The history of Angkor, and of its historic monuments, is intimately related to the history of the Khmer empire. Over two-dozen rulers, involved in six centuries of bloody reigns and endless battles with neighboring kingdoms, figure in the chronicle of this highly evolved empire, its rise and fall. Angkor civilization came into existence during the period from 802 to 1431 A.D. The kingdom stretched from as far west as the modern Thailand-Burma border all the way to Wat Phou, in Laos, in the north, and the Kingdom of Champa, in Vietnam, in the east.

Héctor Méndez Caratini

Reflections on Eternal Time

Héctor Méndez Caratini

If the world is to become a peaceful place, we must all start out with inner peace.

Dalai Lama

I have written these notes on my journey to Southeast Asia after returning from an intense month-long photographic expedition, a pilgrimage to the heart of the Khmer Empire and other distant places. It has been my desire to communicate to others my great love for nature and for the eternal quest for spirituality. I confess that I have never felt more fully realized than when I was within that beautiful tropical Asian setting where, meditating on the solitude of the temples, surrounded by jungle, one enters a private and intimate communion with nature. In that place there is absolute silence, broken only by birdsong and the noises of exotic animals, and one feels accompanied by the gods.

It was several decades ago that I first became fully aware of the ancestral Hindu and Buddhist temples of Angkor in the remote jungles of Cambodia, thanks to pioneering works by several photographers, among them the black-and-white photos of Austrian Ernst Haas and Frenchman Marc Riboud. More recently there have been Japanese Kenro Izu’s impressive platinum/palladium and carbon-pigment prints, harking back to nineteenth-century techniques. Of course I had known of historic nineteenth-century publications by Charles-Emile Bouillevaux, Henri Mouhot, and Doudart de Lagrée, old drawings and prints, and images taken by the seminal photographers of a century-and-a-half ago: John Thompson, Charles Carpeaux, and others.

This journey that I wanted to take was unique. All my life as a professional photographer I had wanted to go there one day, to the other side of the planet, to make my own images of this mythical, magical place. It was the logical continuation of my previous documentation of religious subjects, such as: Searching for Miracles in Puerto Rico (1979–1988), María Lionza in Venezuela (1992), Gagá and Voodoo in the Dominican Republic (1994–1995), Kali and Mariaman in Martinique (1993–1997), Orixás in Brazil (1994-1995), and the Inkas in Peru (1974–2008). I knew I could also draw on the photo-documentation I had done of Petroglyphs in Puerto Rico (1975–1995) and the Coffee Plantations of the island (1987–1990). Our coffee plantations and the buildings and people on them would make a wonderful contrast with the architecture of the Khmer temples, both series done in the color of memory, sepia-toned black-and-white. I had spent over three and a half decades photographing humankind’s cultural heritage!

I remember thinking that Cambodia was just too far from my tropical island, and that it was still reeling from a catastrophe that had horrified the world—its recent history of genocide, with the bloody massacre of 18% of its population. In the 1970s, Cambodia was known as Democratic Kampuchea, and it may have been the most revolutionary government in the world at that time. The country was led by Saloth Sar, the infamous “Pol Pot.” Pol Pot was the secretary-general of the Cambodian Communist Party, which in pre-revolutionary times was known by foreigners as the Khmer Rouge—the Red Khmer.

From 1975 to 1979, this Asian nation was immersed in a bloody civil war under the Khmer Rouge regime. In less than four years, during the genocide, about 1.4 million Cambodians, one in six, died from illness, forced labor, malnutrition, and starvation. Another 200,000 Cambodians were imprisoned by government soldiers and executed as enemies of the state. Many were buried in over 20,000 mass grave sites, known now forever as the infamous Killing Fields. On January 7, 1979, a hundred thousand soldiers of the Communist Vietnamese army invaded Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital, and overthrew the government of Pol Pot and the dreadful Khmer Rouge.

As time passed, a window of peace opened, and I began to mentally prepare myself to visit Cambodia. I also wanted to visit Thailand on the same trip, but Thailand was enveloped in bloody street battles at the time, under a state of siege: the civilian population was trying to overthrow the government and the situation made it very risky for a foreigner like me to carry out a photographic mission.

After returning from my trips to Machu Picchu (1974 and 2008) and the dense Amazonian jungles of Peru in 2008 (from which an exhibit and book emerged—Inkaterra: A Suite in Three Movements), I began preparing for my next photographic expedition, which I planned for the summer of 2010. I wanted to continue to document sacred places, those declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

In late 2009, more than six months before I was to leave, I asked my dear friend and travel agent Celina Barasorda to help me coordinate the complicated logistics of airline flights and hotels in Asia. On the internet, I contacted the concierge at the Raffles Grand Hotel d’Angkor, who reserved a car with a driver and a private guide, both knowledgeable about the needs of photographers. I had no desire to travel in a bus full of tourists that would stop for a few minutes at designated photo-sites; I wanted to take my own time—all the time I needed—and photograph only the places that I really wanted to.

