Indian Art and Letters

Author(s): India Society
Publisher: India Society

Page 53

ANGKOR IN THE NINTH CENTURY:
BY VICTOR GOLOUBEFF (Ecole Française d'Extrême Orient)
BEFORE setting forth the results of the two archeological expeditions, the conduct of which was entrusted to me by M. Georges Cædès, Director of the Ecole Française d'Extrême Orient, during the years 1932-34, I shall ask you to pay a rapid visit with me to the site of my researches. To help you to visualize the position in your mind, I am going to show upon this screen some views taken from an aeroplane flying over Angkor.
We start from the Western Baray, an immense reservoir of water situated to the west of the ancient Khmer capital. The morning is misty, as often happens in summer during the rainy season; but as soon as the aeroplane attains some height the atmosphere becomes limpid and clear.
Here we are, almost over Angkor Vat. Angkor Vat, I may remind you, is a magnificent religious foundation of the twelfth century, the twelve towers of which, covered with sculpture, the numerous events, the avenues bordered with serpents in stone, the pools and galleries, recall Vaikuntha, Vishnu's paradise. Our plane rises higher and higher. Here we are at 1,000, perhaps 1,200, metres above the plain—the forests, the rice-fields, the ruins recede, lose their height, and seem spread upon an immense carpet rolled out at our feet No doubt the geometrical arrangement of Angkor Vat strikes you. All is rectilinear, rectangular. The whole is set in a square frame of wide moats, the glittering surfaces of which are covered at this season with rose-coloured lotus and water hyacinth.
To the north of Angkor Vat another square, still larger, seems to incline towards the horizon. This is Angkor Thom: Angkor Thom, the royal city, built by Jayavarman VII. at the end of the twelfth century, the area of which is not less than 9 square kilometres. The centre is marked by a temple as magnificent as it is strange-the Bayon. As seen from our plane it makes us think of a confused assemblage of pointed rocks, the tops of which had been carved into human faces.
Now let us tack about. To the south of Angkor Thom a hillock crowned by a temple is surrounded by dense forest. This is the Phnom Bakhèng, with
* Lecture delivered to the India Society on July 27, 1934. Sir Francis Younghusband presided, and H.E. the French Ambassador was also present.
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