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- The cultural setting of Southeast Asian arts
- Indigenous traditions
- Pre-European colonial period
- General characteristics
- The performing arts
- Diverse traditions in the performing arts
- Characteristics of dance
- Characteristics of drama
- Origins and development of the performing arts
- Diverse national forms and traditions
- Visual arts
- General considerations
- Religious-aesthetic traditions
- Thailand and Laos
- Cambodia and Vietnam
- Vietnam kingdom of Champa: c. 2nd–15th century
- General considerations
Kingdom of Khmer: 9th–13th century
Late in the 8th century the kingdom of Chenla declined politically, perhaps because of dynastic disputes with the rising power of Indonesian kings, who were themselves also descended from the original royal dynasty of Funan. It seems that the Indonesians gave some assistance in establishing a new kingdom in the northern part of what had been the territory of Funan. In 802 a Khmer king, who took the title of Jayavarman II, established his capital near Phnom Kulen, about 20 miles (30 km) from Angkor. It was a rather unsuitable place for an administrative capital, but it was a mountain, and the peoples of Southeast Asia have always believed that gods and spirits dwell on mountaintops. The image of the sacred mountain thereafter remained the inspiration for all the later architecture of the Khmer around Angkor. Jayavarman, who built other temples in the vicinity, seemed to have revived the Chenla style. A distinctively Khmer art, however, began to emerge under Indravarman I (877–889), who expanded the boundaries of the Khmer kingdom and finally settled its administration. Most important of all, he developed the initial plan of the colossal city of Angkor, whose mysterious ruins, lost in dense jungle until the 19th century, tantalized Western travelers for centuries.
Angkor was not only a city; more important, it was an immense technological achievement, from which the agricultural prosperity of the whole Cambodian plain derived. This plain was well watered naturally, but its rivers were subject to strong seasonal fluctuations. Controlled, they were capable of producing an enormous increase in fertility. Angkor was thus essentially an elaborate system of artificial lakes, canals, and radiating irrigation channels that watered a huge acreage of rice paddy; and it was the basis for the strength and prosperity of the Khmer empire. Since Angkor itself was the technical source of the life-giving agricultural water controlled by the king, it was regarded by the Khmer with religious reverence. Its temples and palaces were an expression of that reverence and at the same time an essential part of its supernatural mechanism. Royal intercession by numerous ceremonies, some of which reenacted the primal marriage of Hindu divinity and native earth spirit on the pattern of ancient folk cult, ensured the continuing gift of the waters of heaven. The king, an earthly image of his god, was the intermediary who ensured that his kingdom would continue to receive divine benevolence in the form of water in controlled quantities. Courtiers played roles at once religious and administrative for the king, who believed that after his death he would be united with his patron deity. Dedicatory statues were often set up in his chief temple to commemorate his divinization.
In order to conform with mountain mythology, the Khmer kings built themselves a series of artificial mountains on the Cambodian plain at Angkor, each crowned by shrines containing images of gods and of themselves, their family, and their ancestors. The huge platforms of earth on which these buildings were founded probably consist of the soil excavated in forming the lakes, moats, and channels that not only divided up the city but also provided an easy means of transport. The temple mountains, like the city itself, are oriented east to west, the main gates facing east. Each king strove to outdo his predecessor in the height, size, and splendour of his temple mountain. The earlier ones, therefore, are relatively small, though beautiful, and the later ones, such as Angkor Wat and the Bayon, are of stupendous size.
In the basic pattern of the Khmer temple mountain, the principal overall enclosure, which is square or rectangular, is at ground level. Within it the artificial mountain rises through a series of terraces and at least one further enclosure wall toward a flat summit. On the summit stands either a single shrine or a group of shrines, often a quincunx—five shrines, one at each corner and one in the middle of a square. Arranged along the terraces or within the enclosures there may be further shrines, whose arched doorway pediments refer to the rainbow bridge between heaven and earth. There may be other long buildings, perhaps used as libraries or administrative offices. A principal staircase runs directly up from the east gate to the summit, and sometimes subsidiary staircases run up from other gates at the cardinal directions.
The architecture of the shrines themselves is relatively simple; it is based upon patterns invented in India, though the ornament of the shrines is often highly developed and characteristically Cambodian. Fundamentally, each shrine consists of a cell whose internal space is cubic and whose external walls are marked by moldings at the top and bottom. The shrine is roofed by a pyramidal tower composed of a series of similar but diminishing tiers, each of them a compressed version of the exterior pattern of the main shrine volume. Depending on which Indian pattern is followed, the cell has one main door with an elaborately carved portal or, if the plan is cruciform, four entrances. The earlier shrines were built of brick, most commonly with stucco ornament and figures on the outside. The later shrines were built of stone, with all their ornament and figurative sculpture carved in relief. The moldings on the roofs of the shrines and the decoration of the roofs of many of the subsidiary buildings are extremely elaborate. There are long panels of dense foliate ornament, and the niches in which the sculptured relief figures of celestials are set and framed in flamboyant ogival (contoured like a pointed arch) moldings crowned by no less flamboyant foliate ornament; the smaller architectural features, such as niche pilasters, are elaborately carved and molded. The figures themselves wear gorgeous jewelry and chignons. The massive stone icons that survive in some of the shrines have a massiveness probably intended to make them awe-inspiring. Among the lesser relief figures of celestials, which decorate the walls of the shrines, one finds a more sensuous touch. Many of these celestials represent apsaras, the celestial singers and dancers of Indian mythology.