Upon my arrival at Siem Reap, Cambodia, my driver, Huy Sophai, was waiting for me at the airport, and he was soon telling me horrifying stories about the ill-fated Khmer Rouge—how at the age of seven he had miraculously escaped death by fleeing through the jungle, where he hid, alone, for over a week. When he came out, he found his entire family murdered and dismembered by the militia. Later, when I met Lap Tek, my personal guide, he told me a similar story. He and his sister had been the only survivors of a Khmer Rouge massacre. The wounds were still fresh, and the collective memory of the humble inhabitants of Cambodia had not yet scarred over. My chain-smoking guide had a great deal of experience taking professional photographers, and international TV crews, to sites they wanted to film in the dangerous Cambodian jungles.

At the hotel, I showed Lap Tek the list I’d prepared—some forty temples in the Angkor religious complex that I was interested in photographing. He put them in order and the next day we went to work. From seven in the morning until six in the evening for four wonderful, intense days, I visited the Buddhist and Hindu temples buried in the midst of the Cambodian jungle, often several kilometers from one another. The ancient temples are filled with mysticism, drama, and romance. Some are covered with the serpentine roots of trees that have been growing in, on, and through their rock walls for hundreds of years. In fact, it is clear that the gigantic roots threaten to destroy the temples, which makes Angkor one of the most endangered of the World Heritage Sites, as well as one of the most beautiful.

During the first day of our expedition, I visited twenty temples in and around the religious complex of Angkor Thom: Phimeanakas, Baphuon, Preah Palilay, the Royal Palace, the Elephant Terrace, Bayon, Thommanon, Chau Say Tevoda, Ta Prohm, and others. I remember that as I was reviewing the digital photos at the end of the day, I realized that one of the enigmatic, iconic photographs of the temple Ta Prohm, with its spectacular tree roots I intended to be representative of my photo-essay, had been taken with too much contrast, too much chiaroscuro, for my taste. The next morning I mentioned my preoccupation to my friend Tek, who immediately moved things in our tight schedule around so that I could go back and re-photograph the temple early the third day, before the sun came up.

That second day I visited ten more temples around Prasat Kravan, Pre Rup, Ta Som, Neak Pean, Preah Khan, Angkor Wat, and other sites. The third day I revisited Ta Prohm and visited five more temples that were some distance away: Banteay Srei, Kbal Spean, Lolei, Bakong, and Preah Ko. We had left the temples farthest away for the last day— Phnom Kulen, Beng Mealea, and Tonle Sap (the “Great Lake”) and the floating village. Inside the dark, damp rooms of the stone temples, every so often I would hear the sound of what seemed to be dogs barking. I looked for them, but I could never see them. The sounds turned out to be the mysterious calls of the geckos, small Asian lizards that hid under the rocks.

Each morning at breakfast, there would be exotic tropical fruits: rambutan, mangostin, longan, lychee, and others. I vividly recall that the heat and humidity were beastly. I sweated so much that my official permit to take photos inside the temples ripped, and at Bayon, the guards didn’t want to let me in, so I had to make arrangements with the authorities to repair my permit. After each temple, we refreshed ourselves with several liters of cold water and patted white, perfumed towels over our faces, necks, heads, and arms to cool ourselves. The always-resourceful Tek kept the towels in a cooler in the trunk of the car.

The third day, after going back to Ta Prohm for the second set of photographs, we drove, very early in the morning, to a place some 38 kilometers north of Siem Reap: the famed tiny pink temple called Banteay Srei, with its intricate, detailed carvings. Next, we drove 12 kilometers to the west and then walked uphill for over an hour, along a steep path more than a kilometer and a half long, until we reached the top of the mountain called Kbal Spean, where the Ruisey, known as the “river of 1,000 lingas” and a tributary of the Siem Reap, begins. A linga is a male phallic symbol, a sign of creative energy, and it is a key element in the creation and fertility cult of the Hindu sects that worship the god Shiva—the linga is, essentially, a symbol of Shiva. The lingas here were carved into the rocks on the shore of the river to fertilize the water that nourishes the rice paddies in the valley below and then flows on to fill the moats that surround the sacred temples. According to believers, the water that runs over the lingas in the river becomes sacred, and even magical.

But god Shiva is a god of destruction; he is violent, and demands sacrifices. When we reached the summit of Kbal Spean, the sky suddenly turned black, the clouds were filled with lightning, and we were caught in a torrential downpour. Totally drenched, we sought refuge in a rock overhang. In the dark interior of the open cave, there was a tiny animist altar to the ancestral deities. Out of the cave there began to come snakes, frogs, and bats, whirling around our heads; they accompanied us until the downpour was over. Needless to say, it goes without saying that god Shiva took advantage of my naiveté and sacrificed my Leica, which died on the spot, as his due tribute. Fortunately, my faithful Nikon survived the onslaught, so I could complete the photo-essay that I’d set out to produce.

We descended from the summit slowly, taking care not to fall on the slippery rocks and injure ourselves. All down the slope we were accompanied by flocks of colorful butterflies lighting our way. Even as we listened to the birds singing after the storm, we were careful not to let ourselves be distracted and stray from the path, since there were thousands of unexploded land mines here, just off the beaten track. I silently told myself, “Photographing the gods is not easy!”

