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Angkor Wat! There are not enough words to describe this ancient beauty. With its soaring towers and vast colonnades, the temple spans an area of nearly 500 acres, its magnificence easily rivaling any one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The massive temple complex is perfectly arranged into a mandala \u2013 a diagram of the cosmos itself. The grandeur is enough to make your heart sing and your eyes pour. You could simply lose yourself in the intricacies of the bas-relief carvings of the Hindu epics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, layering the walls of the stone structure. This once gold coated temple still stands as the world\u2019s largest religious monument. However, the story behind this engineering marvel and spiritual palace mostly remains a mystery to the Western world. <\/p>\n\n\n
\nMisconceptions About the Temple\u2019s History<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n While it is well established that Angkor Wat was built with an Indian influence, legends of the origins of the sacred temple found in Cambodia run far and wide. One popular belief is that Suryavaraman II, a supposed Khmer usurper king, built the megalithic structure as a mausoleum for himself. Documentaries, such as, How to Build Angkor Wat, claim that not only was it built as his gateway into heaven, but that Suryavaraman II did it to exert his autocratic dominance over his people and \u201cestablish his position as a God King.\u201d While these archaeologists recognize that it was built as a tribute to Lord Vishnu, they create a false sense of insecurity in the king towards the God. These stories are just that — stories. <\/p>\n\n\n \nAngkor Wat\u2019s Indian Roots<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n In reality, it was not built as a mere tribute to Vishnu but as an earthly abode for the God. The temple was built with such precision and forethought that it included 18 different astronomical configurations, which together, created a structure that aligned with God\u2019s stipulated directions. Within the sanctum of the highest tier of the temple, there was an Ashtabhuja Vishnu (eight-armed Vishnu), now at the main entrance, who is almost identical to the deity within the sanctum of the Ashtabhuja Perumal Temple of Kanchi. How did this Hindu temple bearing astonishing similarities to temples in South India end up in Cambodia?<\/p>\n\n\n \nShaiva Beginnings – Pallava Initiations<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n \nAccording to Bhagwan Sri Paramahamsa Nithyananda reading from the\nAkashic Records (the cosmic archives of everything that has happened\nand everything that will happen), the Khmer people of Cambodia and\nthe Pallava people of India initially had a simple trading\nrelationship. Eventually, the relationship grew and the two cultures\nbegan to merge. The Pallava king, Suryavaraman, married the Khmer\ntribe\u2019s daughter and was invited to settle down in Cambodia and\nbuild a kingdom there. As a result, the construction of Angkor Wat\nbegan.<\/p>\n\n\n \nWhat is most astonishing is the revelation that much of the temple\ncomplex was actually carved, assembled, numbered, and dismantled in\nIndia – in Mahabalipuram to be exact – and transported by boat to\nCambodia. Not only did they send the stones, but they also sent\ncraftsmen, tools, and even highly trained elephants for the building\nprocess. Bhagwan clarifies that the proof for this can be found on\nthe stones which all contain barcodes to identify the location of the\nstone in the structure. Furthermore, there is a tribute to the\ntemple\u2019s origins carved into one pillar of the complex.\n<\/p>\n\n\n \nMerging Distinct Cultures – A Hallmark of Hindu Rulers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n \nOnce the base structure of the temple was fully assembled, the\nelaborate bas-reliefs were carved into the structure. In true Pallava\nfashion, they dedicated the carvings to the local tribes and kings,\nintegrating their clothing, lifestyle, hair-style, and jewelry to\nhonor the local culture, while also incorporating their own physical\nattributes into the friezes. Suryavaraman was able to merge the two\ncultures and create such beautiful harmony in his kingdom by giving\nthe local culture tremendous respect, Bhagwan explains.\n<\/p>\n\n\n \nAfter that, the whole Cambodian population learned the skills to\nbuild temples and continued the art throughout. Eventually, the kings\n converted their religion to Buddhism and their people followed, and\nas a result, the Buddhist imagery that we find today, was built into\nthe architecture. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Angkor Wat! There are not enough words to describe this ancient beauty. With its soaring towers and vast colonnades, the temple spans an area of nearly 500 acres, its magnificence easily rivaling any one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The massive temple complex is perfectly arranged into a mandala \u2013 a diagram of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":307,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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