The temple complex at Angkor Wat, just
outside of Siem Reap, Cambodia, is world famous for its intricate lotus -
blossom towers, its enigmatic smiling Buddha images and lovely dancing
girls (apsaras), and its geometrically perfect moats and reservoirs.
An architectural jewel, Angkor
Wat itself is the largest religious structure in the world. It is the
crowning achievement of the classical Khmer Empire, which once ruled
most of Southeast Asia. The Khmer culture and the empire alike were
built around a single critical resource: water.The connection with water is immediately apparent at Angkor today. Angkor Wat (meaning "Capital Temple") and the larger Angkor Thom ("Capital City") are both surrounded by perfectly square moats. Two five-mile-long rectangular reservoirs glitter nearby, the West Baray and the East Baray. Within the immediate neighborhood, there are also three other major barays, and numerous small ones.
Some twenty miles to the south of Siem
Reap, a seemingly inexhaustible supply of freshwater stretches across
16,000 square kilometers of Cambodia. This is the Tonle Sap, Southeast Asia's largest freshwater lake.
It may seem odd that a
civilization built on the edge of Southeast Asia's "great lake" should
need to rely on a complicated irrigation system, but the lake is
extremely seasonal. During the monsoon season, the vast amount of
water pouring through the watershed causes the Mekong River to
actually back up behind its delta, and begin to flow backwards. The
water flows out over the 16,000 square kilometer lake-bed, remaining for
about 4 months. However, once the dry season returns, the lake
shrinks down to 2,700 square kilometers, leaving the Angkor Wat area
high and dry.
The other problem with Tonle
Sap, from an Angkorian point of view, is that it is at a lower
elevation than the ancient city. Kings and engineers knew better than
to site their wonderful buildings too close to the erratic
lake/river, but they did not have the technology to make water run
uphill.
In order to provide a year-round supply
of water for irrigating rice crops, the engineers of the Khmer Empire
connected a region the size of modern - day New York City with an
elaborate system of reservoirs, canals and dams. Rather than using the
water of Tonle Sap, the reservoirs collect monsoon rainwater, and
store it for the dry months. NASA photographs reveal the traces of
these ancient waterworks, hidden at ground level by the thick tropical
rainforest. A steady water supply allowed for three or even four
plantings of the notoriously thirsty rice crop per year, and also left
enough water for ritual use.
According to Hindu mythology,
which the Khmer people absorbed from Indian traders, the gods live on
the five -peaked Mount Meru, surrounded by an ocean. To replicate
this geography, the Khmer king Suryavarman II designed a five-towered
temple surrounded by an enormous moat. Construction on his lovely
design began in 1140; the temple later came to be known as Angkor Wat.
In keeping with the aquatic nature of the
site, each of Angkor Wat's five towers is shaped like an unopened
lotus blossom. The temple at Tah Prohm alone was served by more than
12,000 courtiers, priests, dancing girls and engineers at its height -
to say nothing of the empire's great armies, or the legions of
farmers who fed all the others. Throughout its history, the Khmer
Empire was constantly at battle with the Chams (from southern Vietnam)
as well as different Thai peoples. Greater Angkor probably
encompassed between 600,000 and 1 million inhabitants - at a time when
London had perhaps 30,000 people. All of these soldiers, bureaucrats
and citizens relied upon rice and fish - thus, they relied upon the
waterworks.
The very system that allowed the
Khmer to support such a large population may have been their undoing,
however. Recent archaeological work shows that as early as the 13th
century, the water system was coming under severe strain. A flood
evidently destroyed part of the earthworks at West Baray in the
mid-1200s; rather than repairing the breach, the Angkorian engineers
apparently removed the stone rubble and used it in other projects,
idling that section of the irrigation system.
A century later, during the early phase of
what is known as the "Little Ice Age" in Europe, Asia's monsoons
became very unpredictable. According to the rings of long-lived po mu
cypress trees, Angkor suffered from two decades-long drought cycles,
from 1362 to 1392, and 1415 to 1440. Angkor had already lost control of
much of its empire by this time. The extreme drought crippled what
remained of the once-glorious Khmer Empire, leaving it vulnerable to
repeated attacks and sackings by the Thais.
By 1431, the Khmer people had
abandoned the urban center at Angkor. Power shifted south, to the
area around the present-day capital at Phnom Pehn. Some scholars
suggest that the capital was moved to better take advantage of coastal
trading opportunities. Perhaps the upkeep on Angkor's waterworks was
simply too burdensome.
In any case, monks continued to worship at
the temple of Angkor Wat itself, but the rest of the 100+ temples and
other buildings of the Angkor complex were abandoned. Gradually, the
sites were reclaimed by the forest. Although the Khmer people knew
that these marvelous ruins stood there, amidst the jungle trees, the
outside world did not know about the temples of Angkor until French
explorers began to write about the place in the mid-nineteenth
century.
Over the past 150 years,
scholars and scientists from Cambodia and around the world have worked
to restore the Khmer buildings and unravel the mysteries of the Khmer
Empire. Their work has revealed that Angkor Wat truly is like a
lotus blossom - floating atop a watery realm.
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