Temple architecture in Cambodia

Greater India may be sub-divided into “Insulindia” comprising of Burma, Siam, Champa, Cambodia, Sumatra, Celebese, Bali, Borneo and Java and “Outer India” comprising China, Japan and central America, Burma. We have already taken notice of the Burmese evolution, let us now take up Cambodia first.

Sir John Marshall in the foreword to Le May’s Buddhist Art in Siam remarks “to know Indian art in India alone is to know but half the story”.

Buddhism and Hindusim equally provided an impulse to spread the Indian civilization and culture together with the arts that they inspired in the several of the great countries of Asia.

“One other notable example of the later phase of Burmese architecture, and of a very comprehensive order, is the city and palace of Mandalaya”.

Cambodia’s monuments are a supreme achievement of Khmers and they testify not only to their style of outstanding character but also to their civilization of marked intellectuality and to refinement. Fergusson pays a glowing tribute to this race by complimenting as “one of the greatest building races of the world”. The cosummation of their art lasted till 12th century. In the thirteenth century came their decline and in the fourteenth century they were over-run by the Siamese (Thais) and thus they had to desert their temples, palaces, cities to be swallowed up and obliterated by the tropical vegetation and other devastating forces of nature. It was only after some 600 years that the temple of Angkor Vat one of the greatest, if not the greatest work of man standing, was discovered by a French Naturalist in 1858.

Racially the Khmers derived there name from the Hindu Kombu, the Founder of their race, hence kambiya with its European form Cambodia,

“There is a well-established tradition, which has been recognized by European authorities also, that in 443 B.C., Preathong, a Hindu prince, son of the king of Indraprastha (the modern Delhi), emigrated with a large number of his followers and settled at Choukan, north of Angar.

“In 125 B.C. the Chinese are said to have conquered the Cambodians. There is also a record that, in the first centuries of the Christian era, emigrants from Madras made their way into Cambodia, introducing the Brahman faith, the Sanskrit alphabet, and Indian rites and customs. The Khmer and Sanskrit epigraphic texts give details of a dynasty of seven kings who reigned from A.D. 435 to 680. From the death of the last king Jayavarman to the commencement of the ninth century there are no records. In A.D. 802 Jayavarman II, who may have been connected with the earlier dynasty, formed a new dynasty of eighteen sovereigns who ruled till A.D. 1201. To thia monarch is attributed the foundation of the Cambodian kingdom, with its capital Angkor Thom. He is credited to have laid the foundations of the great city of Angkor Thom, the royal palace in its centre, the pyramid temples of Phimeanakas, the great temple of Bayon, and other structures.”—H.A.I.A. pp. 338-39.

The architectural history of Cambodia according to Percy Brown may be classified in the following 8 periods or sub-periods:—

[Early Period]:
1. Upto A.D. 500 Pre-historic Phase;
2. A.D. 500 to 800 Primitive Phase;
3. A D. 800 to 1000 Formative Phase;

[Classical Period]:
4. A.D. 1000 to 1100 Foundations of Classical Phase;
5. A.D. 1100 to 1200 Culmination of Classical Phase;
6. A.D. 1200 to 1250 Flamboyant or Baroque Phase;

[Final]:
7. A.D. 1350 Decline;
8. A.D. 1431 End, conquered by Thias (Siamese).

We are more concerned with Cambodian meridian reached in the 12th century, a century of marked architectural activity, distinguished by numerous notable undertakings particularly the erection of the temple of Angkor vat, the grandest achievement of the Khmer builders. But a few remarks are necessary to the early phases also. The early phase is characterised by the rudimentary timber-built-dwellings raised above the low-lying delta of the Mekong which very nearly approach our primitive Śālā-houses with the Indianization of the Khmers in about 5th or 6th century A.D., the so-called Primitive Phase (vide Brown) comes into view when in place of wooden abodes brick construction was favoured which is as much true of India as well. Among the remains of this period the temple of Tat Pavon on the Mekong may be illustrated. Brown dates this phase between 500-200 A.D. Intervening two centuries 800-1000 may be said to belong to the marking the first stage of classical period, the Formative. King Jayavarman II transferred the centre of this rapidly expanding dominion to Angkor near the lake of Toule Sap.

