Anonymous Masters: Angkor Artisans

 

                                      ,by Jim Goodman

 

       Wandering through the ruins of Angkor Thom, Angkor Wat and subsidiary sites in the vicinity, one is constantly consumed by a sense of wonder.  After all, much of its original splendor still stands.  Thai armies from Ayutthaya attacked and ravaged it so badly nearly six centuries ago the government abandoned it for a new capital further east.  Not all the residents left, but their numbers and resources were insufficient to repair or maintain the monuments.

       They were also powerless to prevent private looting of valuable sculptures, which became especially acute under French colonial rule, when authorities permitted their removal.   Some of Angkor’s masterpieces were openly marketed to various museums, especially the Guimet Museum in Paris.  Others were surreptitiously sold to rich private collectors.  Cambodia’s long civil war in the 70s and 80s and its immediate aftermath resulted in further damage and theft.

       Eventually peace and security returned to the area.  Angkor won recognition as a World Heritage Site and destruction and theft have ceased.  Despite the damage and vandalism over the centuries much of Angkor’s heritage remains.  Thai soldiers removed many outstanding religious sculptures when they ransacked Angkor, which were in turn looted by Burmese soldiers attacking Ayutthaya at the end of the 16th century.  But the Ayutthaya forces did not level the city to its foundations.  The temples remained intact, though stripped of their gold embellishments, and so did much of the decorative art, which is so impressive today.

       Thanks to modern research we know a lot about the organization of Angkor, its social divisions, how the people lived, both upper and lower classes, what clothes they wore and what food they ate.  We know how they procured the materials to build the city and how artisans produced their work.  The one big mystery is just who these master craftsmen were.  We can determine when a particular item was created, but not the name of the artisan.  None ever ‘signed’ their work.  Perhaps it was all for the greater glory of the gods, or the state that employed them, but apparently not for the greater glory of their personal reputations.

       While we have the names of the kings who sponsored the construction, extension or renovation of the buildings, the name of only one architect for any part of the work has survived.  An 11^th century inscription congratulates and promotes Gunipativarman upon completion of the Baphuon and the East Baray.  Similar evidence involving other architects or any sculptors does not exist.  The Angkor government kept written records, but on perishable materials like palm-leaf.  Very few of them have survived.  Perhaps some manuscripts mentioned specific artists or their achievements or awards.  We’ll never know.  

       We are not even sure of what social class the artisans came from; Brahmins, commoners, slaves/servants attached to the temples?  Or were they part of a designated, state-sponsored, separate class?  Whatever the case, they were most likely organized in guilds, with an established training program for the novices.  Experienced sculptors would be responsible for major works like the big Standing Vishnu in Angkor Thom, the dancing apsaras, the ‘Leper King’ or the faces of Jayavarman VII over the gates of Angkor Thom.   The decorative reliefs, of floral and vegetative designs, and perhaps the background of the narrative reliefs, would be left for the younger artisans.

       Religion permeated Angkor society and thus its architecture.   Aside from the walls, gates and barays (reservoirs), extant buildings are all religious.  Angkor was viewed as a sacred mandala, laid out as a replica of Mt. Meru, home of the gods.  Indian culture had already made a strong impact on the Khmer during the pre-Angkor states of Funan, 3^rd to 6^th centuries, and Chenla, 6^th to 8^th centuries.  While they did not adopt the Indian caste system, the Khmers took up the religion and Hindu gods became their own, replacing whatever indigenous ones they had before.

       To house these deities they built temples on the Indian model of the Gupta Dynasty of northern India , 4^th to 6^th centuries.  The shikara style of a tower with a tapering top, alone or flanked by a horizontal, columned temple was a popular type.  For the carved imagery, their iconography came from the same source, with precise requirements for how the gods looked, what animal they rode, what they held in their hands and so on.  The rules allowed for some flexibility in the depiction of subsidiary figures, but not of the main image.

       Indra, chief of the gods and also the war deity, always rides a three-headed elephant, often wielding a club.  Shiva’s mount is a bull and he is often accompanied by his wife Parvati.  Vishnu rides the man-bird Garuda, but around Angkor he is usually standing alone or with his two wives at his side (smaller than him) or else as Sleeping Vishnu, on his back within the coils of a protective python.  In general, the gods’ images had to be bigger than those of any people in the carving.  In Angkor that would also apply to its kings, whose bodies had to be much bigger than anyone else.

