|
Angkor Travel
Guide
Bakheng Hill
It is a testimony to the love of
symmetry and balance which evolved
its style....in pure simplicity of
rectangles its beauty is achieved.
It is a pyramid mounting in
terraces, five of them ...Below
Bak-Keng lays all the world of
mystery, the world of the Khmer,
more mysterious ever under its cover
of impenetrable verdure.
Phnom Bakheng is located 1,30 meters
(4,265 feet) north of Angkor Wat and
400 meters (1,312 feet) south of
Angkor Thom. Enter and leave Phnom
Bakheng by climbing a long steep
path with some steps on the east
side of the monument (height 67
meters, 220 feet) In the 1960 this
summit was approached by elephant
and, according to a French visitor,
the ascent was "a promenade classic
and very agreeable"
Tip: Arrive at the summit just
before sunset for a panoramic view
of Angkor and its environs. The
golden hues of the setting sun on
this vista are a memorable sight.
When Frenchman Henri Mouhot stood at
this point in 1859 he wrote in his
diary: 'Steps.. lead to the top of
the mountain, whence is to be
enjoyed a view so beautiful and
extensive, that it is not surprising
that these people , who have shown
so much taste in their buildings,
should have chosen it for a site.
It is possible to see: the five
towers of Angkor Wat in the west,
Phnom Krom to the southwest near the
Grand Lake, Phnom Bok in the
northeast, Phnom Kulen in the east,
and the West Baray. Phnom Bakheng
was built in late ninth to early
tenth century by King Yasovarman
dedicated to Siva (Hindi).
Background
After Yasovarman became king in 889,
he founded his own capital,
Tasoharapura, Northwest of Roluos
and built Bakheng as his state
temple. The sites known today as
Angkor and thus Bakheng is sometimes
called 'the first Angkor '. A square
wall; each side of which is 4
kilometers (2.5 miles) long,
surrounded the city. A natural hill
in the center distinguished the
site.
A
Day On The Hill of The Gods
This is most solitary place in all
Angkor and the pleasantest. If it
was truly the Mount Meru of the
gods, then they chose their
habitation well. But if the Khmers
had chanced to worship the Greek
pantheon instead of that of India,
they would surely have built on
Phnom Bakheng a temple to Apollo;
for it is at sunrise and sunset that
you feel its most potent charm. To
steal out of the Bungalow an hour
before the dawn, and down the road
that skirts the faintly glimmering
moat of Angkor Wat before it plunges
into the gloom of the forest; and
then turn off, feeling your way
across the terrace between the
guardian lions (who grin amiably at
you as you turn the light of your
torch upon them); then clamber up
the steep buried stairway on the
eastern face of the hill, across the
plateau and up the five flights of
steps, to emerge from the enveloping
forest on to the cool high terrace
with the stars above you is a small
pilgrimage whose reward is far
greater than its cost in effort.
Here at the summit it is very still.
The darkness has lost its intensity;
and you stand in godlike isolation
on the roof of a world that seems to
be floating in the sky, among stars
peering faintly through wisps of
filmy cloud. The dawn comes so
unobtrusively that you are unaware
of it, until all in a moment you
realize that the world is no longer
dark. The sanctuaries and altars on
the terrace have taken shape about
you as if by enchantment; and far
below, vaguely as yet but gathering
intensity with every second, the
kingdom of the Khmers and the glory
thereof spreads out on every side to
the very confines of the earth; or
so it may well have seemed to the
King-god when he visited his
sanctuary how many dawns ago.
Soon, in the east, a faint pale gold
light is diffused above a grey bank
of cloud flat-topped as a cliff,
that lies across the far horizon; to
which smooth and unbroken as the
surface of a calm sea, stretches the
dark ocean of forest, awe-inspiring
in its tranquil immensity. To the
south the view is the same, save
where along low hill, the shape of a
couchant cat, lies in the monotonous
sea of foliage like an island.
Westward, the pearl-grey waters of
the great Baray, over which a thin
mist seems to be suspended, turn
silver in the growing light, and
gleam eerily in their frame of
overhanging trees; but beyond them,
too, the interminable forest flows
on to meet the sky. It is only on
the north and northeast that a range
of mountains the Dangrengs, eighty
miles or so away breaks the contour
of the vast, unvarying expanse; and
you see in imagination on its
eastern rampart the almost
inaccessible temple of Prah Vihear.
