Astral Cult in the Encompassing Architecture of

Angkor Wat and Borobudur

Dr Uday Dokras

Astra is a name of Latin and Greek origin. Derived from the Latin word astrum and the Greek word aster, this

name means “star,” _“_a celestial body.” This sweet intergalactic name is linked to sci-fi or astronomy.
BRAHMINS in ANGKOR

Angkorian kings presided over sacred ceremonies. Many aspects of the contemporary
transnationalization of Hinduism have already been well studied, such as long-distance
nationalism or the sense of belonging to a transnational community, but very little attention has
been paid to the ritual actors who actually circulate within the diaspora space. By focusing on
their caste, their migratory profiles, their circulation, and their agency, the article shows that
these “migrant priests” actively contribute to shaping the forms that transnational Hinduism takes
in different Tamil immigration countries.The countries we focus on are ofcourse ambodian
hinterland related kingdoms.
More broadly, Brahmins were“circulating” religious actors and our understanding of Cambodian
Royalty and Kingship is to understand tevrole played by these in the mechanisms of the
transnationalization of Hinduism. Centuries ago in the chambers of Angkor Wat and Bayon
temple, Brahman priests serving

India's caste system is among the world's oldest forms of surviving social stratification. The BBC
explains its complexities.

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The system which divides Hindus into rigid hierarchical groups based on their karma (work) and
dharma (the Hindi word for religion, but here it means duty) is generally accepted to be more
than 3,000 years old.
How did caste come about?
Manusmriti, widely regarded to be the most important and authoritative book on Hindu law and
dating back to at least 1,000 years before Christ was born, "acknowledges and justifies the caste
system as the basis of order and regularity of society".
The caste system divides Hindus into four main categories - Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and
the Shudras. Many believe that the groups originated from Brahma, the Hindu God of creation.
I
At the top of the hierarchy were the Brahmins who were mainly teachers and intellectuals and
are believed to have come from Brahma's head. Then came the Kshatriyas, or the warriors and
rulers, supposedly from his arms. The third slot went to the Vaishyas, or the traders, who were
created from his thighs. At the bottom of the heap were the Shudras, who came from Brahma's
feet and did all the menial jobs.
The main castes were further divided into about 3,000 castes and 25,000 sub-castes, each based
on their specific occupation.
Outside of this Hindu caste system were the achhoots - the Dalits or the untouchables.
How does caste work?
For centuries, caste has dictated almost every aspect of Hindu religious and social life, with each
group occupying a specific place in this complex hierarchy.
Rural communities have long been arranged on the basis of castes - the upper and lower castes
almost always lived in segregated colonies, the water wells were not shared, Brahmins would not
accept food or drink from the Shudras, and one could marry only within one's caste.

India's caste system is among the world's oldest forms of social stratification surviving to this
day. The system bestowed many privileges on the upper castes while sanctioning repression of
the lower castes by privileged groups.
Often criticised for being unjust and regressive, it remained virtually unchanged for centuries,
trapping people into fixed social orders from which it was impossible to escape.
Despite the obstacles, however, some Dalits and other low-caste Indians, such as BR Ambedkar
who authored the Indian constitution, and KR Narayanan who became the nation's first Dalit
president, have risen to hold prestigious positions in the country.
Historians, though, say that until the 18th Century, the formal distinctions of caste were of
limited importance to Indians, social identities were much more flexible and people could move
easily from one caste to another.

A Jati is considered a community that has a particular profession. You used to be able to
determine someone’s trade or profession by their surname, but because of the modern education
system, and lack of discrimination by the state, the Jati system is currently quickly deteriorating.
The Caste System represents a division of labor based on birth right justified by moral and
religious concepts. The Brahmins held the most power in Hindu society , they were priests,
otherwise known as the spiritual and intellectual leaders of the society. “They devoted their time
to studying, teaching, performing sacrifices, and officiating religious services” (Nigosian 136).
The second Varna in the social hierarchy are the Kshatriyas who are the rulers and warriors of
the society. Their job was to “Protect, administer, and promote material welfare within the