       Buddhism became part of Angkor culture from the 8^th century, around the time it was all but wiped out in northern India.   Sinhalese missionary monks introduced the Theravada variant, which is still the main religion of Cambodia today.  Certain kings, most notably Jayavarman VII in the 13^th century, promoted Mahayana Buddhism.  He also renovated Angkor Thom and built the entry gates in each direction with a huge portrait of a calm and meditating face in the center of the tower.  It might be his own face, but it could be a depiction of a bodhisattva, with which he identified anyway.

       Other renditions of the Buddha followed the Gupta Era stipulations.  Usually the Angkor Buddha is seated in meditation, sometimes surrounded by, and ignoring, beautiful maidens sent by the evil Mara to tempt and distract him.  Occasionally he is standing with his begging bowl or lying lengthwise as the Reclining Buddha.  The curled hair, large ears and monk’s robes are always part of the depiction.

       Sandstone was the main building material for Angkor and its source was the Kulen Hills, about 30 km north.  At quarries here laborers, probably all slaves, cut huge blocks of sandstone, mounted them on wooden rollers and conveyed them back to the city.  Laterite was an alternative stone in some cases, but that could be found in the immediate area.  Wood was also a common material, especially in the satellite towns and rural areas, but mainly in the late Classic and post-Classic periods.

       Sculptures in sandstone are more impressive.  The work was slow and meticulous, probably using only a bronze chisel and wooden mallet.  The sculptor began by making a rough form of the projected work and gradually shaped the volumes and cut the lines according to the traditional canon.  When the details were all in place the final steps were smoothing and polishing, especially the faces and bodies.  Being a religious image of some kind, its installation was doubtless accompanied by a ritual ceremony.

       Most of the carvings were low and high relief panels on the temple walls, towers, gates and columns.  Some were larger than life, free-standing, three-dimensional statues, usually fixed on platforms or pedestals.  The most outstanding is the eight-armed standing Vishnu in Angkor Wat, with its smooth, perfectly proportioned limbs and torso.  Another is the seated “Leper King” in Angkor Thom, which got its name from its mottled surface upon its discovery, leading to speculation this was the legendary Leper King of Angkor’s past.  But it turned out lichen growth had caused the mottling and after the statue was cleaned up, an inscription was discovered identifying the image as Yama, the Lord of Death. 

       Besides deities, temple imagery included a variety of mythological creatures.  Some of these were guardian lions, others monsters placed at the temple compound entrance; the lion-headed jawless kala with bulging eyes, the hybrid makara and the naga, a big cobra snake with seven or nine heads.  Others were divinities, like the dvarapalas, young men standing guard at the entrance, the apsaras, heavenly dancing girls, and devatas, female denizens of Indra’s paradise.

       In creating the sculptures of mythical animals the artist had to follow prescribed traditional norms, just as with the gods.  That was true of representing the divinities as well, for the apsaras wore tall head-dresses and clothing that was probably the style of ladies in the Angkor Court, while the devatas were often backed by a flaming aureole.  But since these had human forms, one suspects the sculptors used real people around them as the models.  The faces don’t closely resemble their Gupta Era prototypes.  They look more like indigenous Khmer.

      Besides stories about the gods, Indian mythology included two great epics, the Ramayana, a tale of one of Vishnu’s avatars, and the Mahabharata, a semi-historical narrative of a great battle for control of ancient India.  Both epics contain a wealth of battle scenes to inspire Khmer sculptors making narrative reliefs.  Besides the wars in the epics, Khmer artisans also created narrative reliefs of their own battles with Chăm armies from states in what is now south central Vietnam.  One can distinguish between the two armies by the head-covering worn by the Chăm soldiers, whereas the Khmer don’t wear any.  The king commanding the Angkor side sits on an elephant and both he and the animal are disproportionately larger than other figures in the scene.    

       Wall reliefs were not limited to scenes from Heaven and narratives of wars.  Ordinary daily life was a subject, too.  In fact, much of what we know about everyday experience comes from relevant wall reliefs.   We see people using ox carts, preparing an animal for cooking, using a mortar and pestle, drinking from cups, boiling water, tending animals and other vignettes.  Both the humans and the animals—elephants, goats, birds, reptiles—are depicted realistically.

