jun 9th, 2007
angkor wat in cambodia, most of you are aware, is the largest hindu temple in the world. it is no longer an active hindu temple, though: the eight-armed vishnu has been reconceived as the buddha, and he is worshipped by buddhists there; moreover, the temple itself is more of a national monument than a religious structure now, although some of the immense bas-reliefs, from the mahabharata in particular are extraordinary. one depicting the kurukshetra battlefield is my favorite. another great one is one on the death of bali, brother of sugriva.
i once posted here a url to a remarkable website that had a walk-through view of angkor. one of these days, i'll post my photos to flickr or something and post a link, too. my photos are not bad, but not good enough for print publication.
last year, when i went to angkor wat, i made three mistakes:
1. didn't manage to get to the national museum in phnom penh
2. didn't bring a good enough digital camera (mine was an old 2 megapixel camera) even though (see 3) i transited through bangkok and could have bought a new camera there. i'm kicking myself
3. didn't know i could just fly straight into siem reap and get a visa on arrival. i spent two days in bangkok unnecessarily getting a cambodian visa -- i am not all that crazy about bangkok although it's spiffed itself up and the food is delicious
so i neither saw the wonderful pieces in phnom penh, nor am i able to do justice to what i did saw. sigh. well, i'll go again some time with a better camera.
however, i did see examples of the looting of treasures. the most heart-breaking was in the wonderful water temple of Kbal Spean, where there are images carved right into the rock under running water and in shallow pools. there were two reclining vishnus (anantasayanam), and one had recently been hacked out, no doubt for some collector. the raw wound in the rock was clean, as if the murti had simply been scooped out with some mechanical cutter.
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9298763
in my personal opinion, the angkor wat temple itself is an extraordinary example of engineering: built in the 1100's CE, it must have been as complex a job as the creation of the space shuttle. it is unbelievable that they managed to handle the logistics without computers! and there are at least a thousand other less grand temples scattered around the area.
2 comments:
Rajeev,
You are indeed correct in pointing us to the miracles wrought in South East Asia by the wonders of the larger Indian (i.e. Hindu) civilisation. It quickened these lands and made men devote themselves to grand projects - something that is now over; witness the sterile sloganeering of the Indonesians or the enrich-us-for-free fulminations of the `Bhumiputras`of Malaysia. It is strange - how conversion to a semitic death cult lowers the civilisational content of people everywhere
On the more important element of treasure theft however - India is an even larger victim of this phenomenon. The New Yorker had this piece recently on the Vaman Ghiya operation http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/05/07/070507fa_fact_keefe
How come the Western media - such as these vaunted Atlanticists never take businesses like Sotheby`s to task - where are the calls to boycott these ``art-houses`` that not only act as fronts for stolen art - they actually collude in the theft.
Bloody shopkeepers - incapable of producing anything fine themselves - all they can do is loot. And then they justify their theft by telling us that the art will be better appreciated and cared for in the west - so the theft is not that bad after all. Blame the victim as always - bloody colonials
thank you, ghostwriter, for this link. i will post it elsewhere as well, i had been unaware of it.
there is, i am sure, enormous theft going on in places like hampi as well.
i saw the recent destruction at angkor; the destruction at hampi is so thoroughgoing -- the mohammedans burned the place for six months, and virtually every piece of sculpture has been damaged, including ceremonial elephants with their trunks chopped off -- that it is hard to tell which is recent theft and which was vandalism 400 years ago.
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