2
society” (Nigosian 136). The third in the social hierarchy are the Vaishyas who are the farmers,
merchants, and traders who really contribute to the economy of India. The fourth and last of the
Varnas are known as the Sudras who are laborers that supply the manual labor needed for the
economic well-being of India. Later as the development of the caste system continued a fifth
group was formed; although not officially considered a Varna, the Chalandalas or
“untouchables” had status so low that they did not belong to a caste at all.
The justification of this “social stratification” is linked to the justification of Karma and Samsara.
Karma refers to action, each person’s birth is directly related to the past karma from the previous
life of that individual, birth into the Brahmin Varna is a result of good karma.

Origin of the Caste System:

The Caste System today is a result of the end of the Mughal era and the British colonial
government in India. The Mughal empire was ruled by a Persianate Dynasty of Chagatai Turco-
Mongol origin and was prominent throughout large areas of the Indian subcontinent. The end of
this era caused there to be an increase of men who deemed themselves powerful and associated
themselves with kings and priests. The British colonial government later continues this
development in 1860 and 1920 by separating Indians into castes. They only allowed individuals
in the upper castes to hold professions and trades of importance. In 1920 that policy changed and
the colonial government started a policy that reserved a certain percentage of government jobs
for the individuals in the lower castes. When India gained its independence in 1947 from the
British Empire new policies were enforced that helped to improve the socioeconomic conditions
of its lower caste population. In 1950 many affirmative actions initiatives were taken by the
Supreme Court of India. Discrimination against the lower castes is now considered illegal in
India under Article 15 of its constitution.

Brahmins:
The word Brahmin translates to “Supreme Self” or the first of the gods. Brahmin is the highest
Varna in Vedic Hinduism. The population of India that is considered a member of the Brahmin
caste according to the article “The Joshua project” is about 60,481,000 people. That’s
approximately 4.3 percent of the total Indian population. The Brahmin Varna consists of priests,
and individuals of this specific Varna are separated into sub-castes called gotras. Because of the
religious and cultural diversity Brahmins are divided into these sub- castes. Only some members
are priests, other members have held professions as educators, law makers, scholars, doctors,
writers, poets, land owners, and politicians. According to Nancy Auerbach in her book Living
Hinduism the Brahmin is associated with Sanatana Dharma which was in early Hinduism and is
a code of ethics, or a way of living in order to achieve “mosksha” a sense of liberation and
enlightenment. As the developments of the caste system continues, Brahmins became an
influential Varna in India and discriminated against the other lower castes.
Most Brahmins are located in the Northern states of India which includes Uttar Pradesh and
Andhra Pradesh, and small concentrations in the southern states which includes Tamil Nadu,
Karnataka, and Kerala. This territorial division led to the creation of two groups among the
Brahmin: the Panch Gour (northerners) and the Panch Dravida (Southerners). These two groups
are separated by the central Indian Vindhya mountain range that almost bisects the country into
two parts.

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Brahmin came from the term Brahman, which is a magical force. The name Brahmin was given
to the first trained priest who held a sacrifice. After the end of the Vedic period in 1000 BC, the
term “Brahmin” became universally known as the term for all members of the priestly class.
Around 900 BC the Brahmins were divided in to exogamous clans that restricted matrimonial
choice and dictated ritual. This system is still intact today where it is frowned upon to marry
someone of another caste. The Rig Veda is one of the most sacred Hindu scripture, and it
contains the mythological origin of the Brahmin. The god Prajapati (Lord of beings) is identified
with Brahma who is the creator in the Hindu trinity and was later sacrificed by his children. This
sacrifice is said to have produced the universe and that the Brahmin originated from his mouth.
Traditionally the Brahmin are supposed to become priests, but in actuality they hold a wide
variety of occupations. Many members practice agriculture, while others hold white collar jobs.