       To supplement our knowledge about life in old Angkor we can read the only surviving contemporary account, of a visit made in 1296-97, when Angkor was still thriving, was by far the largest urban center in Southeast Asia and bigger than almost every Chinese city.  Called A Record of Cambodia:  the Land and its People, the author was a Chinese envoy named Zhou Daguan, who was sent there on a mission for the Yuan Dynasty government.

          No original Yuan Dynasty editions of the book exist.  What we have today is obviously incomplete, some aspects of Angkor society are ignored, some misinterpreted or subject to the author’s Chinese prejudices, yet it contains many valuable first-hand observations.  He found it a dazzling, well-organized and administered city and reported that its residents felt the same way.  He records their agricultural practices, food products, sauces and spices, liquor, flora and fauna, religion, festivals and political system.

       He describes the royal palace, which was built with wood and has not survived, and the Phimeanakas next to it, the royal ancestral temple, still standing, with a steep front staircase similar to Mayan sacrificial altars in Mexico.  Supposedly the king went there every night to sleep with a serpent goddess inside a gold chamber at the top.  Gold plating on towers, bridges, windows and other parts of the royal palace was quite profusely used and on clear days Angkor was literally a shining city.  The big halls, high ceilings, gold furnishings and decorations of the palace were designed to maximize the sense of majesty.

       In this class society people lived according to their rank.  Royal relatives and high officials had big houses, though not anywhere as grand or lavishly furnished as the king’s. They could only have tiled roofs over the bedroom and family ancestral altar, the other roofs thatched.  The lower classes were not permitted tiled roofs at all.  Except for the palace, interiors had little furniture.  People ate on the floor and slept there at night inside mosquito nets. And except for the jewelry, all classes dressed in the same wraparound or tubular skirts.

       Unfortunately, Zhou did not write much about the art of Angkor or anything at all about its creators.  We know how they lived, what they ate, etc, but not about their work or their own attitude to it.  Maybe during the ceremony with the installation of the work they received at least some public acknowledgment of their creations or even some kind of reward.  Certainly they must have felt some professional pride in their accomplishments, something that would be recognized within their peer group.  Would they have taken friends to see their latest sculpture to elicit comments, praise or a favorable evaluation?  Would they have introduced a colleague as the one who carved those wonderful apsaras over that gate?  Who can say?

       At the very minimum, the art works of Angkor had one salutary effect upon the artists who made them.  They made the city an aesthetically positive place to live in.  Art and beauty was everywhere.  A city designed to please the gods pleased the designers as well.  And its artisans were surely conscious of the role they played in making it beautiful.

                                                               * * * 

Phimai—Angkor Wat Prototype

 

                                                                   by Jim Goodman                                               

      Founded in 802 as another competing Khmer kingdom in central Cambodia, quickly conquering and absorbing its rivals, by the accession of Suryavarman I in 1011, the Khmer Empire was already the biggest, most powerful state in Southeast Asia.  This monarch went on to conquer southern Laos and the Mon Kingdom of Lawo, which became the Khmer province of Lopburi.  Later on, the Empire also established military outposts and a major temple compound in Kanchanaburi.

       Elsewhere the state’s territories extended southeast to the Mekong Delta and north over the Khorat Plateau, today’s northeast Thailand (Isan).  Both areas were Khmer-populated then, for Vietnamese didn’t migrate to the Delta until the 17th century and Thai or Lao were still centuries away from settling in Isan.  Eventually the Empire extended its control along the east coast of the Malay Peninsula, but further expansion north into Thailand halted when three invasions of the Mon state of Haripunchai, today’s Lamphun, completely failed.

       Suryavarman I also oversaw the construction of many of the finest buildings in the capital Angkor, as well as Preah Vihar on the southern edge of the Khorat Plateau.  His successor Udayadityavarman II undertook more construction, but such projects tailed off after his death in 1066.  Instability and revolts followed the accession of Harshavarman III, a recurrent problem for the Empire as it had no clear cut succession system. Suryavarman I himself had won his throne by militarily defeating a rival claimant.

       In 1080 a new line of succession began when Jayavarman VI, a vassal prince of the Mun Valley in Khorat, took the throne, reigning until 1107.  He was from Phimai, the major political and economic center of the Mun River Valley, then inhabited by Khmer and Kui, a related ethnic minority famous as elephant handlers.  Though he moved to Angkor and embellished his royal palace, he added nothing more to the city’s architecture.  Instead, he became famous for sponsoring the construction of Prasat Hin Phimai, originally called Vimayapura, which eventually morphed into Phimai.  Today it is the most outstanding Khmer temple beyond the borders of modern Cambodia. 

