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3 Chapter 1 Moats and Enclosure Walls of the Khmer Temples Claude Jacques Abstract One of the first things that students of Khmer civilization learn is the symbolism of the moats of the temples, which, like the temple itself, are sometimes surrounded by its town in a microcosm in which the temple enclosure wall symbolizes the mountains surrounding the world, and the moat symbolizes the four oceans. One would expect from this that temples have only one moat, but there are some temples with two moats, such as Ta Prohm and Banteay Srei or Muang Tam, at the foot of Phnom Rung in Thailand. This well known fact, as far as I know, has never drawn any comment. The author of this paper proposes that second moats and enclosure walls were not to be found in original temple plans but resulted from later extensions of temples. Temple Additions Most visitors to Angkor see the temples along the way of what are known in the tourist literature as the ‘short’ and ‘long’ circuits. Not many venture further afield, but elsewhere in Cambodia there are cities and monuments of great interest, accessible but comparatively rarely visited. A knowledge of them, particularly of the very early sites, can however provide the enthusiast with valuable insight for a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of Angkor itself. If, in the process, we look at how temples had things added to them — a second moat or enclosure wall or additional buildings — we may come to question our tendency to view temples as conceived and built by individual kings. It is common knowledge that a Khmer temple is a ‘microcosm’ of the world as conceived in Indian cosmology (Cœdès 1968: 119; Glaize 1963: 248). Thus the approach to a temple begins with the crossing of a moat, nowadays easily done as they are mostly dry. But the moat is an important element in the symbolism of the temple, since it represents the primeval ocean. At the same time it served as a valuable water resource for irrigation during the dry season. Next there is an enclosure wall which represents the mountains encircling the world. Finally there is the central sanctuary which symbolizes Mount Meru. In vast temples such as Angkor Wat there are five shrines, recalling the five peaks of Meru described in the ancient myth. Such are the basic facts that every novice student needs to learn. Strangely the inscriptions scarcely allude to them, which lead one to wonder whether they might not be more important to the Western scholar than to the Khmers themselves. Indeed the same vagueness characterizes the original Indian texts. In ancient times the earth was seen as flat, surrounded by a vast ocean, and centered on Mount Meru, with the planets — especially the sun and the moon — circling around it. Indian cosmogony subsequently underwent considerable development and became much more complex. It is surprising that so little attention seems to have been paid to the existence around some of the temples of not just one but two moats, nor to the fact that in some cases the outer enclosure wall stands beyond the moat. This clearly does not fit with the traditional explanation of the microcosm, as the following examples will illustrate. 01 ISEA.indd 3 6/6/08 9:31:37 AM 4 CLAUDE JACQUES Bakong The temple-mountain known as Bakong is described in the guidebooks on the basis of the inscriptions found in situ, and of others found elsewhere which refer to it. The assumption is that Bakong was built under King Indravarman I in 881 CE. In general, inscriptions which link a temple to a specific date are in fact recording the essential auspicious date (sometimes even the day of the week and the exact time down to a minute) of the consecration of the temple’s central icon. This could have been a lin . ga, or an anthropomorphic statue, representing the divinity in whose honor the monument was built. It never recorded the start date for the erection of the monument itself, which could have been many years earlier, nor the date of its completion which, if it ever actually happened, would have been considerably later. The central tower at the pyramid-temple of Bakong was rebuilt by Glaize (a former Keeper of the Monuments and the author of what still remains one of the best guidebooks to Angkor) as it had completely collapsed. While planning this major restoration, he noted that...

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