The next day, heading north from Siem Reap, we drove over a hundred kilometers along another narrow, twisting, dusty, one lane red-clay, un-paved road to pay homage to the country’s largest reclining Buddha. Located at an altitude of 1,500 feet, the figure is carved from a single enormous rock. It is estimated to be around 900 years old. It was in this historic place in 802 that King Jayavarman II established his royal city Phnom Kulen, and with it, the first Khmer kingdom. Visitors are allowed to ascend to and descend from this tropical site surrounded by dense jungle only during certain hours. Suddenly, the jungle opened and we had reached the summit of Phnom Kulen. On this remote mountaintop, the Khmer paid homage to the spirits of their ancestors. Here worshippers practiced a primitive animistic religion in which the mountain, the earth, the water and the sky, as well as other natural elements, had souls and were venerated and feared as gods.

Our next stop was Beng Mealea, a temple in the midst of another jungle. This structure is still in its unrestored state, many of the stones fallen from its walls, like a temple in Indiana Jones. Around it there are hundreds of unexploded land mines. It has been estimated that beginning in 1940, over 8 million land mines were planted in Cambodia, from which 40,000 civilians have died or been injured. Although the German government has helped clean up many of the mines, around this temple one can still see many children and adults who are missing legs due to stepping in the wrong place. That evening, it took us over two hours to get back to the hotel, 77 kilometers to the south.

During my stay in Cambodia I did what I had come to do: I’d taken over 6,000 photographs of the temples and people. I had visited thirty-eight of the most important archaeological sites associated with the Hindu and Buddhist temples, of a total of 910 monuments. In my search for spirituality in the sacred places, I’d covered over 400 kilometers by car.

As an afterword to that photo-essay, I returned to Southeast Asia the next summer (2011), to continue my series on the subject of Buddhism, the monasteries in the Himalayan kingdoms of Tibet, Nepal, and Bhutan, and the temples in Thailand, a country that had been vetoed when I first began this journey. I include four photographs from that trip here as a kind of bonus. Although these temples are not physically related to the Angkor religious complex, they follow the style of the temples located in Ayutthaya, the kingdom of Siam (Thailand) that invaded Angkor in the mid-fifteenth century and was, therefore, the cause of its decline and fall. Their architecture is of the same period as Angkor’s, and so the photographs can serve as a document of that conquering nation’s temples of the time.

This photo-essay is an integral part of my life’s philosophical vision, which is intimately tied to spirituality and nature—ineradicable images of the remains of empires prior to our own, enormous religious complexes in their unrestored state, in the middle of tropical jungles, abandoned by civilization but recovered by nature. The ancestral stone monuments remain still, while time passes. The passage of time. In which time seems to have faded. Eternal time.

September 23, 2011
Isla Verde, Puerto Rico

Asian Rose

Introduction

The history of Angkor, and of its historic monuments, is intimately related to the history of the Khmer empire. Over two-dozen rulers, involved in six centuries of bloody reigns and endless battles with neighboring kingdoms, figure in the chronicle of this highly evolved empire, its rise and fall. Angkor civilization came into existence during the period from 802 to 1431 a.d. The kingdom stretched from as far west as the modern Thailand-Burma border all the way to Wat Phou, in Laos, in the north.

During most of that time, Angkor was the capital of ancient Cambodia. The name “Angkor” is derived from the Sanskrit word nagara, which means “city” (both a royal city and the territory controlled by the monarch, the kingdom or state), modified to nokor, hence angkor. “Angkor Wat” literally means “City of Temples” and “Angkor Thom,” “The Magnificent City.” The name Angkor is now used to designate the Cambodian kingdom that exercised authority over the Khmer population from the ninth to the fifteenth century. Today it is one of the world’s greatest architectural sites, a legacy to humanity from the Khmer civilization.

The center of Khmer civilization was located in the area of what is now Angkor Wat, which is situated on the plain of Siem Reap province, north of Tonlé Sap, the “Great Lake,” the largest lake in Southeast Asia and the most productive freshwater fishery in the world. The lake and its connection to the Mekong River created an abundance of natural resources that supported one of the most majestic civilizations on earth, the Khmer. They developed a highly efficient system of irrigation that controlled the waters of the Mekong River and enabled the Khmer to develop a prosperous urban culture based on an agricultural economy. Their expert use of reservoirs and their network of canals created a rice industry capable, some experts say, of feeding the estimated one million inhabitants of Angkor — the twelfth century’s largest metropolitan area.

Angkor’s geographic position was of strategic importance in controlling trade on the sea routes around the Mekong Delta, the Gulf of Thailand, and the narrow Isthmus of Kra, which separates eastern Asia from India. Archeologists date the origins of Indian contact with Southeast Asia to before the Christian era. By the second century a.d., evidence indicates, there was busy commercial activity within the region. It was this trade with India (gold, spices, and various forest products) that brought the Khmer their first exposure to what would be their primary cultural contacts and introduced them to the religions of Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism. Khmer art, architecture, and religious beliefs all came directly from India, whose influence was crucial in the development of the Khmer civilization.

