Introductory Essay – IV

IV. DIVERGENT DEVELOPMENT: KHMER

It sometimes seems mockery that, despite their imposing physical bulk and a century and a half of dedicated scholarship, there is still no definitive answer to why Khmer “temple mountains” were built. We do know that, in contrast with Karnata Dravida shrines, these were state temples and that every Khmer monarch with the time and means seems to have felt obliged to build his own.  There is also reason to believe they were connected with the still-murky devaraja cult, known from the Sdok Sak Thom inscription of 1053, which seems to have involved an initiation ritual confirming a monarch’s “divinely-sanctioned universal kingship” (Sans.> chakravartin; Kh.> kamraten jagat la raja,) and his deified lineage. The “posthumous names” which all Khmer kings adopted, usually linking them to the dedicatees of their state temples, imply their eventual unification with their god-like “natures.” A certain vagueness may be advisable when a mortal claims divinity to legitimize vast power and wealth.

There is, however, no evidence that these temples played a direct role in the apotheosis of a deceased monarch, as did Egyptian pyramids, nor do they appear to have acted as “psychoducts” through which deified ancestors could communicate directly with their living descendants, as in Mesoamerica.14 No royal corpse has ever been discovered at a Khmer temple, perhaps because Hindu cremation was favored. Ta Keo (c.1000) was abandoned immediately upon the death of its sponsor, suggesting that it no longer had a use, but Angkor Wat continued to be frequented into the 17th Century, although, as its name implies, it had changed religions.

The Khmer “Temple Mountain:” Ak Yom to Angkor Wat

Whatever its purpose, the Khmer “temple mountain” showed a step-by-step development over the six centuries separating the sanctuary at Sambor Prei Kuk in the early 7th Century and its autumnal efflorescence at the Bayon in the late 12th Century. The first “temple mountain” to be constructed in the area, Ak Yom actually pre-dates the establishment of the Khmer capital at Angkor.  Two dates are given for its founding, 674 and 714, although it was only discovered in 1931 because of its unceremonious burial during the construction of the West Baray or reservoir in 1160. The temple is dedicated to Shiva in his aspect as Gambhiresvara (Sans.> gambhir depths + –svara lord,) referring to the god’s unfathomable (nirguna) knowledge, a relatively uncommon epithet also honored at Sambor Prei Kuk. The prasat, at least the corner which remains, stands at the center of three terraces (only two of which have been excavated) and occupies the four brahmapadas of an 8 x 8-pada Manduka mandala; it appears almost identical to those at Isanapura. This prasat (Karnata Dravida vimana) is replicated at reduced scale and projected along the intercardinal axes to the corner padas of the mandala and the 2nd terrace, while six smaller shrines flank the entrances along the east, west and south cardinal axes. It may be that present here in embryo are the three broad terraces of the Baphuon and Angkor Wat, as well as the cruciform crosswalks on their 1st  and 2nd terraces.

The succeeding “temple mountain,” the Bakong (881,) first of the “Second Khmer Empire” or “Angkorian Period,” emanates twelve small “aedicules” from its prasat (the present one is a replacement) around its 4th terrace, as well as eight nearly full-scale replicas arrayed like guardians on either side of its cardinal axes. Also, found here for the first time is a puzzling but persistent and clearly deliberate feature of later Angkorian “temple mountains:” the mandalas containing the terraces of their pyramids are off-set to the west of the mid-point of their enclosures by 10% or more of their overall length. This may have allowed the inclusion of more ancillary structures along their east-west “processional path” while also marking off stages or degrees between the profane space outside their mandalas and the increasingly sacred spaces approaching their centers, their principal prasat’s garbhagrihas.

Phnom Bakheng (907,) as its name (Kh.> phnom hill) reflects, is a “temple mountain” on top of a (small) mountain which is surrounded by its outer enclosure. Here there is an exponential growth in the number of peripheral shrines or “prasat aedicules” compared with the Bakong – 108 in all, more than the aedicules on almost any Karnata Dravida vimana, (though fewer than the 240 at Prambanan which may have been an influence.) Phnom Bakheng can, thus, be read as instantiating Mt. Meru three times: 1) as the natural hill itself, 2) as the five terraces of the step-pyramid on top of it and 3) as the talas of what would have been its central prasat’s shikhara.

Prasat Thom, the “temple mountain” of the presumed usurper, Jayavarman IV (r. 928-944,) at Koh Ker in the forests 120km northeast of Angkor is separated in its own enclosure from the dozen other shrines which are crowded on a moated island; its prang’s seven terraces rise in isolation, making it the Khmer pyramid most closely resembling those at Teotihuacan or Tikal. Ta Keo (c.1000,) the never-completed state temple of Jayavarman V,  organized the growing number of shrines and ancillary buildings found at preceding temples in an inward-facing gallery or cloister around its 2nd terrace. This could be compared with the harantara linking the aedicules of a hara or tala of a Karnata Dravida superstructure, (but one large enough to walk through,) This innovation’s function remains an enigma, though its impact was far-reaching by integrating the proliferation of ancillary units into coherent, concentric terraces.