On some of the temple mountains there are also relief panels illustrating various aspects of the royal mythology. Episodic relief sculpture first appears on Banteay Srei (10th century). The relief centres on a series of Indian legends dealing with the cosmic mountain Meru as the source of all creation and with the divine origin of water. The chief artistic achievement of its architecture is the way in which it conceives and coordinates the spaces between the walls of the enclosures, the faces of the terraces, and the volumes of the shrine buildings. A most sophisticated architecture of full and empty space, it seems to have been influenced by that of the Hindu Pallava dynasty in southeastern India.
The earliest more or less complete example of a shrine complex devoted to deifying the ancestors of a king is the Preah Ko at Roluos, near Angkor, completed in 879. The earliest surviving temple mountain at Angkor itself is the Bakong, probably finished in 881. In the central shrine at the summit was a linga, the phallic emblem sacred to Shiva. Around the base of the terraced pyramid stood eight large shrines inside the main enclosure, with a series of moats, causeways, and auxiliary sculptures guarding the approaches to the exterior. The Bakheng, begun in 893, had an enormous series of 108 tower shrines arranged on the terraces around the central pyramid, which was crowned by a quincunx of principal shrines. The whole was intended to illustrate a mystical conception of the cosmos, very much on the lines of the great temple mountain at Borobudur in Java (see below Indonesia). Pre Rup, dedicated in 961, was probably the first of the temple mountains intended as a permanent shrine for the divine spirit of a king after his death. It, too, has a quincunx of principal shrines, but it is distinguished by the large number of auxiliary pavilions arranged along both sides of the inner enclosure wall.
From roughly the same period is perhaps the most beautiful—and most beautifully preserved—of the early Khmer temples, Banteay Srei. It was actually a private foundation, built some 12 miles from Angkor by a Brahman of royal descent. Its auxiliary buildings, all of sandstone, are adorned with a profusion of elaborate ornament and relief figure sculpture. The roof gables, in particular, are treated with antefixes of fantastic invention. Its principal icon, a huge sandstone sculpture of the god Shiva, seated with his wife Uma on his left knee, is perhaps the most impressive full-round sculpture from the whole Khmer epoch. It differs from the 10th-century Khmer official sculpture, which began to take on a conventional and relatively insensitive massiveness.
The Baphuon temple mountain (1050–66) is unfortunately almost completely destroyed. It was a vast monument 480 yards (440 metres) long and 140 yards (130 metres) wide, approached by a 200-yard (180-metre) causeway raised on pillars. Its ground plan shows that it was no mere assemblage of buildings but a fully articulated structure. In this it must rank as the immediate prototype for the great Angkor Wat. Built by Suryavarman II in the early 12th century, Angkor Wat is the crowning work of Khmer architecture, the culmination of all the features of earlier styles.
The enormous structure of the Wat is some 1,700 yards (1,550 metres) long by 1,500 yards (1,400 metres) wide. Surrounded by a vast external cloister, it is approached from the west by a magnificent road, which is built on a causeway and lined with colossal balustrades carved in the likeness of the cosmic serpent associated with the sources of life-giving water. The Wat rises in three concentric enclosures. The western gate complex itself is nearly as large as the complex of central shrines, and both are subdivided into smaller, beautifully decorated courts. Only five of the original nine towers still stand at the summit; although they follow the basic pattern of the Khmer roof tower composed of diminishing imitative stories, the contour of the towers is not rectilinear but curved, so as to suggest that the stories grow one out of another like a sprouting shoot. All the courtyards, with their molded plinths, staircases, porticoes, and eaves moldings, are perfectly articulated enclosed spaces. The symbolic meaning of the Wat is clear. Its central shrine indicates the hub of the universe, but its surroundings—the gate complex, the cloister, the city of Angkor itself, and, finally, the whole visible world—represent the successive outer envelopes of cosmic reality. That it is oriented toward the west—and not to the east, as was customary—indicates that its builder, Suryavarman II, intended it as his own mortuary shrine; for, according to Indo-Chinese mythology, the west is the direction in which the dead depart.