       In fact, upon its completion it was the most magnificent temple compound in the whole Empire.  Angkor Wat hadn’t been built yet, but work would soon start.  Upon Jayavarman VI’s death his elder brother took over until forced out by his grand-nephew Suryavarman II in 1117.  This is the ruler who initiated the building of Angkor Wat.  One can only speculate how much he wanted Angkor Wat to outdo Phimai in splendor and glory, but the architecture and compound design of Angkor Wat derived from the Phimai prototype.  Specifically, that includes layout, building shapes and use of sandstone.

       The walled temple compound is rectangular, measuring 655 meters by 1033 meters, with four entry gates, each positioned in the middle of the wall and facing one of the cardinal directions.  This was the first time a Khmer temple was surrounded by walls.  It was also unique because it was not oriented to the east, the direction of the rising sun, but instead faced south, towards Angkor.   There were walls within the compound as well, long hallways and adjacent rooms.   All of the buildings—the galleries and the main and subsidiary shrines--were placed in a harmonious pattern, a precedent adopted and enhanced at Angkor Wat.

       Outside the compound, discovered by aerial reconnaissance during the renovation last century, lay two large reservoirs (barays) with a small island in the center.  They were used for the city’s water consumption, but also as part of a landscape design inspired by religious belief.  The high central tower of the principal shrine symbolically represented Mt. Meru, the mythical Himalayan home of the gods, while the barays replicated the holy lakes in the vicinity of that abode.  A century later Angkor incorporated the same feature.

       Mt. Meru is a part of Hindu mythology and most Khmer then were Hindu, following customs and practices already long well established in India.  They didn’t adopt the caste system, though.  The king was sacred and nobody else was and the Court had a coterie of Brahmins for ritual and administrative purposes, but the rest of society was free of social restrictions or caste taboos.  By this period Mahayana Buddhism had started gaining adherents, but no social conflict ever erupted between the two faiths.  

       Jayavarman VI was a Mahayana Buddhist, but was quite tolerant of Hindu rituals and customs.  He commissioned Prasat Hin Phimai as a Buddhist temple, dedicated to a particular Tantric deity, but the temple’s decorative imagery is mixed.  Images in the outer area are Hindu while those within are Buddhist.  Khmer kings usually built temples dedicated to the Hindu gods  Shiva or Vishnu, with whom they identified as Universal Ruler.  Buddhist rulers, like Jayavarman VII especially, viewed themselves as an incarnate bodhisattva.

       In contrast to earlier Hindu shrines, the shape of the central tower (prang) in Phimai resembles a lotus bud, with a pointed top and five tiers.    It is the same style as the ones in Angkor, somewhat different from earlier and later styles.  When art historians finally categorized prang styles, they labeled those of Phimai and Angkor the Angkor Wat style.

       Rather than the usual brick used to construct most temples, sandstone was the primary building material at Phimai, like at Angkor later.  The foundations, hidden parts of the buildings and the exterior walls used laterite, a soft clay that hardens upon exposure to sunlight but results in an uneven surface, not good for adding relief sculptures.  Its capacity to absorb water, though, made it suitable for foundations. Sandstone, by contrast, could be cut into blocks with perfectly smooth sides, which could later be carved with various types of sculptures.

       Angkor’s sandstone source was the Kulen Range of hills about 40 km north.  Since the blocks were cut on the spot it must have been quite a task to transport them all the way to the building site.  Sandstone quarries in Isan were much closer to Phimai.  After cutting the blocks to the desired shape, workers drilled two holes in a corner, fixed pegs into them and tied ropes to the pegs to enable humans and elephants to drag the blocks to Phimai. 

       There they prepared the blocks for construction by grinding the sides evenly.  That done, the next step, probably with the help of elephants, was to lift and fit the blocks evenly on top of each other.  They used no mortar.  Natural friction of the weight, special cuts in the stone and sometimes clamps of iron or bronze held the blocks in place.  A rectangular stone piece called lintel lay horizontally across pairs of columns in the passageways. 

