chapter 3 the ancient angkor
TRANSCRIPT
សាកលវទិ្យាល័យកម្ពុជាអន្តរជាតិCambodian International University
Khmer Civilization
The Ancient Angkorian Civilization
Lecturer: CHEA Thearith
Review about Cambodia
• Size: 181, 035 Sq. Km.• Population: 14 Million (90%
Khmer, 5% Vietnamese, 1% Chinese).
• Life Expectancy: 57M/62F• Religion: Theravada Buddhist.• GDP/capita: $1,800.00• Form: Constitutional
Monarchy.• System: Parliamentary
bicameral• Capital: Phnom Penh
• The temples of Ancient Angkor-the largest ruins in
the world and the only archaeological site visible
form outer space-present their own share of riddles
and these have prompted fanciful explaination for
generations of visitors and readers.
• Angkor was discovered by the French naturalist
Henri Mouhot by accident in 1860-as he was guided
there by a French priest, Father Sylvester.
The Ancient Angkorean Civilization
• Europeans commonly believed that the builders belonged
to a “vanished race”. Other claimed that the city was of
Indian, Roman, or even Italian origin, alleging common
features with Mediterranean architecture.
• The ancestors of today’s Khmers built Angkor and the
temple complex of the of the Heritage Area as the centre
of a powerful empire and of a dispersed city with
between 700 000 and one million inhabitants.
The Ancient Angkorean Civilization
• Angkor was the most populous city of antiquity,
sprawling over an area of 1000 square kilometres or
more.
• The city was abandoned rather later than the romantics
would have us believe.
• It was still inhabited in the 16th century when Iberian
monks first visited Cambodia. (Antonio da Megdalena,
Portuguese monk, visited Angkor in 1586)
The Ancient Angkorean Civilization
The Ancient Angkorean Civilization
• The is a lively debate about a number of features of
Angkorean Civilization, and the reasons why Angkor
was deserted.
• The causes contributed to the collapse of the great
civilization, perhaps the most important was ecological
degradation of the forests, water and soil.
Source of information• The ancient Khmers had libraries, but the books have vanished.
• The Khmers of course did leave a written record, but it was
carved in stone rather than written on paper.
• The soft Irish climate and the dry desert air have been kinder to
paper and papyrus than the tropical heat, humidity, and voracious
insects have been to the palm leaf of books of the ancient
Khmers.
Source of information about Angkor has been known from
inscriptions, temples (Bas reliefs, sculptures and statues), and
Chinese record.
Source of information Inscriptions were written into two languages:
Sanskrit inscriptions: composed in rhyme to praise the
kings, heroes and prayers to Deva (Gods) or Buddha; and
tell us the genealogies of the kings, ruling families and
Brahman priests.
Khmer inscriptions: composed in prose that show about
building temple or Asrama and the number of people who
served at the temples, everyday lives, customs and
occupations of the people.
Source of information
Temples (Bas reliefs, sculptures and statues):
Bas reliefs and other items from excavation tell us
about their kings, heroes, warriors, people, people
living, belief, traditions…
Sculptures and statues: the edge of the skirt, hair style,
and jewelry allows us to determine the evolution of
Khmer art style.
Source of information
Chinese record: there is only written eyewitness record
of Angkor, The Customs of Cambodia (The customs
of Chenla people), written during the late 13th century
by the Chinese traveller Zhou Daguan (Chou Ta-
Kwan), who spent a year in the capital shortly after the
death of King Jayavarman VIII, the last great builder
of Angkor. (1296-1297)
• In 802, Jayavarman II proclaimed himself god-king of Cambodia. He did so through a Hindu ritual involving worship of Shiva, king of the gods.
• A royal cult developed, involved an annual festival during which a statue of Shiva was paraded thru the capital city.
• The ceremony not only proclaimed the devaraja but Cambodia’ permanent separation from Java.
Ritually sanctifying a symbol of the devaraja.
Why was the capital moved?
• This is no entirely explanation as to why Jayavarman II
moved his capital from the Mekong Valley to the drier
region at the north-west tip of the great lake.
• Jayavarman II’s arrival was to transform the region
and unify the petty Khmer principalities into the single
polity the was become the centre of one of the most
powerful, wealthy and populous civilizations in ancient
history.
Why was the capital moved?
• Angkor was to control an empire that stretched from
the South China Sea to the Isthmus of Kra and the
Andaman Sea, and northwards into what is today Laos.
• Jayavarman II would build three capitals, abandoning
each before he made his final choice at Roulous.