Sculptures at the Wat include some full-rounded figures—the guardians on the terraces, for example—and relief sculpture, which is magnificent and full of vitality. The open-colonnaded gallery on the first story contains over a mile of relief carving six feet (two metres) high. Much of it was originally painted and gilded, which strongly suggests that there must have been a Khmer style of painting of which nothing is known. The subject matter of the carvings is taken principally from the Hindu epics, but there are also many scenes representing Suryavarman’s earthly glory. Working in relief only about an inch deep, the sculptors were able to depict an extraordinary complex of scenes of figures in vigorous action, full of complex overlaps to suggest deep space. The solid bodies are created mainly out of groups of convex curves, and everywhere there is the typical regional feeling for decorative spirals. Perhaps the most interesting group of figures are the apsaras, carved in relief, either singly or in groups, on the plain walls of the courtyards. These celestial beings, whom Indian tradition describes as rewarding with their charms the kings, heroes, and saints who attain heaven, are carved with sinuous sensuality; but the most important part of their charm is their elaborate clothing, jewelry, and hairdressing or ornate, towering, jeweled crowns. Apparently, deep downward-drooping curves standing far out from the body represented the height of Khmer chic. Skirts, stoles, and the long sidelocks of hair all follow these curves, laid out flat on the ground of the relief. Symbolizing the erotic joys that are essential attributes of heaven, the apsaras were natural possessions of the king.
The effort demanded of the people in constructing the colossal stone Angkor Wat, along with its 4 miles (6 km) of stone-lined moat 200 yards (180 metres) wide, was great. The irrigation system itself may well have been neglected in favour not only of shifting the building stone—as much in quantity as there is in the Pyramid of Khafre in Egypt—but also of dressing, carving, and ornamenting it. After Suryavarman’s death, the Cham, from the neighbouring kingdom of Champa (see below Vietnam kingdom of Champa), seized and sacked Angkor for the first time in its history (1177), thus shattering the confidence of the Khmer people in the protective powers of their Hindu deities. When Suryavarman’s son, Jayavarman VII, came to the throne he inherited a ravaged kingdom. In 1181 he succeeded in driving out the Cham. He invaded their country and seized their capital, thereby making Champa a province of the Khmer. Then, more than 60 years old, he embarked on a series of campaigns that extended the borders of the Khmer empire farther than ever before—into Malaya, Burma, and Annam.
The ruler of this empire naturally believed himself to be the greatest of the Khmer, and he set about demonstrating the truth of his belief by building his own city, Angkor Thom (c. 1200), and, at the centre of it, the biggest temple complex of them all—the Bayon (c. 1200). Breaking with all previous Khmer traditions, he took as his patron deity not one of the Hindu gods, but one of the Buddhist bodhisattvas. Although Buddhism had flourished for several centuries in the whole of Indochina, it had not been adopted by the Khmer as an imperial cult. Now that the Hindu gods had been discredited by defeat, Jayavarman placed himself under the patronage of Mahayana Buddhism. The mythology according to which the Bayon was designed was thus another version of the old mythology of the celestial mountain and the divine origin of water. Only the central figure of his mythology, Lokeshvara, Lord of the World, was specifically Buddhist. The colossal masks that look out over the four directions of the world from the towers of the Bayon and from the gates of Angkor Thom are there to demonstrate the compassionate, all-seeing power of Lokeshvara and the king.
When Jayavarman VII set out to create Angkor Thom, he had to raze the fine older work of his predecessors, for the site at Angkor had become choked with nearly four centuries of grandiose temple building. Within Angkor Thom’s 10 miles (16 km) of moats, he constructed huge complexes of buildings and made his city the focus of a final system of canals and irrigation, with additional lakes.
Angkor Thom’s achievement lay with Jayavarman’s scholastic architects, who conceived and laid out a complex of mythical imagery in massive architectural symbols. Their stupendous overall plan illustrates the creation of the world, a cosmos spreading outward from the central mountain tower. The two roads leading from the tower are lined with mile-long rows of gigantic deities who are pulling on the body of the serpent naga. According to Hindu legend, the gods use the magical mountain Meru, symbolized by the mountain tower, as a churning stick and the body of the cosmic serpent as a churning rope to churn the world out of the milk of nothingness. Lake-sized fountains represent the healing waters of the Buddhist paradise, and allegories of salvation are realized in carved architecture. Perhaps the most impressive works of art associated with this last period of Angkor are some stone icons, such as the famous Leper King, in the Angkor Thom complex. Many excellent smaller bronze figures of deities have also been found among the ruins.
13th century to the present
After the death of Jayavarman VII, c. 1215, possibly as late as 1219, Angkor declined. The Thai population of Siam gradually pushed the Khmer down toward the Mekong delta. Theravada Buddhism became the religion of the people, and the grandiose vision of a cultural unity based on sacred kingship disappeared. In the 15th century Angkor was retaken from the Thai, and a few buildings were restored by the ancestors of the modern (now abdicated) Cambodian kings. Some of the buildings were used as monasteries, but the city, with its essential irrigation system, had fallen into ruin.