Legend of the greatest king of the Khmer empire

People have yet to find the cause of the two greatest kings of the Khmer empire when they were sculpted without a hand. The ultimate talent, miraculous powers on the hands of two legendary kings are not shown.

But what the two great kings left for mankind is a huge and miraculous legacy that ordinary humans cannot do.

The abandoned tomb of the king 'compelled to win'

Boeng Mealea is a temple located in the Angkor Wat complex, about 70 km northeast of Siem Reap, considered a version of Angkor Wat, which is said to be the burial place of the great king Suryavarman II. The sacred temple shared the same fate with Kulen, Angkor Wat more than 800 years lost among the old forests discovered by French archaeologists in 1954.

Angkor was once the most powerful monarch in Khmer history, under the reign of King Suryavarman II - the king was dubbed the "king of war." He was the one who built Angkor Wat - a great project that admired the people of the next generation. The Khmer Empire under reign, expanding his territory, expanded to today's northern Laos border, south to the Malay Peninsula, west to Pagan-Myanmar kingdom.

After King Suryavarman II died, his death along with the glorious Angkor Wat dynasty sank into oblivion. People do not know and no one can explain the secrets of the dynasty.

According to French documents left at the Ancient Far East Institute, in 1954, French scientists had information about a large temple area like a version of Angkor Wat located in an old forest not far from Angkor Wat, but absolutely no access road. Through ancient documents, on inscriptions placed in the temple, it was learned that the Boeng Mealea temple was the place where the body of King Suryavarman II was buried and many gold and jewels of the dynasty.

Panoramic view of Angkor Wat.

But due to the constant war, the Boeng Mealea temple complex was immersed in the wild forest. In 2003, the government explored a trail leading into Boeng Mealea. This is an area where a lot of mines and ERW have not been removed after the Ponpot war, so around the temple area, the CMAC force - the international demining force - is still active. The area of ​​mine and UXO clearance is stretched with red flags and sometimes mines and mines are only half a meter away from the unique road into the temple.

Nearly all of the temple towers have collapsed, but it is still possible to recognize the great appearance and its grandeur that is not inferior to Angkor Wat. Even the stone blocks that built this place are bigger than the Angkor temples, weighing an average of 8 tons compared to 3-5 tons of Angkor Wat. Boeng Mealea Temple used to be like a small city with an area of ​​108ha and a moat surrounded by the city, with a place up to 45m wide. The temple has three layers of walls and is guarded by giant stone gates, in the middle of which is a tower of 42m high but has been broken.

More specifically, Boeng Mealea had four libraries in the four corners of the ruins, while most of the temples of the Angkor period had only two libraries. The center of the temple has King Suryavarman II's coffin lying on the ground. According to the Apsara Committee, since the war years, not only archaeological researchers but also ancient tomb digging gangs have come here and excavated this ancient tomb, lots of gold and jewels have been taken. go, the plaques of fine reliefs on the walls of the temple were also taken away and shattered the casket from the temple to the ground. But they couldn't find the corpse of Suryavarman II.

Badges on the wall of Angkor Wat.

Suryavarman II - who built the great temples

After King Suryavarman II died, the sunlight turned off, the night and the despair of the glorious Angkor empire covered a black hair of mourning. Internal court conflicts, green opaque, power struggles, the construction of unfinished temple towers must be stalled, stagnant. War on sand and foreign aggression has long been waiting for the opportunity to invade the Khmer empire. Both Chan Lap society fell into a serious crisis until a brilliant new sun appeared in the sky of Angkor . it was Prince Jayavarman VII.

Jayavarman VII (1181-1220) is the king of the Khmer Empire, considered one of the three talented and eminent heroes of the Khmer nation during the Angkor dynasty. He is the son of Dharanindravarman II (reigned from 1150 - 1160) and Sri Jayarajacudamani. He married Jayarajadevi and after she died, he married her sister Indradevi. It is thought that these two women inspired him greatly, especially his devotion to Buddhism.