The Brahmin are allowed to follow any profession, but no one except a Brahmin can become a
priest. Members of this Varna tend to be strict vegetarians. It is a socio-spiritual obligation to
feed Brahmin at ceremonies. Brahmin men have more freedom then Brahmin women. Men try to
avoid alcohol and smoking whereas for women it is strictly forbidden. The socially acceptable
age for marriage also varies between the sexes. Women can get married starting from as young
as 18 whereas men get married at an older age. Marriages tend to be arranged by parents and
monogamy is expected. Widows are not allowed to remarry whereas widowers are allowed to.
Although Brahmin women are second to men, they do hold a higher level of education than other
women in Indian society.
Overall Brahmins hold a high status in Hindu society, and are considered to be smart and
influential. They set the standard of social conduct and morality due to their leadership in
society. Hindu priesthood is dominated by Brahmins, but other castes due in fact have “sacred
specialists” but their status does not compare to that of a Brahmin.

Kshatriyas:
The term Kshatriya comes from kshatra which means authority and power. This authority and
power is not based on successful leadership, but more on sovereignty over certain territories.
Kshatriya is the second Varna within the social hierarchy. The Brahmin and the Kshatriya make
up the upper castes, 20 percent of India’s population is within this category. The Kshatriya
constitutes the ruling and military elite, the warriors. Their purpose in the society is to fight as
warriors during war and govern in time of peace. They had a duty to protect the citizens from
harm, to ensure that each individual performed their prescribed duty and advanced spiritually in
their specific Varna. In addition to that they are responsible for the protection of the political
cosmic order (dharma). Kshatriyas initially achieved their status on merits of their aptitude
(guna), conduct (karma), and nature (swabhava). As the caste system later developed, merit
became irrelevant status became hereditary.
It is said that when Brahma was procreating, a “negative energy” emerged from him. The
negative energy took the form of Rakshasas also known as devils who started to torture Brahma.
Brahma asked Lord Vishnu for help, who later killed them. Lord Vishnu then explained to
Brahma that when positive energy is used, negative energy will also emerge. Because of this
Lord Vishnu tells Brahma that a special race of humans should be created to protect the entire
human race. The Rig Veda contains a different story of origin for the varnas. In this Hindu
scripture, Brahmin originated from the mouth of Brahma, while Kshatriya originated from the
arms.

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The two primary roles of the Kshatriya Varna were to govern the land and to wage war, which
led to professions as rulers and soldiers. The male children in Kshatriya were considered
symbols of masculinity whereas the female child needed to be gentle and well behaved. Like
Brahmin and the rest of the Varnas, men and women were not allowed to marry outside their
specific Varna. Kshatriyas also hold a high status of power, second only to the Brahmin. They
make sure everyone stays within their Varna.1

One of the major imports to early Southeast Asia from India was religion: specifically,
Buddhism and Hinduism. In particular, the Hindu religion (Brahminism) established the
cosmological and political legitimisation of kingship in the courts of Southeast Asia. The
‘brahmins’ who preside over court rituals in contemporary Cambodia and Thailand are said to be
direct descendants of Angkorian ‘brahmins’, but this identification is highly contested. By Indian
definition and from a ritual perspective, the term brahmin generally referred to those whose caste
and gotras (ritual lineage) go back to the Vedic period. Scholars of ritual and religions have
questioned whether the ‘brahmins’ of Southeast Asia were ‘brahmins’ by the Indian definition,
and if so, in what sense. Was there a caste system in ancient Cambodia?2

Cambodians or Khmers are a race of people occupying the Mekong (Ma

Ganga) River basin what was known as Indo-China but now is South East
Asia. The racial and linguistic family to which the Cambodians belong is
known as the Mon-Khmer family. Indians came from the second century CE
to trade and later to settle on the west coast of Indo China.