• Michael Vickery has suggested that the move resulted
from military and political pressure from the hostile
kingdom of Champa or Javanese.
Why was the capital moved?
• Other writers have suggested that the lake region was
the “natural centre” of the Cambodia state.
Road linking the valleys of the Mekong and Menam,
with ample supplies of sandstone for building.
Rich in natural resources such as timber and fish, and
with fertile soil to grow rice to feed a growing
population.
Why was the capital moved?
• Christopher Pym argues that the move was sparked by
Jayavarman’s desire to get out of the “centre of things”
in Southeast Asia by relocating to a remote site-Great
Lake is almost boundless source of the fish and ample
timber.
• The intriguing suggestion is that climate change might
have contributed to the move.
Why was the capital moved?
• James Good man, an engineer with an interest in
archaeology, argued that the move ‘coincided with
series of remarkable changes in global climate
patterns’ associated with the southern Oscillation
Index (ENSO).
• The shift to the Great Lake region would have been
due at least in part to religious imperatives; Cambodia
was , and still is, an intensely religious society.
Why was the capital moved?
• Angkor stood on higher ground and just as India has
the sacred mountain (Mount Meru) and the sacred
Ganges.
• The decisions to shift the Khmer capital to Angkor was
probably caused by a variety of overlapping political,
economic, religious and perhaps ecological factors.
Why was the capital moved?
• Jean Przyluski: Angkor Wat was both a temple and the
tomb of Suryavarman II, and thus both a sepulchre and
the centre of a funerary cult.
• Slave, serfs and artisans expended the sweat of
centuries on the sandstone mausoleums-cum-temples
of the Kamrateng Jagat, the ‘lords of the universe’,
who ruled over them.
The kings, their temples and monuments
• George Coedés: argued in his book that Angkor wat
are at one and the same time funerary temples,
mausoleums and tombs, the ‘distinctive glory of the
Khmer Empire’
• For many free man-serfs at least-it was an honour to
toil on the monuments for the glory of the god-king;
for many slaves, their condition was one legitimised by
age-old custom, as natural as the setting of the sun.
They had no words for freedom and liberty.
The kings, their temples and monuments
• Angkor Wat is a temple dedicated to Vishnu, but the
deity worshipped here is not the same as the ancient
god of the Hindu triumvirate.
• Paul Mus: these building are not so much shelters for
the dead ‘as a kind of new architectural body-a house
of the dead but only in the same way that his body live
in it while still alive’.
• The temple are houses of the god-kings, the lords of
the universe, immortalised in solid rock.
The kings, their temples and monuments
• The monument building obsession began some years
after the death of Jayavarman II’s son and successor,
Jayavarman III.
Jyavarman II (834-850)
Capital: Hiriharalaya (Rolous)
Religion: Brahmanism (Shiva)
Acheivements: Aram Roung Chin, Pong Keng Kong
The kings, their temples and monuments
Indravarman I (877-889)
Capital: Hiriharalaya (Rolous)
Religion: Brahmanism (Shiva)
Acheivements: Bakong temple, Phreak koh and Baray
Indratataka.
The kings, their temples and monuments
Yasovarman I (889-899)
Capital: Yasodharapura (Angkor city)
Religion: Brahmanism
Acheivements: LoLai, Bakeng temple, Phnom krom
temple, phnom bok temple and Preah Vihear.
The kings, their temples and monuments
Suryavarman I (1002-1050)
Capital: Yasodharapura (Angkor city)
Religion: Buddhism (Mahayana)
Acheivements: Preah Vihea, Preah Khan Kompong
Svay, Chiso mountian temple.
The kings, their temples and monuments
Suryavarman II (1113-1150): reigned the early part of the
12th century, ordered the construction of what is arguably
the most famous of Angkorean temple, Angkor Wat, the
name of which is often confused with the city of Angkor
itself because of its imposing beauty and scale.
Capital: Yasodharapura (Angkor city)
Religion: Brahmanism (Vishnu)
Acheivements: Angkor Wat, Banteay Samré, Dhamanuda
temple and Phreah Pito temple
The kings, their temples and monuments
Jayavarman VII (1002-1050)
Capital: Yasodharapura ( Third Angkor city)
Religion: Buddhism (Mahayana)
Acheivements: Bayon temple, Ta Prom Temple, Phreah
Khan, Neak Pean, Banteay Kdey, Bantery Chhmar
The kings, their temples and monuments
BayonPrah Khan Neak Pean
• Zhou Daguan: Khemr king is burried at Phnom
Bakheng.