Many theories suggest that after King Suryavarman II died in the mountains of Vu Quang, Nghe An (Dai Viet), to avoid being abused and revenge, the royal family made a great ceremony to cremate the corpse. King as a way to reassure the Khmer people and army. Then the ashes were brought to worship in Angkor Wat temple, and the coffin and temple were built only as a place of worship of the king.

Earlier, only one other king of the Khmer Empire was a Buddhist. He has built many great temples that have been preserved to this day: Ta Prohm, Preah Khan, Angkor Thom, Bayon, Jayatataka Baray, Neak Pean, Ta Som, Ta Nei, Ban Teay Chhmar, Prasats Chrung , Elephant Stadium, Ta Prohm Kel, Hospital Chapel, Krol Ko, Srah Srang, Royal Place.

Among those temples, the most famous is the Angkor Thom citadel with the Bayon temple, which is the beauty of architecture and sculpture. It is also called the Temple of De Thich - an architectural masterpiece just behind Angkor Wat that his ancestor King Suryavarman II built.

Jayavarman VII, when he was born, was one of those who liked to live in seclusion, choose a lifestyles, cultivate according to Buddha, proved very indifferent to all changes in Khmer political and social life. However, seeing Chan Lap country was too mourning because of the disorder and being invaded by foreign invaders, he found no other way than to follow the way of seeking new supplies to save the country through danger, bringing prosperous for all people and the prosperity of a kingdom that once boasted, powerful.

At that time, the country of Chan Lap fell into the hands of Champa, Angkor Wat temple and all the powerful institutions of the Suryavarman II dynasty were completely erased. He rebelled from the Kulen mountain forest where Tien established his karma and gathered powerful forces that were sanding in the provinces at that time against Chiem Thanh invaders. After four years of fighting, he chased the Champa out of the country, restoring peace and building a powerful country.

In order to fulfill his career in liberation, Jayavarman VII began rebuilding his army, then launched many counter-attacks, including the most glorious and glorious naval battle in history. portrayed on the embossed stone wall in the temples of Bayon and Bantay Cherma today. After regaining independence, Jayavarman VII took the throne. He immediately began to restore the capital and built here a new citadel called the city ​​of Yaxodarapura .

The epitaph is narrated with very poetic words on the following day: 'The coronation ceremony of King Jayavarman VII was held four years after the fall of the capital. The city of Yaxodarapura is like a gentle young woman, worthy of both her and her lover's love, enthusiastic and passionate, adorned with a pearl-colored castle with rows of citadel wrapped like a silk band. body cover: that young woman was married by the king to create happiness for all species in a glorious ceremony, under the glorious glory '.

Located in the Angkor Thom population center and about 300 meters away from Angkor Wat, Bayon is the most impressive temple of Cambodian mountain architecture by the magnitude of the scale and emotions it brings.

From a distance, visitors can feel the wonderful scenery displayed on the main road leading to the temple gate. Along the sides of the slate paved through a peach river, the two sides were 54 giant statues hugging the Nagar snake's snake divided into two rows of symmetry: on the left were the gods, on the right were the demons.

Some defective statues of each part of the head, body, and hands and feet are due to the time and the changes of history and war. Most of these statues turned their backs on the temple, leaning back with a strong posture depicting the legend of 'stirring the sea of ​​milk to find the eternal medicine' that King Jayavarman VII and his subjects had longed to find. An architectural masterpiece of thousands of years still makes the heart of the posterity flutter, wistful.

If Angkor Wat with five large towers has become the symbol of the Kingdom of Cambodia, the Buddha faces carved out of the Bayon temple towers are great pride of this landed people. It was the ancient message that Bayon wanted to send back tomorrow as an aspiration for peace, a compassionate, holy heart that portrayed the immortal Bayon smile. The face of the giant Buddha is carved out of stone, towering between heaven and earth, challenging all transformations of time as the subject of endless debates about the mysteries hidden in the carvings of those Anonymous stone worker in the past. There are so many Buddhas and Gods in the temple that there are many ways of showing smiles, different views.

APSARA girl dance at Angkor Wat.