Funan= Panavan=Punal: Tamil Connection

_________________________________________________________________________________________

5
1. Varnas in Angkor and the Indian Caste System,. W. Mabbett,The Journal of
Asian Studies,Vol. 36, No. 3 (May, 1977), pp. 429-442 (14 pages),Published By:
Association for Asian
Studies,https://doi.org/10.2307/2054092,https://www.jstor.org/stable/2054092

2. 23 - Broken Threads: Contested Histories of Brahminism in Cambodia and Thailand

and the Construction of Ritual Authority
from PART II - Localisation in Southeast Asia
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/early-interactions-between-south-and-southeast-asia/
broken-threads-contested-histories-of-brahminism-in-cambodia-and-thailand-and-the-construction-
of-ritual-authority/3BC67C03B1321C39B4E63BC3F976D660

6
1)The first Khmer texts, inscriptions of the 7th and 8th centuries CE gave practical information
about religious foundations while Sanskrit was used for composing the panegyrics of Gods and
kings. Khmers regarded Sanskrit as the language of literature.
2)From the Chinese annals we learn that there was an indianized state called Funan in south of
Cambodia.

(My comments: The word Funan may mean Panavan (Pandya title) or Punal Nadu (water
country in Tamil). The reason for my conclusion is the first king of Vietnam (Champa) was Sri
Maran, a Pandya king (Tiru maran in Sangam literature)

3)The Indian connection is reflected in the legend which tells how an Indian, the Brahmin
Kaundinya, came to Cambodia and married Soma, the daughter of the king of the Nagas.

(My comments: Tamil and Sanskrit literature describe all lands lying beyond east of India or
South of India as Nagalokam. If it is further away from South East Asia they called those lands
Patala Lokam (Under world).

Reason for the name Kamboja/Cambodia

4)Another legend relates that the hermit Kambu Swayambuva married the heavenly nymph
Mera, a gift of the god Siva. This gave them the name Kambojas for the people.

5)Finally at the end of ninth century CE there was the beginning of the Angkor kingdom which
built the world famous monuments including Angkorwat. The earliest dated inscriptions are 611
CE (Khmer) and 613 (Sanskrit) but there were earlier dated Sanskrit inscriptions in
Champa/Vietnam

6)We know the names of six poets who wrote in Sanskrit during Angkor period. Indian epics
were read even before this period.

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BRAHMANISM IN ANCIENT KAMBUJADEŚA,Baij Nath Puri
Proceedings of the Indian History Congress,Vol. 21 (1958), pp. 95-101 (7 pages)

Óc Eo, 'Glass Stream' or 'Crystal Stream' is an archaeological site in Thoại Sơn District in
southern An Giang Province, Vietnam, in the Mekong River Delta. Óc Eo may have been a busy
port of the kingdom of Funan between the 2nd century BC and 12th century AD.
Scholars use the term "Óc Eo Culture" to refer to the archaeological culture of the Mekong Delta
region that is typified by the artifacts recovered at Óc Eo through archeological investigation.
Óc Eo is also one of the modern day communes of Vietnam.
Oc Eo was part of the Funan culture, or Funan empire, a pre-Angkor society based on
international trade and sophisticated agriculture built on an extensive network of canals. Trade
goods flowing through Oc Eo came from Rome, India, and China.
Surviving historical records about Funan and Oc Eo includes the Funan culture's own records
written in Sanskrit and those of a pair of 3rd century Wu Dynasty Chinese visitors. Kang Dai
(K'ang T'ai) and Zhu Ying (Chu Ying) visited Funan about 245–250 AD, and in the Wou li
("Annals of the Wu Kingdom") can be found their report. They described Funan as a
sophisticated country of people living in houses raised on stilts and ruled by a king in a walled
palace, who controlled trade and managed a successful taxation system.
Origin Myth
According to a myth reported in Funan and Angkor archives in several different versions, Funan
was formed after a female ruler named Liu-ye led a raid against a visiting merchant ship. The
attack was beaten off by the ship's travelers, one of whom as a man named Kaundinya, from a
country "beyond the sea." Kaundinya is thought to have been a Brahman from India, and he
married the local ruler and together, the two forged a new trading empire.
Scholars say that at the time of its founding, the Mekong Delta had several settlements, each of
which was independently run by a local chief. Oc Eo's excavator, French archaeologist Louis
Malleret, reported that in the early first century CE, the Funan coast was occupied by Malay
fishing and hunting groups. Those groups were already building their own ships, and they would
come to form a new international route focused on the Kra Isthmus. That route would enable
them to control the transmission of Indian and Chinese goods back and forth across the region.