Hinduism, or Brahmanism, which made such a large impact on the Khmer civilization, stems from the Vedic religion, which was brought to the Indian subcontinent by the Aryans toward the middle of the second millennium b.c. In India, Vedism coexisted with the worship of indigenous animistic nature deities and cults of ancestors linked to the underworld. In Brahmanism, the divine principle is linked to individual gods, such as Vishnu, Shiva, Brahma, and others.

In the Hindu Trinity, Vishnu is the Protector, the god who preserves universal order and fights to restore harmony. Shiva, on the other hand, is seen as the Destroyer. He brings each kalpa (world cycle) to an end with his dance of destruction. The end of each kalpa signifies the beginning of the next, so that rebirth follows destruction. The third divinity is Brahma, the personification of the sacred energy and evoked in priestly sacrifices.

This mosaic of ideas from India was implemented on the earthly plane in a highly centralized form of government, which reflected the religious cosmos. The hierarchy of the gods was thus enacted in the world of men. The king was at the summit of the hierarchical social order and was responsible for the kingdom’s prosperity, just as the supreme god maintained cosmic order and unity in the celestial spheres. The Angkor monarchs adopted the Hindu concept of devaraja, “the god who is king” or “king of the gods,” in which the king was revered as the incarnation of the god Vishnu, the supreme Hindu deity, the protector.

Most temples in the Angkor empire were dedicated either to Vishnu or to Shiva. Apsaras (the celestial dancers represented in the traditional Cambodian dance) adorn some of the walls of the temples, which were believed to be the holy houses of the supreme gods. Hinduism dominated until the end of the twelfth century, when it gave way to Mahayana Buddhism.

It is believed that Prince Siddhartha Gautama (also known as Sakyamuni, a title of the Buddha which means “seer of the Sakya clan”) was born in Lumbini, in the foothills of the Himalayas, in southern Nepal, around the fifth century b.c. Later, he achieved enlightenment and became the Buddha. The historical evolution of Buddhism was very complex, but eventually there came to be two principal branches: Theravada Buddhism (the “Greater Vehicle”) and Mahayana Buddhism (the “Lesser Vehicle”). The Theravada school of Buddhism, which literally means “wisdom of the elders,” emphasizes the humanity of the Buddha as a human being who left the earth when he died, not to be reborn again. Mahayana Buddhism, on the other hand, focuses on the doctrine of rebirth. Mahayana preaches a way of life in which the salvation of the soul — meaning an end to the cycle of reincarnation by entering nirvana (the state of not-being-born-again) — can be achieved after many reincarnations by means of meditation. The names point to the distinction between Theravada’s emphasis on individual enlightenment and Mahayana’s ideal of the enlightenment of all beings.

Both Hinduism and Buddhism played important roles as the political, religious, and philosophical pillars of the Khmer civilization. Through these religions, the king was revered as a god-king, which enabled him to rule over the country as an absolute monarch with spiritual sovereignty over his people, thus enhancing the unity of the kingdom. Successive kings were able to mobilize enormous manpower to serve the army, maintain the kingdom’s extensive irrigation system, and build numerous roads and massive temples.

The ancient Khmer were knowledgeable architects, artisans, and craftsmen in the art of stone carving, as is evidenced by the hundreds of temples and monuments they built over the centuries. Most of their written history can be found in the Old Khmer and Sanskrit inscriptions carved on the temple’s stones. Some of the earliest inscriptions date from the fifth century. The splendor of these monuments and their spectacular settings show us how rich and important is this group of historic monuments in Cambodia.

Khmer Rulers: A Chronology of the Kings at Angkor

The period from the beginning of the Christian era until the end of the eighth century is known as the Pre-Angkorean Period. It was during this time that the classical Khmer civilization emerged. This period is often known as the time of “Indianization” or “Hindunization,” since many key elements of Indian culture, such as languages, religions, and the concept of royalty were adopted during these centuries. It was a time when several independent kingdoms coexisted side by side and various monument-groups were constructed, such as Angkor Borei and Phnom Da in the modern state of Takeo, where the oldest Cambodian royal cities have been found.

King Isnavarman I (r. 610–628) ruled over most of Cambodia, and his reign represents a major stage along the road toward Khmer unification. He was responsible for constructing the temple at Sambor Prei Kuk, thus establishing the first monument of the Pre-Angkorean style of architecture. In the seventh and eighth century, when Sambor Prei Kuk was called Isanapura, it served as the capital of Chenla. Temples from this period were generally built of brick, with sandstone reserved for decorative elements in the frames of doors and lintels. Isnavarman I was followed by a lineage of several successors, including Bhavavarman II and Jayavarman I, who together allowed the empire to disintegrate into smaller states.

