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.

 

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Strange Creatures in Thai Temples

                                  by Jim Goodman

mom images at Wat Umong Mahatherachan

       At some point in ancient India, certain individuals had the leisure time and intellectual curiosity to wonder about the nature of the world around them. They began speculating on the elements of the universe, both on what could be seen and what could not.  No record exists as to what kind of debate ensued over the interpretation, but eventually a consensus emerged.  The self-styled philosophers of that era came up with a description that would underline all the myths of the Hindu religion as well as, centuries later, Buddhism, both in India and in Southeast Asia.

       They were living in the Gangetic Plain, a broad swath of the heart of India, bounded on the north by the Himalaya Mountains, the earth’s tallest.  It’s doubtful whether any of these mythographers explored these mountains, but they were always visible from the northern edge of the plains.  They reckoned the center of the universe was Mt. Meru, the highest of the 84,000 peaks that made up the northern mountain range.  The sun, moon and planets all revolved around Mt. Meru.

naga at the foot of Wat Doi Suthep stairway

nagas at Chedi Luang

       Thousands of years later, when Buddhism gained ascendancy in northern India its adherents also subscribed to this world-view.  The Buddhist heavens were supposed to be just above Mt. Meru, while all around the mountain’s base lay the Himmapan Forest, home to a wide assortment of ethereal creatures.  Some were totally fanciful, others based on real animals, still others hybrid varieties.  Some preyed on others in the forest, but in general, Himmapan residents, experiencing no suffering and therefore no aging, were eternally youthful.

dragon-headed lion at Lamphun's Wat Haripunchai

Lion Capitals of Ashoka, Wat Bupharam

       Thai people converted to Buddhism, via Sinhalese missionaries, long after the religion died out in India, when it was already heavily influenced by Hindu concepts.  As a result, the imagery associated with Thai Buddhist temple compounds includes that of Indian Hinduism and Buddhism, along with the weird denizens of Himmapan.  Some of these creatures represent protectors and guardians of the sacred space and buildings of the compound.  Others are decorative sculptures enhancing the walls or standing freely in the courtyard.

       The most striking of the guardian animals are the serpentine nagas.  A pair of them flanks the staircases to the main temple buildings.  They were originally modeled on the king cobra, but have heads and fangs more suggestive of a dragon.  Thai versions have anywhere between one and seven heads.  According to Buddhist mythology, after his Enlightenment the Buddha was seated in meditation one day when a violent rainstorm broke out.  The king cobra Mucalinda rose up behind him and spread the hoods of his seven heads to shield him from the rain. 

elephant-headed lion, Wat Lamchang

elephant-headed horse, Wat Muensan

       The naga image evolved from the Mucalinda tale, became associated with the protection of Buddhism, and thus guards the entrances to the assembly hall (viharn), ordination hall (ubosot) and, at Chiang Mai’s Chedi Luang, the staircases climbing up the sides of the ruined chedi. The naga’s color varies from all white to mostly yellow to a variety of colors on one sculpture, such as the ones at Wat Doi Suthep.  The fangs are always bared and a crest rises upward from the top of its head.

       The lion is another guardian animal, usually seated at the compound entrance or beside a chedi.  As the King of the Beasts it represents power and strength, ready to repel any spirit attack.  But it doesn’t always play that role.  At the entrance to Wat Bupharam four lions stand back to back on the columns on either side.  They are replicas of the famous Lion Capital of Ashoka, originally created in the 3^rd century BCE, named after Emperor Ashoka of Maurya, who promoted the spread of Buddhism all over the Indian sub-continent.

elephant-headed nagas, Wat Chiang Yeun

elephant-headed bird, Lamphun lamp post

       In this case, the four lions symbolize the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism:  suffering exists, craving causes it, the end of suffering comes with the end of craving, and the way to achieve that is to follow the rules of the Eightfold Path.  The other distinction of the Lion Capital of Ashoka is how closely they resemble real lions.  The animal was quite common in India back then, so one can safely assume the sculptor’s rendition was based on observation in the wild.