8
Funan culture researchers debate how much the establishment of the Funan trade empire was
indigenous to the Kra Isthmus or the Indian emigres, but there is no doubt that both elements
were important.

New Ramayana
7)The Ramakerti (16th century CE) presents Ram as the Buddha, but lot of Hindu gods are
referred to. Like Indians, Cambodians also worshiped the spirits inhabiting the rocks and trees.
8)Apart from writing on stone, the Khmers wrote on palm leaf. The Latania palm leaves were
first treated to make them supple. An iron stylus was used to engrave the writing. The oldest
manuscripts were preserved at a monastery in Battambang.
9) The Khmers have lively interest in the use of words. They were praised fr their riddles. The
hero of the folk tales and riddles was Thmenh Chey (Sanskrit name Dhananjaya). He was like
the great Tenali Rama, court jester of Vijayanagara emperor Krishna Deva raya. Dhanajaya
saves Cambodia from the Chinese by answering all the three riddles sent by king of China. There
are hundreds of stories about Dhanamjaya.
The names in Ramakerti are Rab for Ravana, Laks for Lakshmana, Hemavant for the Himalayas.
The end of Ramayana is changed in this work. Ram asked Lakshmana to execute Sita in the
forest. When Lava and kusa went to Rama’s court one was arrested and released later. Sita was
asked to go to Ayodhya. She refused and went to the underworld when falsely told that Rama
was dead!!!)

Khmer Dictionary
10)The Khmer lexicon includes a large body of fully integrated loan words, principally from
Sanskrit and Pali languages of India.

First period covers Pre Angkor and Angkor periods (7th to 14th centuries CE): we find
inscriptions on stone in Sanskrit and Pali.
Second period covers the Middle period (16th to 19th centuries CE): Inscriptions on stone are in
Pali. Verse novels are in Sanskrit and Pali.
Early modern period covers 19th and early 20th century: Prose and poetry are in Sanskrit, Palai,
French , Thai and English.

9
11.In the inscriptions the first part and the last parts are in Sanskrit. First par contains prayer to
Hindu gods. Last part contains warnings of punishment to marauders. All types of hells are
mentioned for those who destry the inscriptions or the properties.

Sanskrit Names
12.The educated elite of Cambodia read and wrote Sanskrit. It became the practice of to use
Sanskrit for all elevated linguistic activities. Names of dancers, singers, musicians and officials
were in Sanskrit. Few examples: Vasantamallika/Spring jasmine, Tanvangi/Slender
limbed,Sakhipriya/Beloved lady friend , officer Dharmaraksa/Protector of the Law.

13. Like Dhananjaya, Vikram and Vetal type stories are also prevalent. Satra kin Kantrai is
a collection of legal tales known also in Laos, Thailand and Burma. In each case the
dispute cannot be solved by a mere judge and has to be referred to the king. His
judgements are wise and fair. When two women claim to be the mother of a child, he
settles the case very much as Solomon the wise did.
(My comments: These stories show that even the stories were borrowed from India and improved
later. If we compare all the folk tales of Cambodia, it will be a very interesting comparative
study.)

14.Indra figures as the helping god in many stories. This shows that the cultural contacts began at
a very early date than the inscriptions show.

Tamil Names
15.Dhananjaya goes to China and he dupes even the emperor of China like Tenali Rama duped
the Emperor of Vijayanagara. He says to the king that he has an Indri bird (Which is really a toy
kite). The emperor heaps handsome presents upon him. References to Thais and Vietnamese are
noticeably lacking in the folk tales. But a proverb explains this
The monkey is constantly occupied with chewing
The Thais with their text books
The Vietnamese with their pretences
The pure Khmers with the truth.
16. My comments: We already know that the script used in all the South East Asian
countries went from South India. All the scripts are based on Pallava Grantha. Even the
early architecture looked like Pallava cave temple where from it went to South
America. Brahmin Kaundinya must have gone from Tamil Nadu. The famous Tamil
Saint Tirunjana Sambandha also belonged to Kaundinya Gotra and we have a few
Kaundinya Brahmins in the list of Tamil Sangam poets. In the folk tales we have
typical Tamil name Kandhan as the captain of King Brahmadutt. Other names of
interest in the stories are Kamaraj, Aruna Raj, Krishnakumar etc. Feminine Saskrit
names like Chandra, Chitra, Padma etc are common to both parts of India.
17.The Pre Khmer inscriptions looked exactly similar to South Indian inscriptions; the order of
the matter was