The country remained in this ruinous condition until the end of the eighth century, when Jayavarman II (r. 790–835) became king. His reign marked the beginning of the Angkorean Period. He settled first in Mahendraparvata, in the Kulen Hills, and later, in 802, he was anointed cakravartin (“world emperor” or “the king of kings”) at Phnom Kulen, from which seat of power he united the nearby territories. This historical event is seen as an important landmark in the evolution of Khmer nationhood, and is celebrated as the moment that the country’s national identity was forged.

Phnom Kulen is a series of plateaus reaching almost 500 meters in height. Rivers flowing down from this plateau played an important religious role in the country’s culture. The water that rises in springs on the hills is believed to be sacred, as Jayavarman is said to have bathed in it. As the water flows down into streams and rivers, it passes over a series of sculptures of linga (abstract representations of the god Shiva taking the form of pillars usually carved in stone; the linga is a phallic symbol representing fertility), images of Vishnu reclining on the naga Ananta (the divine serpent on which Vishnu rests between worldly cycles, and a symbol of eternity), and other icons, before finally flowing down into the plain below to fertilize the rice paddies and fill the baray (a large reservoir of water, symbolically representing the cosmic ocean) and moats of the temples.

Jayavarman II’s regime was a replica of Indian monarchy. He built numerous temples throughout the empire for the worship and praise of Hindu gods and he implemented the cult of devaraja as a declaration of the king’s right, by virtue of his claim to divinity, to wield complete and unquestioned authority over his people. This Sanskrit cult emphasized the importance of the god Shiva as the protector of the country and its prosperity. Jayavarman II’s last place of residence was Hariharalaya, an ancient capital in the region of what is now Roluos, on the shores of Tonlé Sap, and this city remained the Khmer capital under his two immediate successors, Jayavarman III and Indravarman I.

Jayavarman III (r. 835–877) began construction of the laterite pyramid of the Bakong temple. Inside the temple is the god Shiva, in the form of a linga. The temple of Preah Ko, another example of a cult sanctuary dedicated to Shiva, was consecrated in 879 by Indravarman I (r. 877–889). Indravarman also built a huge water reservoir, which had religious significance.

At the end of the ninth century, the capital of Yasovarman I’s empire (r. 899–910) was established at Phnom Bakheng, one of the few hills in the Angkor region. The hill of Bakheng symbolized Mount Meru. Yasovarman I selected it as the center of the new city of Yasodharapura, now known as Angkor. The foundations of the great Phimeanakas temple date to the reign of Yasovarman, who also built the East Baray, an enormous reservoir more than 7 km long. Earlier, in 893, Yasovarman had constructed the Lolei, Phnom Krom, and Phnom Bok temples. After his death, his two sons continued the dynasty.

Baksei Chamkrong, constructed by Harshavarman I (r. 915–923), is in the form of a temple-mountain representing Mount Kailash, a mountain located high in the Himalayas, symbolically viewed as the earthly manifestations of the mythical Mount Meru –which according to cosmologies and origin myths of Asian religions is considered to be the axis mundi, the center and birth place of the entire universe. Upon the death of Isanavarman II (r. 923–928), there was a change in royal succession and the throne went to Jayavarman IV (r. 928–941), who abruptly moved the capital to Koh Ker and built the brick temple of Prasat Thom.

With the accession to the throne of Rajendravarman (r. 944–968), king of the old kingdom of Bhavapura, the royal and religious institutions returned to Angkor, where they remained until the capital was eventually abandoned, in 1431. Rajendravarman built a number of temples during his reign, such as Pre Rup; East Mebon, an “island” temple in the middle of the reservoir; Bat Chum; and Srah Srang.

King Rajendravarman was succeeded by his son Jayavarman V (r. 968–1000), who built several temples, among them Ta Keo, the North Khleang, and the gopura (the entrance gateway) of the Royal Palace. Yajnyavaraha, an eminent counselor to Jayavarman V, built the celebrated sanctuaries of the temple of Ishvarapura, now known as Banteay Srei. This temple was consecrated in 967, to honor the last year of Jayavarman’s father’s reign. There are three prasat (from the Indian prasada, a terraced pyramid temple in the shape of a tower) in the first enclosure, which also houses two libraries. The temple is famous for its pink sandstone construction and exceptional decoration. The central sanctuary tower and the southern tower were dedicated to Shiva, while Vishnu was worshipped in the north tower. Jayavarman V was succeeded by Udayadityavarman, who ruled only two years before being ousted from power and murdered. His two sons disputed over the throne, and the result was eight years of internecine struggle.

This might be the moment to might pause to note that in imperial states, power tends to derive from control of the military. The case of the Khmer kingdom is no exception, as we can see from the famous bas-relief carvings in the walls of Banteay Srei: lines of bowmen aim upward to defend themselves from the enemy. Soldiers used many types of weapons in Khmer warfare, including spears, swords, daggers, and shields, as well as catapults and ballistae borne on wheeled carts towed by elephants.