       Prasat Hin  Phimai took about 17 years to complete.  Angkor Wat, with more buildings and carvings, required about 37 years to finish. Phimai was the most important Khmer city in what is today Thailand.  A royal road 225 kilometers long connected Phimai with Angkor.  From the capital the road crossed the Tin Muen Than Pass of the Dangrek Mountains northwest of the city and entered the Khorat Plateau of Isan.  The Dangrek Range was not very high and the plateau averaged only 200 meters elevation.  The first stop after the pass was the elaborate hilltop temple of Phnom Rung, completed shortly after Prasat Hin Phimai.

       All along this highway, the longest in the Empire, stood numerous hostels, rest-houses and shrines, mostly set up during Jayavarman VII’s reign.  He also had a new outer wall and moat constructed around Phimai.  The sheer number of hostels, etc, established on this road attests to its regular use and the importance of Phimai to the Empire.  Other roads led from Angkor southeast to Kompong Thom, northeast to southern Laos and west towards Sisophon.

       Besides the royal roads, Jayavarman VII also devoted much of the Empire’s finances and labor to grand architectural projects within the royal palace area (Angkor Thom) and throughout the city.  Sculptors created huge carvings of his face on the sides of towers, like the Bayon, and over compound entry gates.  He was a fervent Mahayana Buddhist and even ordered the construction of two new cities, Beng Melea to the east and Banteay Chhmar in the northwest, full of temples and shrines promoting Mahayana Buddhism.

       Under his reign the Khmer Empire reached its peak territorially, culturally and artistically.  After his death came a reaction against extravagant building projects and some recently constructed Buddhist temples were destroyed.  Beng Melea and Banteay Chhmar were all but abandoned.  The irrigation system began to collapse, thanks to the clearing of forests for the Universal Ruler’s ambitious building projects.  Though still a splendid and vigorous city at the time of Zhou Daguan’s visit in 1295 (the only traveler to Angkor in its prime to write an account), the Empire was already in decline.

       In the following century Khmer territory in Isan came under threat from two new neighbor states—Lanxang in Laos and Ayutthaya in Thailand.  Lanxang began annexing the northern parts of Isan and by mid-century Ayutthaya had taken over Phimai.  Most of the area’s Khmer and Kui fled south and Ayutthaya did not promote any settlement programs.  What today constitutes Nakhon Ratchasima Province was pretty much deserted for several generations.  

       Jungle growth swallowed up the ancient royal road to Angkor.  The wooden hostels and rest houses disintegrated, but some of the shrines, made of sandstone or laterite, survived and thus it is possible to trace the original route.  Otherwise, a small section at the entrance to Prasat Hin Phimai is the only part of it left.

       Afterwards, Thai and Lao began migrating to the area and in the 17^th century King Narai had a wall and moat built around Khorat city, the administrative center of Nakhon Ratchasima.  Some descendants of the original Khmer inhabitants remained as a significant minority in the province, but the overwhelming majority were Thai and Lao.  Phimai reverted to a village and as the new inhabitants were Theravada Buddhists, the temple fell into a period of neglect that lasted until the government’s restoration of it in the 20^th century.  That was carried out not to revive its use but to establish its value as a tourist attraction.

       It doesn’t draw near the numbers as other historical sites in Thailand, like Sukhothai, Ayutthaya or Lamphun, as tourist attractions in Isan are far apart.  As a result, it is never crowded.  One can visit in a day trip out of the provincial capital, just 60 km away.  But it’s better to stay the night in the quiet town of Phimai and explore the ruins from early morning, when birds might be twittering in the groves along the compound and the color of the pink sandstone blocks has a richer hue.

       The main entrance is from the south gate, across a balustrade flanked by seven-headed nagas (big mythical serpents).  The restoration was not total, nor were all the monuments lying in ruins on the ground.  The restoration team put the elements of the walls and hallways back together and fallen lintels back in place.  Many of the sculptures were still intact, but missing or badly damaged ones were not replaced.  The main tower was still in good shape, though the two smaller ones were not.  A few sculptures were removed to museums, but others were left in place.

        Besides admiring the precisely and smoothly cut and perfectly fitted sandstone blocks, the visitors’ eyes soon train on the surviving sculptures.  Some of the columns have fluted sides and perhaps a small carved figure embedded near the base.  The main attractions are the lintels, with wonderfully detailed relief carvings of gods and men, animals and nature, in vignettes of celestial and earthly life.  Relief carvings also adorn some of the pediments, the roughly triangular structure above a lintel or on the side of a prang.  A few hallway doors feature individual sculptures of deities or demon beasts  

       The carvings on the outer perimeter utilize Hindu imagery, like Vishnu or the multi-armed Dancing Shiva.  Those in the interior section derive from Mahayana Buddhism, like the Buddha seated in meditation wearing the crown of the Universal Ruler, or Manjushri wielding the sword used to slay ignorance and superstition.  Other sculptures depict secular activities, especially armies on the march and commanders on elephant.