10
 1.a) The date or name of the reigning king
2.b) The title and name of donors
3.c) The name of the God
d)Names of the people from whom the donor obtained the land to offer to the religious
foundation
e)Details of the price paid to those who relinquished the land
f)The extent, location and the capacity of the donated rice fields
g)The names of the slaves/workers donated with an indication of their duties
h)details of the subsistence to be given to the religious personnel
i)details of other lands given to the religious institution: orchards, gardens etc.
j)The list of the precious objects given to the foundation
k)the statement that the revenues are to be combined with those of another foundation
l)Warning of punishment for anyone using or abusing the belongings of the religious foundation.

More research will bring out more interesting connections.

Today believe it or not, descendants of the Indian priest caste who brought their religion to
Cambodia centuries before Buddhism took root, the Brahmans served as mystics, clairvoyants,
advisers and clergy. They passed down their faith from one generation of men to the next, in a
chain of tradition that withstood centuries of warring regimes and even the cultural destruction
wreaked by the Khmer Rouge.
“Cambodia has Brahmanism in its history,” Ly Daravuth, director of Reyum Institute, explained.

11
“When the Indian entrance became effective, it brought in the Brahmans. Although there was
Buddhism, [there] has been Brahmanism all along—the state religion and the king’s religion.
Brahmanism has always been part of the Cambodian royalty,” he said.
Now, the burden of upholding that royal tradition falls on the gaunt, hunched shoulders of Kang
Ken, Cambodia’s head Brahman priest and a civil servant in the Ministry of the Royal Palace.
With his tall frame wrapped in the traditional white shirt and black trousers, and his long,
graying hair tied in a tight knot, Kang Ken, 55, leads seven other priests known as the Bakou
Borahet, the Brahmans of the King’s court.
“They consider the Brahman the teacher for the King—the royal teacher,” Kang Ken said, sitting
in an open-air performance hall inside the palace.
“The previous kings always got advice from Brahmans—they had Brahmans who could predict
the future and Brahmans who played other roles. The current-day kings: Sometimes they get
advice, sometimes they only get the blessing.”
The priests are conspicuous for their unusual dress: They wear only white, black and red, and are
forbidden to cut their hair. Their duties include performing elaborate ceremonies: one for each
month, plus the annual plowing ceremony, another ritual near Khmer New Year, one on Pchum
Ben and others.
As late as the 1960s, the Brahmans were a highly visible element of palace life, said Alain Dan-
iel, who holds a doctorate in oriental literature and civilization.
“When I was here in the ’60s, there were quite a number of the Brahman priests who performed
the rites for every ceremony. At public events, they were there, using special instruments and
dressed in black and white and gold…. They were completely integrated into current life in
Cambodia.”
Khmer kings looked to the Brahmans to bring good fortune to the nation.
“If one year there was no rain, all of the kings of Cambodia—including King Norodom Siha-
nouk, and his father, King Norodom Suramrit—asked the Brahman priests to be an intermediary
with the Hindu gods, so that the rain would come,” Daniel said.
Kang Ken learned his craft from his father Kang Nhien, the former head priest who was “retired”
under Lon Nol after then-Prince Norodom Sihanouk was overthrown.
Kang Nhien was the last Brahman to serve before the Khmer Rouge took power.
Kang Ken said his entire family was spared under the Khmer Rouge regime—even though his
father refused to lie about his religious and political affiliations—a fate he attributes to divine
intervention. But the records and books that held the Brahman secrets did not fare so
well.
“For the Brahmans, they had responsibility for predicting about the future,” Kang Ken noted.
“But now they cannot, because all the documents and books were destroyed during the Pol Pot
regime.”
In the early 1990s, Kang Ken said, retired King Norodom Sihanouk dispatched representatives to
search for the remaining Brahmans and restore them to the palace. And, Kang Ken said simply,
“they found my father first.”
Now Kang Ken, who was appointed in 1993, keeps the faith as best he can with his fellow
priests, fostering a religion that has evolved into a uniquely Cambodian concoction that draws on
Buddhist and Hindu traditions.
The Brahmans are now as much government workers as they are religious leaders, and their roles
as the King’s advisers and clairvoyants are largely diminished.
In fact, Kang Ken said, he’s been drafted into office work in addition to his duties as priest.