The struggle for power ended in 1010 with a final victory by Suryavarman I (r. 1002–1049). “Surya” is the name given in some parts of India to the powerful deity of the sun. The new king built the Royal Palace at Angkor Thom, four major temples to Shiva, and a new reservoir, the West Baray. He was succeeded by his son Udayadityavarman II (r. 1050–1066), who built the Baphuon, a great temple-mountain whose central tower shrine was originally covered in bronze. Udayadityavarman’s brother Harshavarman III (r. 1066–1080) acceded to the throne and, as events were to prove, became the last king of this dynasty.

After Harshavarman III, a new lineage of kings ascended to the throne. These rulers came from the Khorat Plateau, in present-day Thailand. After two reigns, those of Jayavarman VI and Dharanindravarman I, Suryavarman II (r. 1113–1150) came to power. Suryavarman II embraced the Vaishnavite faith. Beng Mealea was constructed during his reign. This king engaged in several military campaigns to expand the empire, and during his reign the Khmer kingdom grew to include more territory than it had possessed under any of his predecessors. This period, then, marks the summit of Angkor’s power and influence. The construction of Angkor Wat was the crowning achievement of Suryavarman II’s reign, marking the beginnings of Angkorean architecture.

Angor Wat falls into the category of temple-mountains, which are monuments constructed in the form of stepped pyramids. The pyramid is associated with the Indian concept of the temple as the microcosm of both the world of men and the home of the celestial gods, who are believed to reside in mountains. The pyramids, then, were seen as providing the gods with a home in which to reside on earth, thus aiding humans and guaranteeing their prosperity.

Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain cosmography view the mythological mountain Mount Meru as the axis of the universe and the home of all the gods. Angkor Wat hews to the traditional descriptions of Mount Meru. It has a central prasat rising high above its base, counterbalanced by four smaller towers in the corners. Also, its four concentric moats make it the ideal model of Vishnu’s residence on earth. The temple faces west, an orientation that has a funerary implication, and in fact it houses the king’s reliquary. Its moat and enclosure wall encompass nearly five hundred acres, making it the largest religious building in the world.

After the death of Suryavarman II, major revolts in the provinces caused serious political unrest and confusion. Two more kings followed, Yasovarman II and Tribhuvanadityavarman, but they came and went, largely ineffectually, in three decades. The Cham invasion in 1177 was another major event during this period. This invasion led to the death of Tribhuvanadityavarman (r. 1165–1177), the sacking of Angkor, and its subjection to foreign rule from the neighboring kingdom of Champa, in what is now central Vietnam.

Jayavarman VII (r. 1181–1220) organized and led the Khmer’s struggle for independence and in less than five years succeeded in driving out the invaders and establishing his hegemony over all his Cambodian rivals. He was crowned in 1181 and undertook the greatest construction projects in Angkor’s history. During his thirty-nine-year reign a 12-kilometer-long wall was constructed around Angkor Thom. The wall contained an impressive entrance gateway adorned with faces of the guardians who provided protection and access to the city. Jayavarman VII also made important modifications to the Royal Palace,  built an extensive network of major roads to facilitate transportation, and constructed over sixteen major monuments and hundreds of temples and hospitals throughout the empire, among them Ta Prohm, Preah Khan, Ta Som, Banteay Kdei, and the Bayon.

Jayavarman VII also introduced important changes in religion. Under him, Mahayana Buddhism was adopted as the state religion, displacing the Hindu gods. All in all, the reign of Jayavarman VII is considered the zenith of the Angkor Empire and of Khmer civilization.

He was followed by Indravarman II (r. 1220–1243), whose power began to decline. The next king, Jayavarman VIII (r. 1243–1295), was a devoted follower of Hinduism and a brutal enemy of Buddhism, responsible for the massive destruction of thousands of statues of Buddha across the empire. He restored a number of important Hindu temples and reinstated the worship of Shiva as the kingdom’s religion.

Afterward, under Srindravarman (r. 1295–1307), Theravada Buddhism (Lesser Vehicle Buddhism) became the kingdom’s religion, and this moment represents the most important religious and cultural change in Cambodia’s history. Many wooden temples were built during this period, although they have perished with time. Theravada Buddhism was introduced from Sri Lanka (Ceylon) and gradually infiltrated into the people.

In the mid-fourteenth century, armies from Ayutthaya, the Siamese state in the Chaophaya River Basin to the west, in present-day Thailand, invaded and seized Angkor. In 1431 the city went into a slow decline. King Dhammashokaraja was removed from power and killed. His son Ponhea Yat succeeded him, but soon, deciding that the city was too vulnerable and too difficult to defend, he decided to abandon the capital. In 1434 he moved the capital to the site on which the city of Phnom Penh now stands. There, he built a Royal Palace and a bell-shaped stupa (a Buddhist shrine in the shape of a dome, containing Buddhist relics, a place of worship).

Conclusion

When Angkor was abandoned and ceased to be the capital of the Khmer state, its art treasures were plundered and thousands of religious buildings were left to the ravages of time. Soon, they began to be engulfed by the tropical forest, and they disappeared from historical view. But this legendary civilization was not entirely lost, nor was it forgotten. The royal government continued on, its culture still dominated by Theravada traditions.

