National Geographic: Glories Of Angkor Page #5

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Europe's Renaissance,

Cambodian Michaelangelos sent

their masterpieces soaring skyward.

Reliefs at the Bayon acknowledged

the builders;

but one monument at Angkor made

them immortal.

The Chinese envoy Zhou Dagoun

was probably barred

from Angkor's greatest marvel, a

funery temple built for a king.

He skipped over it in his report,

mentioning only that a Chinese

artisan had probably built it.

No doubt the envoy coveted the

Khmere's timeless masterpiece

- Angkor Wat.

Over a century before Zhou

Dagoun arrived,

the last stone was fitted into place.

Archeologists have determined

that it took almost thirty years

to complete,

and was finished in time to bury

the king.

Some historians believe Angkor

Wat is a funery temple.

The main basis for this is that the

entrance is at the west.

In Hindu mythology this signifies

death.

When you enter you feel you're

moving from the world of man

to the world of the deities.

Look to the left. It's a battle.

It is a battle of war

and massacre and slaughter and

pillage and fire.

But at the east is the famous story

of the churning of the ocean of milk,

the beginning of life.

Never in his life would Zhou

Dagoun have seen anything like it.

The austere Mongol religion had

nothing to compare

to sacred mountains of stone.

Angkor Wat was built to please a

Hindu god,

but came to draw the devout of

many faiths.

Climbing the staircase reveals

levels of increasing holiness.

Then you continue to the next level.

The walls are bare in total contrast

to these reliefs, totally bare walls.

Why?

Because you look at the top and

what do you see but the pinnacle,

the image of Vishnu that would

have been housed inside this.

And so the bare walls provide a

quiet background

to carry your eye upward to the very

most sacred point of the temple.

According to tradition, priests

placed the king's ashes

inside the temple he built for

himself.

Yet the monarch didn't dwell in the

next world alone.

Attending him are 1700 enchanted

beings, called Apsaras.

The Apsaras are the celestial

nymphs, the beautiful women

that fly through the heavens and

dance for the gods.

And they stand ready

dressed in their jewelry and

beautiful costumes

to do whatever the gods would need

to make them happy

and for the kingdom to prosper.

These celestial nymphs were born

simply to please the gods,

can you imagine?

Angkor Wat had hardly claimed its

place on the horizon

when disaster struck.

Drawn by its increasing splendor

the Chams, from what's now Vietnam,

attacked and burned the city.

Countless inhabitants were killed,

or forced into exile.

By the time the capital was rebuilt,

a sea change had taken place.

His people had suffered...

so the king built a walled city,

Angkor Tom,

to protect them in time of war.

Like their king most of the Khmere

people abandoned Hinduism,

and followed in the Buddha's path.

Zhou Dagoun was familiar with

Buddhism,

a popular religion in China.

But he was awed by its

Cambodian face.

Above each gate of the enclosure,

there are five big Buddha heads

carved in stone,

their faces turned towards the four

cardinal points;

at the center is placed one

of these heads,

but this one is decorated in gold.

It's a kind face, it's a god of

compassion and wisdom.

This art feature had never before

been seen at Angkor,

and in fact there's not

a prototype known.

Some say that it represents the king

looking in all directions,

north-south-east-and west,

and that makes him the Ruler

of the Universe.

Everyday the king holds audiences

for affairs of state.

The king, sword in hand, appears

in the golden window.

All present join their hands and

touch the earth with their foreheads.

It is plain to see that these people,

though barbarians,

know what is due to a prince.

Zhou Dagoun arrived in Angkor

when its king had undisputed

control over an empire

of seemingly limitless potential.

Despite his glowing account,

his master, Timur Khan never

plundered the nation's treasures.

Perhaps Cambodia's climate was

too similar to that of Vietnam,

where the Mongols had tasted

rare defeat.

Or perhaps the Khmere seemed too

strong to tame.

Zhou Dagoun may have painted too

fine a portrait for invasion.

Maybe Timur decided it wasn't

really worth invading.

Or maybe there were plans

but other things were happening in

the middle kingdom

that in a sense blocked any future

expansion.

Yet the Khmere's story would soon

come to an end

whether the Mongol Khan

invaded or not.

Archeologists and historians have

pieced together the final chapter.

By Zhou Dagoun's time,

the land until it began to fail.

Rice harvests dropped, and stone

monument-building... ceased.

Maintenance of the reservoirs and

canals suffered.

The kings' sacred covenant with the

water... was broken.

Early in the 15th century the

kingdom of Siam

made profitable raids into Khmere

territory.

A climactic battle in 1431...

brought about the end.

All but abandoned,

the Khmere capital was lulled into

a centuries-long sleep

by the encroaching jungle.

Fortunately, Zhou Dagoun had long since

carried his chronicle to safety.

Angkor had won the envoy's

admiration,

and he repaid it with the only

surviving portrait

of Cambodia's ancient treasures.

Coming to Angkor for most people

is a bit of a pilgrimage

to a sacred place.

Somehow it just touches your soul.

Every time you see it looming out

of the forest

it hits you very, very hard.

The mystery is it doesn't explain

itself.

We don't know much

except from reports of Zhou Dagoun

of how they lived.

Yet, we can still see the monuments

they left and we can speculate

and we can dream about the

greatness of this civilization.

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