Therefore, the 54 towers in Bayon have been designed as a concentric circular labyrinth, on which engraved hundreds of faces with a mysterious smile that has gone into the history of this ancient land. The most striking thing in each tower is the four faces of the Buddha rotating in 4 directions with lips smiling with a mysterious smile that conveys a message to thousands of lives.

And Bayon does not only contain the secret of a deep smile on hundreds of Buddha faces, but each step down to the foot of the main tower, on the walls connecting the corridors running through each other like a hidden maze. contains the vivid features of hundreds of thousands of Apsara female dances that are touched on sandstone slabs.

The ancient Khmer legend recounts that the dancers with this enchanting dance were transformed from the sea itself when the gods and the snake god Nagar stirred the sea of ​​milk to find the elixir. A romantic image as the dance that people can feel when watching the female dancers on each stone.

Soft hands, wonderfully skillful, slender backs, open smiles and legs like dancing and dancing to the drum beat and the sound of the five voices from far away. Not only in Bayon but in all of the ancient architecture of this Temple Pagoda, everywhere can admire the winding dance of Apsara dancers on stone statues and carvings on stone walls.

If Angkor Wat is astonished by the sophisticated and monumental paintings, the Bayon is a shocking one, because the reliefs are much richer and more vivid, including everyday life scenes and religion, history. There, the reliefs vividly describe the religious rituals, festivals, entertainment scenes, scenes of Khmer warriors fighting with Champa army by taking back land. country.

With these reliefs, Bayon recreated the generations after an encyclopedia about the life, customs and landscape of hundreds of years ago. An interesting thing about the class division in ancient society is also clearly shown here: if people's everyday scenes are touched outside, then in the inner corridor, the murals describe mainly the royal life, the singing and dancing scene in the royal court, the royal court, the mandarin in the royal life.

Thickened after the curtain of time, golden image of the past of Jayavarman VII dynasty as well as hundreds and thousands of anonymous workers created the Bayon shrine area became a legend, a topic of great concern. controversy in academic circles. However, whether they understand or not in history, architecture or religion, each person standing in front of the Buddha faces carved on each tower is smiling to the world, clearly feeling special feelings. rising up in my heart.

And, although dynasties and times have changed, Bayon - the most exotic and most romantic temple of the Khmer nation - still remains with Cambodia and mankind as a historic architecture full of human creativity.

Bayon is an architectural temple with an inspiring and creative art with extremely beautiful and spectacular stone carvings. Bayon Temple was built in the late 12th and 13th centuries as the official mountain temple of King Jayavarman VII, believing in other Mahayana Buddhism with the Christian beliefs as the previous kings but still followed. Traditional king god (Devaraja).

King Jayavarman VII converted to Mahayana Buddhism because he believed that the previous kings who succeeded the great king Suryavarman II followed Hinduism, who also built the legendary Angkor Wat and was defeated by Champa. The change in state religion is also the separation of religion and beliefs of every Khmer empire as an affirmation of social self-reliance and self-reliance, and the nation of Chan Lap since King Jayavarman VII came to the throne. Since then, after Jayavarman VII died, the kings with different faiths such as Hinduism and primitive Buddhism also built temples based on their beliefs.

Bayon's structure consists of three floors, today all three floors are crumbling, stone bricks are scattered all over the place due to war and the eight-century exile in the jungle. The two floors below are arranged in square shape, adorned with reliefs and intricately carved on the wall. The third floor is arranged in a circle with many towers with stone faces shaped like Buddha faces.

The downstairs corridor is an artistic treasure with 11,000 reliefs carved on a stone wall that runs 1200m long, a collection of history and legends, depicting king and royal parade scenes , the battles of King Jayavarman VII with Champa by both water and combat, also depict the cultural and social life of a forgotten civilization for centuries. Many walls were still unfinished, leaving only a sketch, perhaps unfinished when King Jayavarman VII died.

The most prominent image of the Bayon is still towering tower towers in the center, carved into 2 - 3 and generally 4 faces with four directions. Bayon's architecture is considered a Baroque style, while Angkor Wat is a classic. The similarity of the countless giant faces on Bayon's towers with other statues of King Jayavarman VII led many scholars to conclude that this is the king's face.