The teachings of Theravada Buddhism directly clashed with the original belief of the Khmer people, as it taught its people to seek self-enlightenment, abandon worldly things, and put aside superstition beliefs, which indirectly meant all deities. With these teachings, the attitudes of the ordinary individual toward his or her Hindu gods, as well as toward the god-king, changed entirely and this in turn led to the gradual weakening of the empire, which eventually collapsed in the first half of the fifteenth century.

During this last period, inland agrarian centers began to give way to flourishing commercial centers near the coast. Trade with China’s Ming dynasty increased. Scholars speculate that the changing directions of trade routes to and from neighboring countries had a decisive influence on Angkor as a strategic center. Much, though, still remains in darkness. The economy and geography of Angkor as a massive urban complex still needs to be studied in greater depth.

Ironically, what initially became the symbol of the triumph of Hindu religion in the Khmer empire has now become the most important Buddhist monument in Cambodia. Today, entire communities of saffron-robed Theravada monks can be seen praying and meditating inside this living ancient monument. The deepest emanations of mankind’s search for a sacred place give this timeless culture its beauty, its magic, its mystical place on earth. Angkor Wat is the best-known monument in Southeast Asia and the greatest masterpiece of Khmer architecture, art, and religion working hand in hand.

Las Visiones de la Antigua Angkor, o esas Visitas Fantasmales

Héctor Méndez Caratini ha sido, ya casi por cuatro décadas, nuestro cronista fotográfico por excelencia. Subrayo lo de cronista porque su fotografía se mantiene distante del reportaje periodístico y se ocupa del estudio exhaustivo, nada circunstancial, de un sujeto. Es una fotografía que ya tiene su sitial privilegiado en la tradición del fotoperiodismo ensayístico, tal y como se definió en la mejor época de la revista Life. Como en Puerto Rico este periodismo fotográfico es raro, experimental y exporádico, tenemos que pensar en la fotografía ejemplar de Jack Delano y Edwin Rosskam como su antecedente inmediato. Justo cuando Jack Delano se distanció algo de la fotografía, ahí empezó la aventura fotográfico de Méndez Caratini, su pasión por captar las vicisitudes y cambios del Puerto Rico contemporáneo.

Su concepción dela fotografía como testimonio social nos ha ofrecido desde la serie de los presos nacionalistas y las fiestas de Loiza, en los años setenta, hasta los excéntricos rodeos boricuas y las carreras de “fiebrús” del automovilismo en los albores del Siglo XXI. También ha testimoniado, con gran sobriedad ideológica aunque intensa simpatía, la lucha contra la Marina de Vieques. Ha logrado un cuerpo de vídeos y fotografías de gran valor etnográfico, testimonios para entender la religiosidad popular antillana y brasileña, ahí quedan sus documentales sobre el Gagá y Vudú dominicano, el culto de María Lionza en Venezuela, los Orixás de Bahía.

Esta exposición que ahora nos ocupa, Visiones de la Antigua Angkor, establece de inmediato sus semejanzas con la serie de Haciendas Cafetaleras de Puerto Rico. En ambos trabajos, se usa ese sepia sobre la fotografía en blanco y negro que nuestro fotógrafo identifica con la memoria misma. El sepia también le otorga parte de su cualidad visionaria a este sorprendente conjunto de fotografías. Es el sepia un acento que se le coloca a la mirada que desfamiliariza estos templos del Imperio Jémer, que los convierte en una recordada —quizás soñada— alucinación de piedras y raíces locamente entrelazadas. Es decir, el sepia le añade esa extrañeza a lo que son recintos muchas veces vistos en reproducciones para revistas turísticas. Y, por momentos, frente a estas fotografías, es como si volviéramos, así, en la añejada frescura de estas imágenes, un poco en la máquina del tiempo, al descubrimiento de estos templos por la expedición francesa que los desveló en 1861.

Méndez Caratini, en la tradición del viajero romántico del Siglo XIX, o sea, el viajero explorador más que el mero turista novelero, ha querido contemplar las ruinas de la Angkor desde la perspectiva del testigo único. Y aquí notamos otra relación con el trabajo de las Haciendas Cafetaleras. En ambos ensayos fotográficos la mirada del fotógrafo no admite la de otros testigos, es decir, intenta captar, sobre todo, la desolación de ese lugar. Son sitios que parecen abandonados, excepto por la mirada fantasmática del fotógrafo porque es como si éste visitara esos sitios con la presencia subrepticia, y a la vez delicada, de los fantasmas. He aquí la originalidad de estas fotos: su lirismo, el toque leve de la mirada, también resulta perturbador, ya que esas ruinas parecen estar ahí solo para nosotros, y de ahí su cualidad visionaria. Son fotos que nos hablan en susurros, de manera íntima, como ocurre con los aposentos del pintor danés Wilhelm Hammershøi, casi ausentes éstos de la figura humana.

