p33  Khmer Religions

As nine out of every ten of the surviving Khmer monuments are of a religious nature, a word as to the creeds and religious thoughts that presided over their construction should not be amiss.

Both Buddhism and Brahmanism, the two great creeds of India, appear to have been favored by the Khmers, but without the antagonism that developed between them in the land of their origin.

Brahmanism was introduced into Cambodia as far back as the beginning of the Christian era, probably by way of Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula. As the Khmer kings appear to have been endowed with the privilege of worshipping their own protective deities and of being at liberty to alter the ceremonies and to create rituals at will, each change of dynasty, even of reign, brought about the adoption of other worships, the secularization or destruction of sanctuaries and the effacement or suppression of carvings and inscriptions to fallen kings or gods.

 p34  Consequently, the Cambodians had learned to worship many gods and to identify them all before Buddhism gained an upper hand during the years that the Angkor monuments were being built.

They were able to identify the mythological trinity of Brahmanism, representing the three active states of the universal soul and the three eternal energies of Nature: Brahma, activity, the creator; Vishnu, goodness, the preserver; Siva, obscurity, the destroyer. Of these Siva and Vishnu were frequently honored by the Khmers who depicted their exploits in bas‑reliefs and represented them with symbols and temples. Brahma, contrarily, was seldom depicted.

Siva, the generating deity, omniscient and compassionate, is symbolized by the linga, a vertical cylinder with a square base, and depicted with one or several faces, with a third eye in the middle of his forehead. He may also be represented as dancing, waving his six arms, or as riding his bull, Nandi. His attribute is the trident and his royal costume usually is richly adorned with jewels.

Vishnu, protector of the universe and the gods, wears a circular mitre on his head and has four arms, each holding a discus, a conch, a club and a ball. He is frequently depicted as riding a Garuda or reclining on a Naga, or as taking on the aspects of a wild boar, a lion or a turtle. Two of his favorite metamorphoses,  p37 which seem to have appealed to the Angkorean sculptors, were that of Krishna, a fine young savior of men, who lifts up a mountain with one arm to shelter shepherds and their flocks from the storm, and that of Rama, the hero of the Râmâyana, a Hindu epic poem as popular in Cambodia as it is in India.

Other Brahmanical gods occasionally seen are Indra, sovereign of the sky, armed with a thunderbolt and an axe and either mounted on his three-headed elephant Airavata or borne along in his chariot; Skanda, younger son of Siva, god of War, armed with thunderbolts, a spear and a club, and mounted on a peacock or a rhinoceros; Ganesha, elder son of Siva, god of Knowledge and good Fortune, with an elephant's head and four arms; Kama, god of Love, with a youth's features, armed with a bow and lotus‑bud arrows and mounted on a parrot and some lesser divinities: the apsaras, or celestial nymphs or dancers usually represented as flying over the earth strewing floral wreaths; the devatas, or goddesses in glittering array and complicated head-dress, often depicted on temple walls, standing under niches or in ornamental foliage patterns, and the dvârapâlas, or entrance warders, armed with clubs.

Though Buddhism gained a foothold in Cambodia in a manner and at a date as yet undetermined, it has never quite dominated  p38 Brahmanism even though the Cambodians almost without exception now profess the Buddhist faith. They still worship the various Brahmanical deities, images of which are enshrined side by side with effigies of the Buddha. They retain Brahman priests, or Bakus, to take part in their ceremonies and to guard the Sacred Sword and Lance believed to have been presented by the god Indra to the early Khmer kings. And they cremate their dead as was done in the days of Angkor and as the Brahmans of India still do.

But the Buddhism the modern Cambodians acknowledge is that of the Hinayana, or "little vehicle," as distinguished from that of Mahayana, or "great vehicle," which was in favor in the days of the old Khmer sovereigns.

Buddhism owes its origin to a semi-historical, semi-mythical humanitarian philosopher, Siddharta Gautama, also known as Sakya-muni (568‑488 B.C.), who, when about 29 years old, left his princely home in North India for the jungle, where he meditated for six years on a means of helping suffering humanity. Eventually he evolved a doctrine based on the belief that life is an evil and that salvation, or Nirvana, can be attained only by study and meditation, renunciation of the world and abnegation of self. Upon his disciples he imposed chastity, humility, fraternity and mendicancy. They, in turn, divinized him as the Buddha, a name he himself had adopted  p41 denoting the condition of one "enlightened" by the Bodhi, the "Supreme Knowledge."

By the 3rd century B.C. through the edicts of Emperor Asoka, Buddhism became the state religion of Northern India. But by the 2nd century A.D. struggles and divisions finally resulted in the separation of Buddhism into two schools: "the school of the South," or Hinayana, which abides by the letter of the early writings and which predominates today in Ceylon, Burma, Siam and Cambodia, and "the school of the North," or Mahayana, which acknowledges a great number of deities. The latter, originally developed in Kashmir, spread to Burma, Cambodia and Java, and is now recognized in Annam, China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia and Tibet.

In the days of Angkor, Mahayana statues and scenes shared places of honor with the divinities of Brahmanism and even appropriated the Brahmanical functions and attributes. Edifices were numerous in which were enshrined images of the Mahayanist Pantheon, among them the Triad: the Buddha, Lokesvara and Prajnaparamita.

Of these Lokesvara, the merci­ful and healing god, was the most dominant because of his power to change his body into that of Siva and into that of Brahma. Later, in China and Japan, he even assumed a feminine aspect and became known as the goddess Kuan‑yin or Kwannon.

 p42  In the Hinayana, the Buddha is represented by only one image: a seated monk, meditating. He is easily identified by a protuberance, called an oushnisha, on the top of the head, intended to symbolize purity of thought. Sometimes he also has a mark ('ourna') on the forehead between the eyebrows, which, in Cambodia, may be a spiral.

Under the Mahayana at Angkor, the Buddha is represented in various attitudes, sometimes seated on a throne of lotus petals, sometimes on the folds of a Naga, or among kneeling worshippers and bearers of offerings. He may be represented as a sovereign of the world wearing a diadem; the mukata (mokot in Cambodian), a conical head-dress, and a princely costume adorned with jewels. Or he may be lying down; as if about to enter Nirvana, or appear to possess the attributes of Brahmanic deities and to have transformed them into protectors of its tenets.

(p36)

Statue of the Buddha (Sakya-Muni), Angkor Wat

In other words, Buddhism and Brahmanism became so interlocked at Angkor that they had a very definite influence on Khmer architecture and art. More than a thousand edifices were erected in and around Angkor Thom to their respective divinities and were decorated with images and sculptures chronicling episodes from their lives and histories.

Of these, the most notable and the one deserving first consideration is Angkor Wat,  p43 built about the middle of the 12th century and dedicated to Vishnu.

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