       Nowadays lions have vanished from all over India except for one preserved area in the Gir Forest of the western province of Gujarat.  They were never in Southeast Asia, though, so the usual Thai or Burmese rendition of a lion is quite different.  The body shape is close, but the head is much fiercer, more like that of a dragon.  Like the naga, the guardian lion has to look properly frightening to deter evil spirits.

bird with elephant and naga heads, Wat Srisupoan

thep norasri, Wat Saen Muang Ma Luang          

       An animal closer to home, that also plays a protective role in Thai temples, is the elephant.  Quite reduced in numbers now, elephants were abundant in past centuries.  Artists didn’t even have to go out to the jungles to see what they looked like, for kings rode them in processions and armies had stables of war-elephants. Consequently, their sculptures of elephants are generally realistic, even when they are just the front half, like the ones around the chedis of Wat Chiang Man and Chedi Luang.           

mermaid at Wat Saen Muang Ma Luang

       Admired for its strength, majesty, intelligence and good nature, the elephant is also associated with Buddhism through another ancient story.  Accordingly, the Buddha was out walking in the countryside one day when an elephant approached him.  While the Buddha stood in the path, the elephant sank to its knees and bowed its head and trunk to the ground to pay respect and obeisance, acknowledging the Enlightened One.

       A Chiang Mai temple specifically honors the elephant.  Called Wat Lamchang, Temple of the Tethered Elephants, it stands on the spot where King Mengrai temporarily kept his stable of royal elephants while he oversaw the construction of Chiang Mai in 1292.  Elephant statues flank the stairways of the buildings, surround the chedi and stand in the gardens.  They can be white, black, brown or terracotta red, from near life size down to the size of a flowerpot.  They can be very realistic, with trunks raised, or small, smiling, almost cartoon-like.  They can also be half-elephant, like the pair of elephant-headed lions that stand before the rear building in the compound.

crocodile-headed flying horse, Wat Saen Muang Ma Luang

       These are called kochasri and are creatures from the Himmapan Forest, where nothing dwelling there is visible to mortal eyes.  So their depictions are up to the imagination of the artist.  At Wat Lamchang they are standing sculptures, while at Wat Meunsan they are gilded low relief images on a gate panel and at Wat Phra Singh carved in stone on the base of the library.

       Elephant-related Himmapan hybrids include the sinta pakuchorn--a green, elephant-headed horse, the kunchun uneu—front half elephant and back half fish, the nok hussadee—an elephant-headed bird, and the karinpuksa—an elephant body with the wings and tail of a bird.  Bigger than an ordinary elephant, it can soar, fly and hover in the air. 

      Elephant-headed nagas are the main motif decorating the shrine in front of the chedi at Wat Chiang Yeun.  Embellishing the roof corners of the Silver Temple at Wat Srisuphan are sculptures of a large bird with two heads—the lower one elephant, the upper one naga.  And the creatures on the roof corners of the ubosot at Wat Chedi Liam have an elephant head on the breast of a bird, with what looks like a serpent’s tail rising high up behind and over the head.

flying horse on the base of the library at Wat Phra Singh

       A final example of the elephant head theme is that of Ganesh, the Hindu god with a human body and an elephant head.   Some Ganesh sculptures have three heads, like the god Indra’s elephant mount Erawan.  The other Hindu deity adopted by Thai Buddhism is Brahma, the creator god, whom the Thai know as Phra Prom and who has four heads, one in each direction.   

       The mythical menagerie of the West has nothing like an elephant-headed naga.  It has dragons, but very different from those in the East.  But a couple of the Himmapan creatures look familiar.  One is the mermaid.  Except for the facial features it is just like the famous statue in Copenhagen, Denmark.  Another type of Himmapan mermaid, though, has wings, unlike any Occidental mermaid.  An equally familiar being is the flying horse, no different from the Pegasus of Greek myth.