       The figures, celestial, human or animal, are realistically rendered and the vegetation is accurately depicted.  The faces of both gods and men have broad noses and thick lips, very characteristic of the classic Khmer sculptural style.   Altogether, Prasat Hin Phimai offers many fine and fascinating examples of the Khmer Empire’s architectural achievements.  They are sure to arouse visitors’ appreciation.  They certainly did for the builders of Angkor Wat.

 

   * * *

Phnom Penh—the Last Capital of Cambodia

                                   by Jim Goodman

park in front of Phnom Penh's Royal Palace

       The story of Phnom Penh begins in 1372, when a wealthy widow named Daun (Grandmother) Penh was walking along the Tonle Sap River and noticed a tree trunk washed up on the riverbank.  Inspecting it, she discovered five Buddha images, four of bronze and one of stone, inside the trunk.  She then arranged the building of a sanctuary on top of a mound near her home to house the images.  The mound was later enlarged to a height of 27 meters to become the only hill (phnom) in the area and the village was thereafter known as Phnom Penh (Penh’s Hill).

view of the Tonle Sap River from its western bank

       Sited at the confluence of the Tonle Sap and Mekong Rivers, it was primarily a fishing village and part of the Khmer Empire of Angkor.  But this was an empire very much in decline.  At its peak at the beginning of the 13^th century under Jayavarman VII, it ruled over all of present-day Cambodia, the southern third of Vietnam, most of Laos and eastern and central Thailand.  By the time of Daun Penh’s discovery it had lost most of its western provinces to independent Thai states, Sukhothai and Ayutthaya, which expanded their territory at the expense of the Angkor Empire.

       By 1400 Ayutthaya had absorbed Sukhothai and turned its attention east.  In 1431 its army invaded Angkor and captured and sacked the capital Angkor Thom.   Though Ayutthaya forces did not remain in possession, after their retreat the city was half in ruins.  Moreover, the complex irrigation system, crucially important to a state based on agrarian income, had collapsed.  The cost and required work to repair the irrigation system and the damaged city buildings seemed to be so great that King Ponhea Yat decided to move the capital downriver to Phnom Penh, further away from the Thai enemy.

image of Daun Penh at Wat Phnom

the chedi at Wat Phnom

       Most of the buildings in Angkor Thom were temples or religious monuments, reflecting how enmeshed religion was in the organization of the state.  King Ponhea Yat set out to endow Phnom Penh with the same level of religious identity.   He raised Daun Penh’s mound to a proper hill and built a temple on top.  Unlike the great monuments of Angkor Thom, this was a modest structure, probably very similar to what has replaced it since then.  And unlike Angkor Thom temples, dedicated to Hindu and Mahayana Buddhist deities, Wat Phnom was the first Theravada Buddhist temple in the country.

Angkor-style bronze frieze on the Wat Phnom stairway

       It’s not clear how, or how long it took, but the Theravada form of Buddhism became the popular religion, replacing the rather mild form of Hinduism in the Empire’s heyday.  Kings identified themselves as incarnations of Shiva or, if a Mahayana Buddhist like Jayavarman VII, as the savior Boddhisattva.  With the collapse of the empire such beliefs no longer resonated with the general populace.  Post-Angkor kings laid no claim to divinity.

       They could still be religious patrons, though, and King Ponhea Yat established four other temples in his new capital that are still in use today, though nothing of their 15^th century foundations remain.  Still, because of their ancient prestige, they are outstanding compounds and among the city’s tourist attractions today.

Wat Phnom

       The most popular, naturally, is Wat Phnom.  Entry is via a stairway lined on each side with bronze plaques with bas-relief reproductions of Angkor scenes.  Within the temple viharn, besides the main Buddha image, are wall murals depicting scenes from the Jataka Tales.  Behind the viharn is a shrine to Daun Penh and a large white chedi containing Ponhea Yat’s ashes.  Below the hill is a garden clock, installed during colonial days.