Immediately below you there is
morning is windless; but one after
the other, the tops of the trees
growing on the steep sides of the
Phnom sway violently to and fro, and
a fussy chattering announces that
the monkeys have awakened to a new
day. Near the bottom of the hill on
the south side, threadlike wisps of
smoke from invisible native hamlets
mingle with patches of mist. And
then, as the light strengthens, to
the southeast, the tremendous towers
of Angkor Wat push their black mass
above the grey-green monotony of
foliage, and there comes a reflected
gleam from a corner of the moat not
yet overgrown with weeds. But of the
huge city whose walls are almost at
your feet, and of all the other
great piles scattered far and near
over the immense plains that
surround you, not a vestige is to be
seen. There must surely be
enchantment in a forest that knows
how to keep such enormous secrets
from the all – Seeing Eye of the
sun.
In the afternoon the whole scene is
altered. The god-like sense of
solitude is the same; but the cool,
grey melancholy of early morning has
been transformed into a glowing
splendor painted in a thousand
shades of orange and amber, henna
and gold. To the west, the bray,
whose silvery waters in the morning
had all the inviting freshness of a
themes backwater, seems now, by some
occult process to have grown larger,
and spreads, gorgeous but sinister,
a sheet of burnished copper,
reflecting the fiery glow of the
waste ring sun. Beyond it, the
forest, a miracle of color, flows on
to be lost in the splendid
conflagration; and to the north and
east, where the light is less
fierce, you can see that the smooth
surface of the sea of treetops wears
here and there all the tints of an
English autumn woodland: a whole
gamut of flowing crimson flaring
scarlet, chestnut brown, and
brilliant yellow; for even these
tropic trees must 'winter
By this light you can see, too, what
was hidden in the morning that for a
few miles towards the south, the
sweep of forest is interrupted by
occasional patches of cultivation;
rice fields, dry and golden at this
season of the year, where cattle and
buffaloes are grazing.
As for the Great Wat, which in the
morning had showed itself an
indeterminate black mass against the
dawn; in this light, and from this
place, it is unutterably magical.
You have not quite an aerial view
the Phnom is not high enough for
that; and even if it were, the ever
encroaching growth of trees on its
steep sides shuts out the view of
the Wat's whole immense plan. But
you can see enough to realize
something of the superb audacity of
the architects who dared to embark
upon a single plan measuring nearly
a mile square. You point of view is
diagonal; across the north west
corner of the moat to the soaring
lotus-tip of the central sanctuary
you can trace the perfect balance of
every faultless live. Worshipful for
its beauty, bewildering in its
stupendous size there is no other
point from which the Wat appears so
inconceivable an undertaking to have
been attempted much less achieved by
human brains and hands.
But however that may be even while
it, the scene is changing under your
eyes. The great warm-grey mass in
its setting of foliage, turns from
grey to gold; from the fold to
amber, glowing with ever deeper and
deeper warmth as the sun sinks
lower. Purple shadows creep upwards
from the moat, covering the
galleries, blotting out the amber
glow; chasing it higher and higher,
over the poled up roofs, till it
rests for a while on the tiers of
carved pinnacles on the highest
tower, where an odd one here and
there glitters like cut topaz the
level golden rays strike it. The
forest takes on coloring that is
ever more autumnal the Baray for ten
seconds is a lake of fire; and then,
as though the lights had been turned
off the pageant is over...and the
moon, close to the full, com into
her owe, shining down eerily on the
scene that has suddenly become so
remote and mysterious; while a cool
little breeze blows up from the
east, and sends the stiff, dry
teak-leaves from the trees on the
hillside, down through the branches
with a metallic rattle.
There is one more change before this
nightly transformation-scene is
over: a sort of anti-climax to be
seen in these. Soon after the sun
has disappeared, an after-glow
lights up the scene again so warmly
as almost to create the illusion
that the driver of the sun's chariot
has turned his horses, and come back
again. Here on Bakheng, the warm
tones of sunset return for a few
minutes, but faintly, mingling
weirdly with the moonlight, to bring
effects even more elusively lovely
than any that have before. Then,
they too fade; and the moon, supreme
at last, shines down unchallenged on
the airy temple.