En las fotografías del templo de Ta Prohm, vemos cómo estas ruinas son estranguladas por árboles gigantescos, como la Ceiba pentandra. Es entonces que estas fotografías nos comentan el paso del tiempo. Esas piedras esculpidas por la imaginación humana —aunque piedras al fin— representan un tiempo que rebasa por mucho nuestra estadía en el planeta y que, a la postre, son rotas por el tiempo vegetal. Porque la vegetación sí crece implacablemente, hasta destruir la huella humana en la piedra. De ahí debemos deducir que lo vivo, lo vegetal y animal, es infinitamente más cruel que lo mineral. Esta exposición os ofrece esa visión vertiginosa. Nos tropezamos con esta revelación, justo ahora que hemos perdido la capacidad para sonreír como esos budas, ahí semiocultos entre los troncos y raíces. Una sonrisa del Buda en piedra, casi estrangulada por las raíces de alguna Ceiba, es un precario intento por instalar la serenidad en el corazón humano.

Cuando Piranesi dibujó las ruinas de la Roma imperial, también sitiadas, asoladas y estranguladas por el reino vegetal, a veces incluía aquellas equívocas poses de viajeros arqueólogos; eran poses a mitad de camino entre el asombro y el espanto. Aquella era la sensibilidad romántica; la nuestra está más susceptible a una especie de perplejidad, la captación de cierta ironía trágica, como la de ese magnífico templo de Angkor Vat reflejado en las aguas de una laguna. Y nos preguntamos si el espejismo que vemos en las aguas resultaría más real que esas bellísimas torrecillas, testigos mudos de la cercana guerra de Camboya en los setenta, indiferentes a las crueldades del Jémer Rojo. De hecho, una sola figura humana que pasara huyendo, o persiguiendo, cerca de esas ruinas, sería un testimonio sobre cuán impasibles e indiferentes siempre lucen las nubes, los cielos y los dioses, ahí también reflejados en el estanque.

En esta muestra, el arte fotográfico de Héctor Méndez Caratini se convierte en meditación; es un llamado, mediante la concreción de las imágenes, a una actitud metafísica. Se trata de un arte maduro, de gran complejidad en sus incitaciones, de evidencias inapelables en sus hermosas superficies. Sin duda es una culminación en la carrera de nuestro gran fotógrafo y cronista.

Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá
Guaynabo, Puerto Rico
Junio de 2012

MENSAJE DEL RECTOR

La fotografía es la memoria que inmortaliza momentos y lugares importantes de la historia personal y de la cultura de un pueblo. El valor de una fotografía recae en su capacidad de hacernos recordar, reconstruir y aprender de ese instante, periodo o lugar.

La exposición Visiones de la Antigua Angkor del fotógrafo puertorriqueño Héctor Méndez Caratini cumple a cabalidad con esta descripción. A través del trabajo magistral de este artista, las personas podrán transportarse en el tiempo para conocer, a través de los visuales, la trascendental historia detrás de las paredes de este monumento del siglo VIII AC. ubicado en el reino surasiático de Camboya.

Este trabajo brinda un gran aporte a la educación a través del enriquecimiento de la cultura universal. Presenta, además, el testimonio social de la civilización jémer. Una historia llena de símbolos religiosos, cósmicos, de poder, de lucha y de liberación matizada por las tonalidades en sepia de cada una de las 63 fotografías.

La universidad del Turabo, como promotora de la cultura, se honra en tener en nuestro museo la exhibición de este destacado fotógrafo. Agradezco la colaboración de todas las personas que han hecho posible la misma. Los invito a adentrarse en la historia del templo símbolo de Camboya y Patrimonio de la Humanidad.

Espero que la disfruten.

Dennis Alicea, Ph.D.
Rector
Universidad del Turabo

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MENSAJE DE LA DIRECTORA

El Museo y Centro de Estudios Humanísticos Dra. Josefina Camacho de la Nuez presenta la obra fotográfica de Héctor Méndez Caratini,Visiones de la Antigua Angkor que nos permite ver las imágenes de lugares remotos a los cuales no tenemos fácil acceso. En el 1992, la UNESCO reconoció el recinto sagrado de Angkor como parte del Patrimonio Mundial de lugares históricos de valor excepcional, lugares entre los que ya se encontraba, desde el 1983, nuestra ciudad histórica de San Juan, también considerada como parte del Patrimonio Mundial de la UNESCO.

Esperamos que con esta exhibición los estudiantes, profesores y el público en general puedan disfrutar y aprender sobre esta antigua civilización y su arquitectura majestuosa, a través de las fotografías tomadas por Méndez Caratini, estimulando así en ellos el estudio de las religiones hinduista y budista.

La producción de Méndez Caratini es conocida por sus ensayos fotográficos sobre los Petroglifos, las Haciendas Cafetaleras, sus viajes por el Caribe y Venezuela en los que profundizó en el estudio de las culturas afroantillanas. En el caso de Angkor Vat, la actual Camboya, la arquitectura de estos maravillosos templos, es la que capta su imaginación y nos la hace visible a través de su magistral obra.

Carmen T. Ruiz de Fischler, Ph.D.
Directora
Museo y Centro de Estudios Humanísticos Dra. Josefina Camacho de la Nuez