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Manasara Series (I. A Dictionary of Hindu Architecture; II. Indian Architecture according to Manasara-Shilpashastra; III. Manasara on Architecture and Sculpture: Sanskrit Text; IV. Architecture of Manasara: Translation; V. Architecture of Manasara: Illustrations; VI. Hindu Architecture in India and Abroad; VII. An Encyclopaedia of Hindu Architecture) v6.c41.s17.t3: City of Angkor Thom

Mānasāra Series (I. A Dictionary of Hindu Architecture; II. Indian Architecture according to Mānasāra-Śilpaśāstra; III. Mānasāra on Architecture and Sculpture: Sanskrit Text; IV. Architecture of Mānasāra: Translation; V. Architecture of Mānasāra: Illustrations; VI. Hindu Architecture in India and Abroad; VII. An Encyclopaedia of Hindu Architecture) v6.c41.s17.t3

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English

City of Angkor Thom

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The foundation of the city of Angkor Thom was laid by the first king, Jayavarman II (802–869), but not completed or occupied till the reign of Yaśovarman (889–910), the fourth king. This long period of a hundred years required for its construction is indicated by the greatness of the city, its palaces, temples, roads, and bridges. ‘The city measured close upon 10,000 feet east to west, and 9,600 feet from north to south, giving a perimeter of 7½ miles to the enclosure walls. Those walls, about 22 feet high, were surrounded by a moat, 300 feet wide, and entered through five gates, one on the north, south, and west sides, and two on the east, the most important, called the Gate of Victory, leading to the palace.’³ It was of what is called the *svastika* (cruciform) plan in the *Mānasāra* and other *Śilpa-śāstras*. It consisted of a central gateway, 52 feet square, with recessed angles and side wings. Three towers, with Brahmā masks on the four sides of each, rose above the central gateway and the side wings. The walls of the city were also of very great extent and of dimensions commensurate with its importance. Unfortunately no other details of the city proper are available.

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³ Fergusson, *loc. cit.*, II, p. 401.

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‘The palace enclosure, situated in the centre of the city, measured about 2,000 feet by 800 feet and was surrounded by a double wall, with moat between. In front of the palace enclosure was a great terrace over 800 feet long by 45 feet wide, and 15 feet high, the walls of which were sculptured with elephants. No traces of walls of any description have been found in front of this terrace, suggesting that it formed an open space where reviews took place before the king and his courtiers on the terrace. At the north end of this square is a cruciform (*svastika*) structure, about 30 feet wide and 60 feet long, richly decorated, with six bands of sculptured figures, and it was on the top of this that the French explorers found the supposed statue of the leprous king¹ to whom the monument was ascribed.’²

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¹ King Yaśovarman II, the fourth monarch of the dynasty, who is credited with the completion of the capital Angkor Thom, of which the foundation was laid by the first monarch a hundred years earlier.

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² Fergusson, *loc. cit.*, II, pp. 401–402.

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The great temples of Angkor Vāt, Bayon, and Bapoun³ and many smaller temples were built in this capital city. Some of the numerous temples appear to have been ‘built as palaces for the king and occupied by him, his family, and courtiers.’ ‘In the outer court of Beng Méaleā are two groups of structures which have been described as the palaces of the king and the queen respectively. On the west side of Phimêanakas, and within the palace enclosure of Angkor Thom, are the foundations of buildings which are supposed to have been the residences of the king and his family, the women’s quarters occupying the whole width of the enclosure against the west wall, in which there is no entrance gate. At Vāt Phu, near Basak, on either side of the causeway leading to the temple, is a structure of about 150 feet frontage, with a rectangular court at the back and surrounded with a corridor vaulted like those in the temples, and those are considered to be palaces. Again at Phnom Chisar, on the north side of the court, the sills of the windows are 6 feet from the ground, so that the corridor they lighted may have been occupied by women.’ Concerning the accommodation necessary for a king and his retinue of thousands, Fergusson declares that only temples like Angkor Vāt, Beng Méaleā, Ta Prohm, and Prah Khan could possibly hold them. Though Bayon might have been occupied by the priests only, the series of magnificent halls in the enclosures of Angkor Vāt and Beng Méaleā ‘would seem to have been provided for the needs of a great court.’⁴

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³ For details, *vide ibid.*, Fergusson.

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⁴ Fergusson, *loc. cit.*, II, pp. 399–400.

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Some of these great structures might have been used also as collegiate *maṭhas* of the Brahmans, with provision for accommodation for the numerous students and teachers.⁵ Fergusson speaks highly on the perfection of the ancient roads and bridges. ‘One great trunk road seems to have stretched for 300 miles across the country from Korat, in a south-easterly direction, to the Me-kong river. It was a raised causeway, paved throughout like a Roman Road, and every stream that it crossed was spanned by a bridge, many of which remain perfect to the present day.’¹

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⁵ Cf. Lājonquiere *Inventaire Descriptif*, Tome II, Introduction, p. 29.

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One of these bridges was 400 feet in length and 50 feet in breadth, richly ornamented by balustrades and cornices, and representations of snakes and the snake-king. ‘The extraordinary thing is,’ states Fergusson, ‘that it is constructed without radiating arches, but, like every structure in the place, by a system of bracketing or horizontal arches, and without cement. Yet it has withstood, for five centuries at least, the violence of the tropical torrent which it spans.’¹

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¹ Fergusson, *loc. cit.*, I, pp. 402.

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There can be no doubt about the sceintific skill of the architects who built the great Cambodian structures, cities, roads, and bridges. By way of an illustration, Fergusson refers to their mechanical skill employed in constructing the roofs of great structures wholly of hewn stone, without the aid either of wood or concrete or cement of any kind, and in dovetailing and joining them so beautifully that they remain watertight and perfect after at least five centuries of neglect in a tropical climate. ‘When we put all these things together,’ concludes Fergusson, ‘it is difficult to decide whether we ought most to admire the mechanical skill which the Cambodian architects displayed in construction or the largeness of conception and artistic merit which pervades every part of their design.’²

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² *Ibid*, II, pp. 403.

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About the Indian origin of the Cambodian art there is no doubt. ‘Indian temples were constructed with pillars almost purely classical in design, and ornamented with bas-reliefs so strangely Egyptian in character.’³ In Cambodia before the Hindu colonization there might have been a civilization and even some religion, but no art, declares Fergusson. ‘Indians seem slowly, and only to a limited extent, to have been able to modify their religion towards Hinduism, probably because it was identical, or at least sympathetic, but they certainly endowed the Cambodians with an art which we have no reason to suppose they before possessed.’⁴

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³ It has already been pointed that what Fergusson considered to be the Greco-Roman orders are really Indian, fully described in the *Śilpa-śāstras*, *Purāṇas*, and *Āgamas*. Fergusson, like many early European scholars and historians, was obsessed by a prejudice. Whatever scientifically developed things were found in India were sought to be explained by the theory of importation instead of the natural process of indigenous origin.

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⁴ Fergusson, *loc. cit.*, II, p. 391.

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