The analogy between terraces and talas becomes clearerat the Baphuon (1061) and at Angkor Wat (1113-1150,) the largest stone and ecclesiastical structure on earth, where the Khmer “temple mountain” achieved its classical expression. At both monuments, the central prasats are projected as nearly full-scale “aedicules,” orthogonally (axially) at the Baphuon and chiastically (as a double quincunx or x-array) at Angkor Wat. The Baphuon’s putative shrine is replicated as single and triple gopuras or gateways forming a processional path from the causeway across its wide 4th enclosure, up its three terraces to its long-lost bronze spire. At Angkor Wat, eight “prasat aedicules” are emanated to the corners of terraces of unprecedented dimensions, as if they were the antefixes on the tiers of a shikhara. Galleries with staggered roofs extend laterally from these towerswrapping around the central prasat like the talas whichrise above it. The terraces here spring directly from the earth like a shikhara whose ground-story shrine is buried, similar to the five tiers of Borobudur or a Bhumija mulaprasada’s pagas, for example, the Neelkanthesvara, Udaipur (M.P.)

An Architecture of Analogy

Analogy underlies the orthogonal (cruciform) projection of concentric, symmetrical terraces at Angkor where the peripheral prasats and galleries are isomorphic with but subsidiary to a central prasat.  In Khmer “temple mountains,” the concentric terraces are organized by the gridlines of their mandalas establishing a hierarchical space where, in accord with Hindu theology, divinity diminishes in direct proportion to the distance from its emanating, if dimensionless, center.  Visitors to a Khmer temple, in contrast with what may have been the experience at a Karnata Dravida shrine, move through a sacred space which simultaneously includes and precisely marks their rank order inside it.  At Angkor Wat, the decreasing size and capacity of the pyramid’s three gallerieswould have made it possible for only a fraction of the visitors to the temple, (already presumably a social and religious elite,) to receive darshan directly from the Vishnu cult statue, (previously at the center of the 3rd terrace, now housed in the 4th gallery beside the moat.) Similarly, rituals performed on the upper terrace would have been concealed, (like the devaraja cult itself,) from worshippers on the lower levels, afforded only bas relief images of gods, nymphs, heroes and monarchs. Perhaps, icons or a glimpse of the devaraja, his court and priests, sufficed to receive a mediated or vicarious experience of divinity.  

Each of Angkor Wat’s nine principal shikharas, as well as its outer towers, galleries and cruciform cloister, contained secondary sites for worship; in later Theravada Buddhist times, the temple was reputed to house no fewer than one thousand Buddha shrines. Khmer “temple mountains” thus replace the single, “linearly-extended” liturgical path at Karnata Dravida and Nagara temples with a series of cruciform diversions along lateral galleries, cloisters and crosswalks. The corridors of Angkor Wat are lined with a kilometer of bas reliefs around its 1st terrace, 1028 apsaras on its 2nd (for the numerologically inclined, the number of hymns in the Rig Veda, as well as 107with a “remainder” of four – for whatever its occult significance,)and an open colonnade on its 3rd, all folded around its central prasat.  

The absence of large assembly areas at Angkor Wat, the equivalent of rangamandapas, also suggests that sacred performances may not have been witnessed so much as enacted by those admitted to the temple – servants, courtiers and priests – moving majestically through its corridors. In contrast with the monument today, there may have been no casual visitors to the temple; every step may have been measured and subsumed in ritual. Mesoamerican sacred centers have been recognized as “stage sets” for more sanguinary rites than those conducted at Angkor, while Louis XIV’s court at the equally grandiose Versailles has been characterized as a “performative state.” While there is no evidence for or against circumambulation at Angkor, public processions play an out-sized role in the murals chiseled on the galleries of both Angkor Wat and the Bayon. The lack of perceptible narrative continuity between these bas reliefs has caused considerable scholarly consternation. They may have been intended to work analogically or thematically, rather than sequentially, ricocheting scenes from myth, legend (the Hindu epics) and history (Suryavarman II and Jayavarman VII’s own military campaigns and court life) across their terraces. As solemn processions passed before them, they might have suggested a merging of the sacred and secular, the timeless and present, not unlike the devaraja cult itself.