       Western myths have other hybrid creatures, such as the half-man, half-bull Minotaur, but nowhere near as many as Himmapan.  The forest is also home to the unique Naruphon tree.  Its fruits produce female, human-like beings called makaleepon, though if the fruits are not plucked within seven days they die.  Not all the animals are hybrids, either, for two kinds of lion live there, one red, one black, both herbivores.

aquatic hybrids from Himmapan Forest

       Other kinds of lions and part lions dwell in Hammapan.  The ghilen is a lion with deer antlers and scaly skin.  It lives a thousand years, represents virtue and punishes the wicked.  The to is a lion with two horns, while the loto is a lion with a flaring head and eagle claws on its feet.  Lion bodies with the head of a dragon, a bird, the head and tail of a naga and one with the upper torso and feet of a monkey also roam around Himmapan and appear in decorative temple sculptures.

       Horses are also part of temple imagery, particularly at Wat Kun Kha Ma, the ‘Value of Horses Temple’.  In the early centuries of Lanna’s history, this site was a horse farm, providing the nobles with their favorite transportation vehicle and military officers with their mounts.   Then one day a disease swept through the herd and killed most of the horses.  The distraught owner, wanting to commemorate his beloved animals, had a temple constructed here in the early 16^th century.  Its most outstanding feature is the row of golden horse sculptures, 64 altogether, that line the walls of the compound.

winged anthropomorphic Himmapan creature

       These figures are modeled on real horses, but some horse hybrids, besides the winged one and the elephant-headed type, exist in Himmapan, too.  The durong kraisorn is a horse with a dragon’s head.  The hemara ussadorn has a bird’s head.  And the ussadorn hayra is half-horse, half-crocodile.

       Always a scary animal, the crocodile is also the inspiration for the body of the mom, though the head is more dragon-like.  Quite common and usually in pairs, they flank the stairways of subsidiary buildings in the compound, sloping downwards, the head at the lower end, raised and baring its fangs.  The mom is also associated with rain and when the monsoons are tardy, farmers take mom images to the fields and implore them to make the rains come.

       Yet more oddities populate Himmapan.  The mungkorn vihak has a dragon’s head, cow’s body and bird wings and tail.  The sintu puksee has a bird’s body and a fish’s fins and tail.  The upper part of the greenish colored panom masuek is a monkey, while the lower part is a deer.  The sagoon hayra is a bird with the head of a crocodile, sometimes with deer antlers.

sphinx-like man-lion, Wat Mahan

kinnara playing a drum, Wat Mahan

       A special Himmapan category comprises those creatures that, like the elephant-headed Ganesh, are part human and part animal.  Garuda, the mount of the god Vishnu, is one example.  It has an eagle’s head, beak, wings and talons and the body and limbs of a man.  Garuda is considered the King of the Birds, is a sworn enemy of snakes and has the license to devour bad men (except the ones who are Brahmins).

       On other anthropomorphic beings the human part is the upper portion.  The lower half of an upsom sriha is a deer or a lion.  The thep norasri stands on deer’s legs and has a lion’s tail.  Other creatures resemble a sphinx or a centaur.  The most popular in this category is the half-human, half-swan creature called the kinnara, especially its female counterpart the kinnaree. 

kinnaree--half-woman, half-swan

       One type has human legs as well as the swan’s wings and tails.  The more common rendition has a human upper torso, with arms, and a swan’s legs, wings and tail.  The female form—kinnaree—is particularly graceful and has a reputation as a wonderful singer and dancer.  The kinnaras, like the ones on the viharn exterior of Wat Mahan on Tha Pae Road, are often depicted playing musical instruments like the drum, lute, horn, viol and flute.

       The rules for making Buddha images, as well as those for the Hindu pantheon in India, follow standards set centuries ago.  In depicting Himmapan creatures the artists have more leeway, which is why one sees so many different kinds of lions, nagas, kinnarees and other beings.  They have the precedents of previous generations, but can embellish them with personal touches.  And since the creatures of Himmapan are invisible and myriad, they can even come up with new hybrid combinations if they choose.  From Himmapan, anything is possible and everything is plausible.

hybrid Himmapan creatures on a roof at Wat Chedi Liam

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