12
“I have to work every day—no weekends off,” he said. “The Ministry of the Royal Palace is very
strict compared to other ministries.”
The Brahmans have homes outside the palace, and unlike Buddhist monks, they are allowed to
marry and have children, thereby keeping alive the practice through their family lines.
And for the Brahmans, that may be the greatest challenge of all.
Kang Ken admits that as a young man he had no desire to be a priest. Now, his three sons sound
much like their father.
“Traditionally, if I retire, maybe my son will continue this position, but it is very hard currently,
because the younger generation doesn’t want to wear this uniform,” Kang Ken said.
“I used to ask my sons many times to work here after I retire, but my sons have not said yes or
no,” he said. “But I told them, ‘If you love your family and the King, you must work as a Brah-
man.’”

Painting portrays the priest anointing the symbol of the Hindu god Siva in rites sanctifying
Jayavarman II as devaraja, or god-king.
An inscription from the Sdok Kak Thom temple recounts that at Mahendraparvata,
Jayavarman II took part in a ritual by the Brahman Hiranyadama, and his chief priest Lord
Sivakaivalya, known as devaraja (Khmer: ទេវរាជា) which placed him as
a chakravartin, Lord of the Universe.

The foundation of Hariharalaya near present-day Roluos was the first settlement in what
would later become the empire of Angkor. Despite this key role in Khmer history, few
firm facts survive about Jayavarman. No inscriptions authored by him have been found, but

13
he is mentioned in numerous others, some of them written long after his death. He appears
to have been of aristocratic birth, beginning his career of conquest in the southeast of
present-day Cambodia. He may have been known as Jayavarman Ibis at that time. “For the
prosperity of the people in this perfectly pure royal race, great lotus which no longer has a
stalk, he rose like a new flower,” declares one inscription. Various other details are
recounted in inscriptions: he married a woman named Hyang Amrita; and he dedicated a
foundation at Lobok Srot, in the southeast.
Taken in sum, the record suggests that Jayavarman and his followers moved over the
course of some years from southeast Cambodia to the northwest, subduing various
principalities along the way. Historian Claude Jacques writes that he first seized the city
of Vyadhapura in the southeast, then pushed up the Mekong River to take Sambhupura. He
later installed himself at another city state, now known as Banteay Prei Nokor,[5]: 54 near
present-day Kompong Cham. Jacques believes that from there he pressed on to Wat Pu,
seat of a city-state in present-day southern Laos, then moved along the Dangrek
Mountains to arrive in the Angkor region. Later he brought pressure on local Khmer
leaders located to the west, but they fought back and drove him to seek refuge on the
summit of present-day Phnom Kulen, about 50 kilometers east of Angkor, where the
Brahman declared the independent state. Jacques suggests that this step might have been
intended to affirm Jayavarman's authority in the face of strong resistance.
Once established in the Angkor region, he appears to have reigned not only in
Hariharalaya, located just north of the Tonle Sap lake, but also at a place that inscriptions
call Amarendrapura. It has not been positively identified, though some historians believe it
to be a now lost settlement at the western end of the West Baray, the eight kilometer-long
holy reservoir that was built about two centuries after his death. No single temple is
positively associated with Jayavarman, but some historians suggest he may have built Ak
Yum, a brick stepped pyramid, now largely ruined, at the southern edge of the West Baray.
The temple was a forerunner to the mountain-temple architectural form of later Khmer
kings.
Sdok Kok Thom or Sdok Kak Thom, is an 11th-century Khmer temple in present-
day Thailand, located about 34 kilometres (21 mi) northeast of the Thai border town
of Aranyaprathet. The temple is in Khok Sung District, Sa Kaeo Province, near the village
of Ban Nong Samet. It is regarded as the largest Khmer temple in eastern Thailand.[1]The
temple was dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva. Constructed by a prominent priestly family,
Sdok Kok Thom is best known as the original site of one of the most illuminating
inscriptions left behind by the Khmer Empire, which ruled much of Southeast Asia from
the end of the 9th century to the 15th century.
Built of red sandstone and laterite, the temple is a prime example of a provincial seat of
worship during the empire's golden age. It is small by the standards of the major
monuments in Angkor, the empire's capital, but shares their basic design and religious
symbolism. In its 11th century heyday during the reign of King Udayādityavarman II, the
temple was tended by its Brahmin patrons and supported with food and labor by the people
of surrounding rice-farming villages.
Scholars disagree as to the meaning of the name, which refers in Old Khmer to the temple's
setting. Translations include 'great reed lake', 'large reservoir with herons', and 'abundant
reeds in a large swamp'.
The inscription (classified K. 235) is a 340-line composition, in both Sanskrit and ancient

