I know some people who have gone to Angkor Wat and when I told them I was going to Cambodia, they told me there was no choice in the matter, I simply had to go to Angkor Wat. I asked them whether they had learned anything there. They said, “No”. I asked them whether they had been changed by the experience. They said, “No”. I asked them why I simply had to go, and they all pulled out their phones and showed me their amazing selfies.
Although this cannot be proved conclusively, there is strong evidence that Angkor Wat was built partially or wholly through slave labor. Indeed, this is not so much a temple as it is a funerary structure which a “god-king” constructed for his own process of attaining eternal life. I recall an undergrad professor describing an Ancient Egyptian Pyramid as a type of spiritual engine and launching pad that was to propel a dead Pharaoh’s spirit into the eternal, beyond the sky. It seems as if Angkor Wat is this same type of spiritual engine or booster rocket. Angkor Wat was to propel the spirit of one god-king into the sky.
So the architecture is not there to impart a transformative lesson for the viewer or pilgrim. You do not go to Angkor Wat and suddenly realize the malice or pettiness inside you which you must overcome to be a good person. The lesson to be learned is that there once was a god-king who was able to marshal many workers and slaves to build a fancy and impressive big stone engine that would shoot his spirit beyond the clouds. He was mighty. He was feared. He was virile. He was important. Most people do not remember his name. He was the mother of all Ozymandiases. At least re-read Shelley’s Ozymandias before you come to Angkor Wat. Or better yet, re-read Ozymandias and do not come to Angkor Wat.
At Angkor Wat there is a building with a huge statue in it. I am guessing it was just too big for any art thieves to sledgehammer into something which could be sold. So it is still there. Now, there are guides who pester you to hire them once you reach Angkor Wat from the city of Siem Reap. Lots and lots of guides. If you do not hire one, every few meters one of them pesters you to hire him. These guides tell their tourist followers all kinds of things, some may even be true. I have a feeling most of them are not.
As I was looking at the giant, unsledgehammered Visnu, a group of tourists and their guide came along. Tourist: “Who is that guy?”
Guide: “Visnu.”
Tourist: “Who’s Visnu?”
Guide: (thinks briefly) “A protector god!”
Tourist: (as if having a flash of understanding) “Oh a protector god!”
Ladies and gentlemen, Vishnu was much more than a protector god. So if you go to Angkor Wat, please don’t expect the guides to tell you anything especially meaningful. Cambodia is a poor country. People need jobs.
So Angkor Wat was probably built through slave labor. It is the spiritual rocket booster for a god-king’s eternal life. It’s basically a huge, ancient structure which is largely devoid of relevant meaning for the modern tourist/pilgrim, unless you want to ponder the vanity and folly of ancient power-mad despots (stay home and ponder the folly of our current power mad despots). We come to Angkor Wat and wander around it like hungry ants wandering through a giant empty snail shell. They say, “Angkor Wat is the largest religious structure in the world!” So what? Is it really a “Hindu” structure? Or did the god-king hijack Hindu symbolism and iconography to build himself a nice Saturn-5 propulsion system to the next world?
I’m wondering whether we can ever get over this desire to see something just because it is old, fancy and huge. Why does something old, fancy and huge become a magnet for tourists? We marvel at how the thing was built? The majesty of the structure? Shoot, gather up thousands of slaves, beat them mercilessly for 30 years, and they’ll build anything you want to see. There was so much slavery and so much despotism in the ancient world, I think archeologists should be able to find many more old, fancy and huge structures all over the place. I am shocked we have such relatively few old, fancy and huge structures to gawk at. What a shame for the modern tourist industry that so few ancient despots built giant spiritual turbo boosters.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: Marcin Konsek