Some say it is the face of Guan Yin and Bodhisattva (Avalokitesvara or Lokesvara). The scholar specializing in Coedes Angkor then argues that Jayavarman VII according to the tradition of Khmer kings who claim to be the gods of kings (Devaraja), unlike the previous kings according to Hinduism claiming to be the image of Shiva, while Jayavarman VII is a Buddhist, the image of Buddha and Bodhisattva is himself. There are 37 stone temple towers carved with many faces looking down and looking at four directions as if observing sentient beings and protecting the country.

Inside the temple are two rows of concentric corridors downstairs, and a row on the upper floor. It all lies together in a narrow space of 140 x 160m, while the main part of the temple located on the upper floor is even narrower with size 70 x 80m, unlike Angkor Wat, one must admire with Its large and spacious scale. From a distance, Bayon stretched horizontally like a pile of lumpy rocks that wanted to rise to the sky with space that seemed to have no limits.

Bayon Temple gives people the feeling of flying and conquering completely by exemplary beauty and lively life. The temple is made up of 50 stone towers. Its core is a ladder-style architectural complex with 16 medium-sized stupas with many small towers linked together, in the middle of a circular, 45m-high golden tower. At the top of each tower, all four faces have a smiling Buddha image. Stone reliefs in Bayon recount the story of Shakyamuni Buddha and they are the chronicles of Cambodian life in the Angkor era.

The whole of Angkor with its towers, temples, reliefs and vast corridors is made of stacked stones with a very natural appearance, even on the roof of the dome. All patterns decorated with stones such as Buddha, dancer, warrior and lotus pictures illustrate the epic Ramayana and Mahabharata are very lively and soft. With 1,700 Apsara girls in Angkor, 1,700 completely different female dancers with gorgeous bodies, facial expressions, postures, and physical movements do not overlap. Why is the number of 1,700 but not another number? This is still a question in many questions that have not been answered in Angkor today.

At a certain angle, at a corner in the hallway of Angkor Wat or Bayon temple, when the afternoon sun shines with golden strands covering the magnificent temple area, people will immerse themselves in contemplation and contemplation. experience and let go of the cool breeze and watch the peaked elephants walk their feet around the ancient city to dream about an ancient day when the legendary great monarchs of the Angkor dynasty are departing far away .

Back to the old story, why the statues people built Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom, the legendary Bayon has no hands? There must be no unintentional humanity but intentionality so that no one understands the secrets, the mysteries and mysteries of the great kings who transformed into Gods and Buddhas in Khmer legends. Nobody painted hands on Buddha's hands or feet even though there were millions of Buddha statues built and carved in the world. Just like the great kings built legendary Angkor, if it was an ordinary hand, there could not be those great temples.

The story recounts that in the past, there was an emperor who wanted talented celestial artists to draw his beautiful queen image. All talented artists invited were fired because when the painting was completed, the mandarins praised the beautiful faces, the beautiful eyes, but there were those who criticized the hair that was not beautiful, the figure was not the same . beheading because of the crime. Suddenly a painter asked to paint the Queen, everyone was surprised and discouraged because he did not want to see another head left off his neck.

The painter quietly sat down and drank some of the tea pots, then drew a few strokes and poured a lot of ink . The painting rose, the king was extremely surprised and angry because he did not see the shadow of the Queen anywhere. The painter grumbled: 'Your Majesty, the beauty of the beautiful Queen is covering her bed. Because when the Queen sleeps in a blanket, no one sees anything. Because no one can draw exactly like a model character, as well as no one in the world has absolute beauty. ' The King understood the incident, stopped the need for a craftsman and rewarded the brilliant intellectual artist.

The Angkorian legend forever remains an immortal legend because of all the mysteries of the two great kings and Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom, Bayon is forever immortal. Whether or not the two arms of the king on the stone statue are a mystery. But the temple tower of human wonders is a real existence in the world.