“Molecular” and “Mandala Politics” at Angkor

Analogy and an emanative architecture may have both modeled and been modeled after the devolution of authority in feudal empires such as the Khmer. There, the king, sanctified by the devaraja cult, transferred his legitimacy to tributaries – regional aristocrats, clan leaders and local magnates – who exercised authority autonomously but, nominally, on his behalf. Felix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze,15 for example. have argued that such decentralized power centers possess a schizophrenic “molecular sovereignty” or “double-bound” relative independence, in contrast with modern European administrative states where authority is vested directly in agents of a central power.  Asian Studies scholars like O. W. Wolters have noted similarities between Chanakya’s (c.350 -282 B.C.E.) theory of statecraft and the “molecular sovereignty” and “mandala politics” which, they argue, characterized many pre-modern South and Southeast Asian polities. In place of mapping states with strict geographic boundaries, they propose a series of “mandalas” or “spheres of influence” centered on regional hegemons, divinely anointed chakravartins, such as the kings of Angkor, Srivijaya or Ayutthaya, and surrounded by “padas”occupied by local tribute-paying nobles.

These mandalas were often over-lapping, continually shifting force-fields, based on personal loyalty rather than outright political subordination and integration.  Such regimes were inherently fissiparous since a weakening of the central power allowed a dependent polity to break free and constellate itself as a new center. This pattern may account for the frequent appearance of usurpers in the Khmer kings’ list, as well as the succession of one dynasty by a feudatory in Karnataka, during the period covered by these two websites.

In a context of “molecular sovereignty,” the seemingly enigmatic function of Khmer state “temple mountains” might become as glaringly obvious as the monuments themselves – simply to mark a center and signify a power as undeniable as their presence. This would be in keeping with the original purpose of the vastupurusha mandala: to impose order on chaos, to preserve dharma and restore the divinely sanctioned dominance of the devas against usurping asuras. In this light, Angkor may have functioned as a “ceremonial center” similar to Pattadakal, Halebidu, Persepolis, Luxor and Tikal.

At the same time, Angkor Wat extended its mandala’s order on the landscape beyond its three terraces and much larger fourth enclosure which encompassed a “service city” with up to 200,000 inhabitants, itself surrounded by a wall and moat.  Recent LIDAR photography has revealed a network of canals and roads extending the temple’s axes into the surrounding countryside and beyond, inscribing a directional force-field across the empire.  The temple at Phimai, for example, 370km north of Angkor on the periphery of the Khmer lands in present-day Thailand, did not face east, as prescribed by orthodox practice, but south to align it with the power emanating from Angkor.  The drain on state resources required to construct these state temples, ironically, weakened the central power they were intended to maintain, resulting in calamitous internecine warfare, such as that leading to the sack of Angkor in 1177, only twenty-seven years after the completion of Suryavarman II’s “temple mountain,” setting the stage for the ascendancy of Jayavarman VII in 1181.

An Architecture “Without Form or Dimension”

Jayavarman VII’s unprecedented state “temple mountain,” the Bayon, built in three stages over the first half of his long reign (1181-1220) can be seen as inverting the customary relationship between a prasat and a garbhagriha by making the cult image a prasat itself in the form of its celebrated “face towers;” in effect, what the worshippers had come to look at, now looks at and through them. Here the Khmer proclivity for emanating multiple prasats presents the visitor to the Bayon’s 3rd terrace with a bewildering forest of “face towers;” whatever initial logic their placement may have followed has been confounded by “anomalous” intrusions.  Faces stare in all four directions, while the central cone or “mountain” was originally studded with two ranks of 12 faces each and one of 4 staring back across the 3rd terrace. This heteroclite, round shikhara can be compared with the Karnata Dravida, 24-pointed stellate vimana at Dambal and 16-pointed vimanas at Somanathapura and Bhadravati, culminations of their own emanative tradition. At the Bayon, however, the rotational effect is more strongly centrifugal, suggesting the scattering of forty or more face towers around it and the visitor. 

The uncertain identity of these “effigies” has occasioned much learned lucubration, none wholly convincing, perhaps because of the ambiguity intrinsic to the devaraja cult itself. It is not improbable, however, that they represent the “divine” aspect of Jayavarman VII, his alter-ego-lessness, Avalokitesvara (Sans.> –ava- down- + lok- to look + svara  –lord,) the “bodhisattva of compassion,” (or any number of other necessarily occult Vajrayana deities.) It should not really matter since all emanations are one in Buddhist ontology and ultimately illusions, replaced by a resonating field across the Bayon’s 3rd terrace. Here the blissfully bewildered devotees might feel themselves inside the “face towers’” own sunyata or emptied heads, where self and ego, place and direction, have been extinguished in cosmic, “subtle,” tathagata “Buddha consciousness.”  If so, the Bayon may have succeeded in becoming that paradoxical ontological metaphor, a building “without form and dimension,” the challenge posed for an emanative architecture at the beginning of these remarks.