines of the gods Vishnu and Shiva prove. One can now understand why Cambodian artists and architects placed sandstone lintels elaborately carved with garlands and vegetation over temple doors – portals that were guarded by divine youths (dvarapalas) and lovely maidens (devatas): it was to make a beautiful home in which a deity might be happy to reside.
On entering a temple, Buddhists, be they Mahayanist or Theravada (as many were by the end of the thirteenth century), paid devotion to the ‘Three Jewels’ or ‘Three Refuges’: 1) the Buddha, represented by an image, a stupa (burial monument), or a bodhi tree, the tree under which the Founder reached Enlightenment; 2) the Dhamma or Dharma, Buddha’s teaching, represented by a sermon or informal teaching by the monks; and 3) the Sangha, the community of monks. The devotee showed reverence before the sacred objects by bowing three times while standing or kneeling with the palms joined.
As with Hindu devotion, offerings, accompanied by chanted verses, were made to the images, and usually consisted of flowers, incense, and sometimes a ritual scarf. In Mahayanist practice, the offerings were quite elaborate, with seven different oblations, each in its own bowl. Mahayana Buddhists, who included Jayavarman VII, paid special homage to images of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of infinite compassion and mercy; in this branch of Buddhism, images were imbued with the spirit and power of the being they represented, but for the more austere Theravadists, they were merely reminders of Buddha’s life and message. Regardless, all images had to be consecrated before they could fulfil their function, whether in a temple like the Bayon or in a pagoda.
Buddhism in Southeast Asia has, and probably had in Classic times, its own annual cycle of festivals, set by full moons; how this was integrated into the festival season described by Zhou is unknown