       Khmer locals come to the viharn to have their fortune told.  They hold a palm-leaf book above their heads and without looking insert a page marker.  Then a pandit reads what it is written on the page. If they don’t like the result they can try again and again, but have to accept the third result.

river boat on the Mekong at Phnom Penh

       Phnom Penh’s new status only lasted until the early years of the 16^th century.  King An Chan moved the court up the Tonle Sap River to Lovek.  The realm was safe for a while, for Ayutthaya was involved with battling the Burmese.  Western missionaries, traders and adventurers arrived and both Lovek and Phnom Penh grew into important trading ports.   But towards the end of the century, temporarily freed of the Burmese threat, Ayutthaya invaded Cambodia and in 1594 sacked Lovek.  The Khmer court subsequently relocated to Oudong, next to hills a little to the south.

colonial era building, now a government office

       Cambodia fared better the following century, repelling another Thai invasion in the early years and enjoying peace on the western frontier for a long time.  But by mid=17^th century the royal family had split into antagonistic factions.  Brothers fought over the royal succession and since neither had enough support to vanquish the other, contenders enlisted the aid of their Thai or Vietnamese neighbors.  Winners rewarded their allies by ceding faraway provinces, thus further shrinking the country’s size.

       The civil wars continued through the 18^th century.  In 1770 Thai forces burned down Phnom Penh.  The city recovered enough that in 1812 King Chan moved the state’s capital to Phnom Penh.  In the early 19^th century the Court occasionally returned to Oudong for a while, but most of the time resided in Phnom Penh.  When Cambodia became their protectorate in 1868, the French recognized Phnom Penh as the capital and it has remained so ever since.

French villa from colonial times

sunset at Wat Botum

       At the time the city more resembled a large fishing village, consisting mostly of thatched hits along a single main track and scores of houseboats along the riverbanks.  The population was about 25,000.  The French eventually installed administrators in the capital and all the provinces, but didn’t do much to develop Phnom Penh.  Having also taken control of southern Vietnam by then, they were more concerned about urban transformation in Saigon.

knotted gun at the north end of Monivong Boulevard

       That changed with the appointment of Hyun de Vernville in 1889 to govern the protectorate.  Wanting Phnom Penh to be a worthy French administrative center, the ”Pearl of the Orient”, he sponsored a network of roads along a wide boulevard running from Wat Phnom to the southern end of the city.  A French quarter grew up north of Wat Phnom, characterized by opulent villas for French officials and businessmen, while new government buildings were designed along French architectural lines.

       After World War I the pace of development accelerated.  The city government filled in drainage canals to expand the road network, created parks and dredged the Mekong to allow for the entry of bigger ships.  River trade increased and in 1932 a railway station opened, with a line to Battambang in the west.  While certainly the French lived in a grander style, prosperity also spread to the native Khmers. 

tourists riding Sam Bo the elephant at Wat Phnom

       In World War II the Japanese took charge in name, but allowed the French officials to continue running affairs.  Afterwards, responding to the post-war anti-colonial sentiments in Southeast Asia, marked in Cambodia by a radical armed insurgency that soon controlled half of the country, the French gave ground.   They permitted elections to a National Assembly, granted partial independence in 1949 and finally, plagued by worse problems in Vietnam, granted Cambodia full independence in 1953.

       Now a new Khmer elite governed the city and the country, rooted in an educated middle class.  Motorbikes and automobiles began using the streets.  Theaters, cinemas and coffee culture thrived.  Temples were renovated and enlarged.  It was a calm and optimistic period, but would not long persist.  There were still class divisions between the educated elite and the masses of impoverished workers, farmers and fishermen.  And Cambodia would not be able to stay aloof from the wars engulfing their neighbors.

old mural at Wat Lanka

       Conflict in Vietnam sent refugees from the border areas streaming into Phnom Penh.  This influx increased significantly in the early 70s, when civil war erupted in the country.  Phnom Penh was the last holdout against the Khmer Rouge, its population many times swollen by refugees for whom it had scarcely any resources to accommodate.  The Khmer Rouge conquered the city in April 1975 and promptly ordered the entire population out, old residents and new refugees alike. 