• The empire was administered and policed via a
network of well-maintained roads, which also served
for trade purpose.
• One particularly imposing bridge, the Spean Prab Tes,
crosses the ravine of the Stung Chikreng and is still
open to traffic.
The kings, their temples and monuments
Spean Brab Tes -Bridge of Indication- is the oldest historical bridge in Cambodia, which was constructed during the era of the King Jayavaraman the VII.
This Bridge is about 1000 years old, almost the same period of Angkor Wat, located in Kampong Kdey district, Siem Reap.
The kings, their temples and monuments
• Angkor was on a peak in late
12th and early 13th centuries,
Jayavarman VII’s reign.
• Angkor extended from the
Andaman Sea in modern
Myanmar to the Southern Sea in
today’s Vietnam, and far
northwards into what is now
Laos.
The Climax of Empire
• An inscription translated by George Coedés recorded
that the devaraja cult necessitated 306 372 ‘servitors’
, who lived in 13 500 villages and ate 38 000 tons of
rice every year.
• However, as George Coedés has written, the huge
effort needed to carry out Jayavarman VII’s building
program as an ultimately unsustainable drain on the
resources of the empire.
The Climax of Empire
• Angkor empire was maintained by force of arms, often
clashing with neighbouring people such as Chams and
later the Thais, both of whom were formidable
opponents.
• War weapons: swords, lances, bows and arrows and
clubs.
• Catapults are mounted on carts or the backs of
elephants. Commanders canter on horseback while
their men march past resolutely in grim processions.
The Climax of Empire
• Jayavarman VII was extoled Ta Prom inscription as
“provident and compassionate ruler”. Although he was
determined to bend the population to his will to make his
mark on posterity in the form of huge temples and
monuments, he also built 102 hospitals and 124 six-
roomed hall.
• The last great spurt of building activity occurred during
the reign of Jayavarman VII (1181-1219): Bayon, Ta
Prom, Banteay Kdei, Preah Khan, Banteay Chhmar.
The Climax of Empire
• There are three kinds of stone used to construct the
temples: laterite, sandstone, and brick.
• Laterite was obtainable locally, but the sandstone was
brought considerable distance form the Phnom Kulen
quarries, where men cut it from the living rock with
crowbars, chisels and fire.
• In the past, observers have speculated that the blocks were
dragged by elephants, loaded on ox carts, floated down the
river from Phnom Kulen or sometimes taken on rafts down
other tributaries, then up to Siem Reap river to Angkor.
Building The Temple
• With an attempt was made to float stone down the
river from accent quarries in 1999, elephant, ox cart,
and raft was an unlikely method; it is more likely
that human muscle power was employed with the
use of wooden rollers, crowbars, and rattan ropes.
• Complex division of labour at the actual construction
sites: general labourers, skilled artisans and brick
layers, carpenters, scaffolders and riggers, and
metalworkers.
Building The Temple
• The builders probably used a variety of lifting gear to assist
in their work: metal lifting dogs and clamps, rope slings,
wooden pegs, gin poles, sheerlegs, gallows frames, whip
hoists and rudimentary cranes.
• One of the most curious facts about Khmer building
techniques is that they never discovered the secret of the
true arch, which employs a keystone to prevent it from
falling down. (method of corbelling-gradually bringing in
two facing edges of wall until they touch- giving an almost
gothic appearance to the edifices.
Building The Temple
• Angkor empire comprised some 90 provinces at the
time of Zhou Daguan’s visit. Angkor complex was
the home to up to one million inhabitants.
• The temples with the spectacular stone and brick left
by the king have shown us just some part of the story
about Angkor.
• Zhou Daguan has left us fascinating details of what
the city was like its period of human occupation.
What kind of civilization built the monuments?
• Zhou Daguan: walled city with 5 gates (two gates in he
East, known as victory gate) and lines of statues a
‘brilliant with gold’. Neak Pean, Bayon, Royal Palace.
• The king has five facial wives, and three to five thousand
concubines who seldom set foot outside the palace.
• The king left palace with a grand procession of soldiers,
palace girls, royal minister and princes.
• The king himself stood erect on an elephant and holding
in his hand the sacred swood.
What kind of civilization built the monuments?
• Angkor was ruled by 28 kings with the theory of
kingship was hereditary and monarchs were Devarajas,
in practice usurpers were common enough, the
qualification being that they had to prove they were
blood descendants of Jayavarman II.
• It was for this reason that dignitaries and military
leaders were required to wear an oath in the reign of
Soryavarman I in1011 A.D.
The Angkorean social system