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The Legend of Angkor Wat

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          The world in which we live is surrounded by fascinating mysteries. Among these, there is one mystery, the temple Angkorwat, located in Northern Province of siem reap of Kamboja now known as Cambodia.The temple is the largest religious monument in the world spread around 400 acres.


The great temple of Angkorwat was built by the king Suryavarman II of Khmer Empire. He dedicated this temple to Lord Vishnu as he was a great Devotee of him. The word ‘Angkor’ is a Khmer word derived from Sanskrit, it means nagar. During that era, Angkorwat was a political capital city and the temple was constructed at the center of city. The construction of temple was started during early 12th century and it took 30 years for building this master piece. However, construction was completed by King Jayvarman VII who was Buddhist and also the one who transformed Angkorwat into Angkor Thome (a Buddhist temple), at the end of 12th century. 

           The temple reflects classical Khmer Architecture built for immortal gods. The materials that were used to construct were sandstone and laterite, unlike other temples which were built by bricks. The enormous temple is surrounded by 650-foot-wide man-made moat. It is like a ship or a lotus floating in the pond. As Cambodia is frequent spot of heavy rain falls and draught, building this type of gigantic structure was quite impossible. So the great engineers first constructed moat that enables floating of temple both during rainfalls and draughts. Another fascinating engineering technique of Khmer Architecture is building such huge structure with walls carved from rocks. These rocks were all composed together without using any type of glue or nails unlike today’s modern engineering. Those ancient engineers carved rocks in different shapes and angels; these enable the structure to composed together like a puzzle. In other words, the structure is like a Pagoda, which is an assembled building without any sticking support. Maybe, this is the reason, why Angkorwat is still remained monument. The rock blocks are placed together, but the connecting lines between blocks are smooth. It’s like they were never placed together. Due to Cambodia’s extreme weather, the temple has an extraordinary drainage system, the ancient engineers shaped temple roofs in channels that allows rainwater to flow in reservoirs. It can be also regarded as rain water harvesting with dual purpose. The temple looks like a lotus flower, due to it’s complex structure of five towers representing the five peaks of Mountain Meru. 

        According to Hinduism, Lord Brahma, Lord Vishnu, Lord Shiva and other Demigods are believed to reside on the mountain. Sources also claim that the structure symbolizes Vaikuntha and King Suryavarman II built the palace in the form of temple for Lord Vishnu. While some says that Lord Indra ordered the king to construct temple for his son Precha Ket Mealea. The central tower of temple identifies the central peak of Mount Meru and statue of Lord Vishnu at the top. It is believed that five peaked golden mountain is located somewhere at the center of the Universe. According to the Hindu scripts, the river Ganga first falls on the peak of Mont Meru with her destructing force from Brahma-Loka and then she flows downwards to be recived by Lord Shiva at the Himalayas. (Mountain Meru is also called King of Mountains and Himalayas is it’s lower part of the mountain). The central theme of temple is Mount Meru for reflecting it’s essence in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism and in the world of Cosmology. The temple has more than 1800 statues of Apasaras and temple also describes it’s history through figures that are carved on rock walls. In of it’s walls, the court of King Suryavarman II is also described. According to the inscriptions found in temple 300,000 laborers and 6000 elephants were employed for building the great Architecture. Besides it’s history, temple walls also provide inscriptions of the Samudra Manthan story, the Ganga Avataran and epics like Mahabharata and Ramayana. The gallery of North-West describes Agnipariksha of Sita and may more episodes. As temple was transformed into Buddhist temple, rock blocks also depict episodes based on Buddhism and Jainism. The reason behind the influence of Jainism was the trading relation of Khmer Empire with Jain community. Many people believed that temple was ruined and abandoned due to natural clamity. However, local Buddhists often came to worship in the temple but it was Henri Mouhat (French Naturalist) who discovered the temple and brought the attention for the monument in western world. 

          At present Angkorwat is symbol of Cambodia and one of the popular monuments. And this is one of the place in my list that I want to travel.

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