Without making any detailed expatiations on the intervening periods, let us concentrate on the consummation of the Camdodian arts. Thus comes meridian of Building art of Khmers referred to as “culmination of the classical phase” and therefore a chronological and dynastical review is called for which may be done in a tabular form to avoid details

	Temples	Builders	Dynasty and age	Remains etc.
1.	The pyramidal temples of Phimeanakes.	Jayavarman II	II-King
2.	The great temple of Bayon	Jayavarman II	II-King
3.	The temple of Baku	Indravarmam	III	also completed the temple of Bayon.
4.	The temple of Bakong	Indravarmam	III
5.	The temple of Lolei	Yaśovarman	IV	also completed the temple of Phimeanakes.
6.	The great temple of Ta-Prom (Brahmanical).	Rajendravarman	IX
7.	The Great temple of Banteai	Rajendravarman	IX
8.	The Pyramidal temple of Bapoum.	?	X
9.	The temples of Phnom chisor, Vat Ek, Phnom Baset, Prah, Vihar and Prah. Khan.	Suryavarman	IX
10.	Baneai T. Kean, Pre. Perp, etc.	?
11.	Vat Phu.	?
12.	Angkor Vat.	Suryavarman	II	16th and 12th Century.

Dr. Acharya (H.A.I.A. pp. 340) has summarized a brief account of these temples from Fergusson’s illuminating accounts and they may be purviewed there.

This account must prove that the temple architecture of Cambodia is primarily based on the Indian genius and we have to account this remarkable affinity both in architectural planning and details as well as the sculptural out-bursts. My contention is that our śilpaśāstras record fusion of two great races, as per our genealogical accounts of Viśvakarmā himself, one the Aryan and the other Non-Aryan, or Dravidian. The Śikhara and the pyramid illustrate this in nut-shell. In India the fusion is not so remarkable as in Cambodia. It is really remarkable that the confluence should have taken place in Indian Archipelago. The practice is in keeping with theory. I have already written something on the background of temple architecture.

The Institution of worship and the Puranic Dharma, the doctrine of pūtra as is enunciated in my work Hindu Prāsāda the Caturmukhī Pṛṣṭhabhūmi which amply illustrate these temples esp. the Angkor Vat which was originally dedicated to God Viṣṇu, Its detached shrines in the open parts the terrace on each side of the entrance hall, recall the Pañcāyatana or five-shrine planning of the temples of India which depict in the characteristic manner an equal homage to all the principal deities. The affinity in the śikhara construction and pyramidal disposition, no doubt is remarkable, yet Cambodia can claim its own elements which in their turn speak of outer Indian influences like Chinese and Egyptian.

This architectural renaissance in the medieval period is characteristic of all nations and civilizations. In Asia this has been the Eastern school and Percy Brown also elaborates similar thesis:

“Apart from the intrinsic quality of the art and architecture of two of the movements described above, namely that which expressed itself in the great Hindu-Buddhist monastic monuments on the one hand, and that which produced the temples and palaces of the Palas and Senas on the other, in a word the Eastern School, these two movements together were destined to affect profoundly the advancing tide of Indo-Buddhist civilization which was already beginning to overflow into the wide range of countries Comprising Greater India. While the medium by which this Indian religio-culture was conveyed eastward was fundamentally the dynamic power of Hindu-Buddhism, which carried all before it towards the later centuries of the first millennium, the form it eventually assumed took its source from the movements which grew up and were so firmly founded in the holy land of Buddhism on the Gangetic plain. Changed in outward appearance by their change of environment and other influences, the architectural achievements of such countries as Burma, Cambodia, Java, and to a certain extent Ceylon, in the mediaeval period, were basically of Indian extraction. So much so that the building art of the various civilizations which comprise Greater India may be regarded as belonging to one broad school, each of the races concerned working out its architectural conceptions according to its own ideals, but with the whole evolution created and unified by an intellectual, religious and material awakening which originally proceeded from India”.

“An analaysis of some of the decorative effects found in these more distant architectural productions reveals similarities which cannot be coincidences but are actual facts. There are reproductions, both in design and in relief, of patterns which might be the identical handiwork of the stone carvers of Lakhnauti in Bengal. The same applies to some of the constructional features, as for instance in Java where the arch motifs and pilasters appear to be derived from the same source. But it was in the aims and intentions of these architectural achievements in Burma, Cambodia and Java, that the growth of the Indian conceptions is most significantly expressed. While the stupa still held its place as the premier Buddhist symbol, it was too abstract in its nature to appeal to the physical senses. Something was required endowed with more humanistic qualities, and such qualities were represented by the great monastic monuments of mediaeval India, of which the Dharmapala Vihara at Paharpur previously described was a notable example. In all the countries therefore which drew inspiration from this movement there evolved, in addition to the stupa, magnificent architectural creations in the form of temples, or similar religious edifices, enclosing chambers or cells in which were enshrined images, often colossal in size, in invested with halos and aureols, emblazoned with gold, glorifying the creed to which they gave concrete form. Through the spiritual power thus generated, man’s imaginative faculties were so stimulated that he felt impelled to express himself in some substantial manner, worthy of himself and his belief. By some such means the grand monuments of Greater India were conceived, such as Angkor Vat and Borobudur. In these immense works of architecture we sec the spirit of the monastic movement in India further materialized, taking its shape from the “Eastern School” of India, and not a little from the building art of Bengal”.