It is lonelier now. After the
gorgeous living pageantry of the
scene that went before it, the
moon's white radiance and the
silence are almost unbearably
deathlike far more eerie than the
deep darkness of morning with dawn
not far behind. With sunset, the
companionable chatter of birds and
monkeys in the trees below has
ceased; they have all gone
punctually to bed; even the cicadas
for a wonder are silent. Decidedly
it is time to go. Five almost
perpendicular flights of
narrow-treaded steps leading down
into depths of darkness are still
between you and the plateau on the
top of the Phnom: the kind of steps
on which a moment of sudden, silly
panic may easily mean a broken neck
–such is the bathos of such mild
adventures. And once on the plateau
you can take your choice of crossing
it among the crumbled ruins, and
plunging down the straight
precipitous that was once a
stairway- or the easy, winding path
through the forest round the south
side of the hill, worn by the
elephants of the explorers and
excavators. Either will bring you to
where the twin lions sit in the
darkness black now, for here the
trees are too dense to let the
moonlight through, and so home along
the straight road between its high
dark walls of forest, where all
sorts of humble, half-seen figures
flit noiselessly by on their bare
feet, with only a creak now and
again from the bundles of firewood
they carry, to warn you of their
passing. Little points of light
twinkle out from unseen houses as
you pass a hamlet; and, emerging
from the forest to the moat-side,
the figures of men figures of men
fishing with immensely long bamboo
rods, from the outer wall, are just
dimly visible in silhouette against
the moonlit water.
HW Ponder, Cambodian Glory, The
Mystery of the Deserted Khmer Cities
and their Vanquished Splendor, and a
Description of Life in Cambodia
today) Thornton Butter worth,
London, 1936)
It is difficult to believe, at
first, that the steep stone cliff
ahead of you is, for once, a natural
feature of the landscape, and not
one of those mountains of masonry to
which Angkor so soon accustoms you.
The feat of building a flight of
wide stone steps up each of its four
sides, and a huge temple on the top,
is a feat superhuman enough to tax
the credulity of the ordinary
mortal.
The temple of Bakheng was cut from
rock and faced with sandstone.
Traces of this method are visible in
the northeast and southeast corners.
It reflects improved techniques of
construction and the use of more
durable. This temple is the earliest
example of the plan with five
sandstone sanctuaries built on the
top level of a tiered base arranged
like the dots on a die, which became
popular later. It is also the first
appearance of secondary towers on
the tiers of the base.
Symbolism
The number of towers at Bakheng
suggests a cosmic symbolism.
Originally 109 towers in replica of
Mount Meru adorned the temple of
Phnom Bakheng but many are missing.
The total was made up of five towers
on the upper terrace, 12 on each of
the five tiers of the base, and
another 44 towers around the base.
The brick towers on the tiers
represent the 12-year cycle of the
animal zodiac (11). Excluding the
Central Sanctuary, there are 108
towers, symbolizing the four lunar
phases with 27 days in each phase.
The levels (ground, five tiers,
upper terrace) number seven and
correspond to the seven heavens of
Hindu mythology.
Layout
Every haunted corner of Angkor
shares in the general mystery of the
Khmers. And here the shadows seem to
lie a little deeper, for this hill
is like nothing else in the
district.
Phnom Bakheng is square with a base
of five tiers (1-5) and five
sanctuaries (6-10) on the top level,
occupying the corners and the middle
of the terrace. The sides of the
base are each 76 meters (249 feet)
long and the total height is 13
meters (43 feet). Each side of the
base has a steep stairway with a 70
incline. Seated lions flank each of
the five tiers. Vestiges of the wall
with entry towers (12) surrounding
the temple remain.
Seated lions sculpted in the round
are on each side of the slope near
the summit. The proportions on these
lions are particularly fine. Further
on, there is a small building on the
right with sandstone pillars; the
two lingas now serve as boundary
stones. Continuing towards the top,
one comes to a footprint of the
Buddha in the center of the path.
This is enclosed in a cement basin
and covered with a wooden roof.
Closer to the top, remains of an
entry tower in the outside wall
enclosing the temple are visible.
Two sandstone libraries on either
side of the walkway are identified
by rows of diamond-shaped holes in
the walls. Both libraries open to
the west and have a porch on the
east side.
Small brick sanctuary towers (11)
occupy the corners of each tier and
each side of the stairway.
Top Level
Five towers are arranged like the
dots on a die. The tower in the
middle contained the linga. It is
open to all four cardinal points.
The other four sanctuaries on the
top level also sheltered a linga on
a on a pedestal and are open on two
sides.
The evenly spaced holes in the
paving near the east side of Central
sanctuary probably held wooden
posts, which supported a roof. The
Central Sanctuary (10) is decorated
with female divinities under the
arches of the corner pillars and
Apsaras with delicately carved bands
of foliage above; the pilasters have
a raised interlacing of figurines.
The Makaras on the tympanums are
lively and strongly executed. An
inscription is visible on the
left-hand side of the north door of
the Central Sanctuary.
|