       Until the beginning of 1979, when the Vietnamese ousted the Khmer Rouge, Phnom Penh was like a ghost city.  Former residents and new settlers now started trickling in, taking up residence in vacated and bomb-ravaged buildings.  Khmer officials took over the old colonial administrative offices, but neither they nor the Vietnamese, preoccupied with eradicating the Khmer Rouge in the countryside, did much to reconstruct Phnom Penh.

museum piece--Angkor stone sculpture of dancing apsaras

       Vietnam never intended to stay in Cambodia longer than necessary. Satisfied their Khmer clients could continue without them, and with the Khmer Rouge all but eliminated as a major threat, the Vietnamese withdrew in 1989.  Three years later UN troops arrived as peacekeepers and soon Phnom Penh’s economy, though with erratic electricity and water supplies and an infrastructure still in a state of disrepair, boomed with new hotels, restaurants, bars and brothels catering to the well-paid UN personnel.

       The city had a lawless reputation throughout the 90s, more famous for its proliferation of guns than its tourist attractions.  Aware of this, the government in 1999 seized all the guns it could locate, crushed them and melted them down to make a unique sculpture of a handgun with a knotted barrel.  With the turn of the century and some improvements in the infrastructure, the city began promoting its tourist attractions.

National Museum of Cambodia, from inside the courtyard

       These included the temples established in the mid-15^th century by King Ponhea Yat during Phnom Penh’s first turn as national capital.   They had been rebuilt in the 20^th century and renovated after the Khmer Rouge left, but still enjoyed considerable prestige and importance.  The concrete chedi at Wat Ounalom supposedly contains a hair from the Buddha’s eyebrow.  The grounds of Wat Botum hold many elaborate chedis with the ashes of important monks and politicians.  Wat Lanka, named for its original connection with Theravada Buddhist monks from Sri Lanka, featured old wall murals depicting scenes from the Buddha’s life and offered twice weekly meditation courses.  And at Wat Phnom visitors could also have a ride around the front courtyard at the base of the hill on a genial old elephant named Sam Bo.

Reclining Vishnu in stone, National Museum

       To appreciate the past, visitors explored the galleries and courtyards of the National Museum of Cambodia.  The dark red sandstone building, designed by the French archaeologist George Groslier in traditional Khmer style and opened in 1918, is one of the most beautiful in Phnom Penh.  Consisting of four linked galleries in a rectangle around a shady courtyard flanked by gardens, the museum contains relics, artifacts and sculptures from pre-historic to modern times.

       The best, naturally, are those from the Angkor era, mostly of Hindu deities.  These include stone sculptures of Yama, the Lord of Death, Reclining Vishnu, Garuda--Vishnu’s mount, the elephant-headed Ganesh--Shiva’s son, Indra, King of the Gods, atop a three-headed elephant and a wonderful frieze of dancing apsaras.  There are also fine bronze pieces--one of Nandin the bull--Shiva’s mount, and a large Reclining Vishnu—and a life-size stone sculpture of a meditating Jayavarman VII, who ruled the empire at its peak in the late 12^th century.

Psar Thmei market building

       For a look at the dark side of Cambodia’s history one could go to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.  This was formerly the Khmer Rouge’s infamous S-21 prison and interrogation center.  Here are the cells and torture chambers and instruments used, as well as photographs of thousands of victims, most of them Khmer Rouge cadres who fell afoul of the paranoid leadership for one reason or another.

       Out of the past and into contemporary times, visitors could enjoy the markets and the attractive riverfronts.  At the Russian Market south of Tuol Sleng, so named because when it opened in the 80s all its goods came from Russia, one could buy antiques and artifacts and even a fur coat if returning to a cold climate.  The new Psar Orussey offered goods from all over Cambodia, while Psar Thmei was worth a visit just for its unusual art-deco building.

riverside park near the Silver Pagoda

       The riverfront afforded quiet views of various boats passing by and the most popular area, for both foreigners and city dwellers, was just below the National Museum.  Here stands the Royal Palace and next to it the Silver Pagoda, named after its 5329 silver floor tiles, each 20 cm square and weighing one kilogram.  It houses a 50 cm high green crystal image known as the Emerald Buddha, surrounded by bigger Buddha images of silver, bronze and one of solid gold, covered with 2086 diamonds and precious stones.

       The riverside park in front of these buildings is a popular and attractive place to rest, relax and watch the sunset.  And as darkness approaches, it’s only a few blocks walk to the restaurants and bars of the entertainment district that complete the list of things to enjoy in modern Phnom Penh.

the Silver Pagoda

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