14
Khmer, carved on a gray sandstone stele 1.51 meters high that stood in the northeast corner
of the temple's court. Dating to 8 February 1053, it recounts two and a half centuries of
service that members of the temple's founding family provided to the Khmer court, mainly
as chief chaplains to kings. In laying out this long role, the text provides a remarkable and
often poetically worded look at the faith, royal lineage, history and social structure of the
times.

Northeastern library. Photo c. 1980

The Sanskrit text opens: "Homage to Śiva whose essence is highly proclaimed without
words by the subtle Śiva, His form, who pervades (everything) from within and who
activates the senses of living beings." The inscription is perhaps most useful to historians in
providing an account of twelve Khmer kings who ruled over the course of the two and a
half centuries. It recounts monarchs' spiritual and martial virtues and basic events of their
reigns. “As a teacher zealously impels his disciples or a father his children, so did he, for
the sake of his duty, zealously impel his subjects, rightfully securing them protection and
nourishment,” says the inscription of Udayādityavarman II. “In battle he held a sword
which became red with the blood of the shattered enemy kings and spread on all sides its
rising lustre, as if it were a red lotus come out of its chalice [or, applied to the sword: drawn
out of its scabbard], which he had delightedly seized from the Fortune of war by holding
her by the hair(or better, correcting lakṣmyāḥ in to lakṣmyā: which the Fortune of war, after
he had seized her hair, had delightedly offered him).”
The earliest king mentioned is Jayavarman II, who historians generally consider, partly on
the authority of this inscription, to have founded the Khmer empire in c. 800. [5]: 97 The text
includes the oft-cited detail that he came from a country named Java which meanwhile by
most scholars, such as Charles Higham, was seen as a foreign people living in the east
whose name is derived probably from Sanskrit yavana (wise), perhaps referring to the
kingdom of Champa. The Khmer portion of the text goes on to say: “A Brahman named
Hiraṇyadāman, skilled in magic and science," was invited by the king "to perform a
ceremony that would make it impossible for this country of the Kambuja to pay any
allegiance to Java and that there should be, in this country, one sole sovereign.”
The inscription documents nine generations of the temple's priestly family, starting with
Śivakaivalya, Jayavarman II's chaplain. The advisors are praised in the same adulatory tone
as is employed for the kings. The text gives a detailed account of how the family
systematically expanded its holdings of land and other property over the course of its long
relationship with the royal household. The final chaplain named in the text, Sadasiva, is

15
recorded as leaving the holy orders and marrying a sister of the primary queen of
Suryavarman. The man was given a new name and placed in charge of construction
projects. His career appears to have closed out the family's role in the royal inner circle; the
family is never heard from again in inscriptions.
Scholars have paid special attention to the inscription's account of the cult of the devarāja, a
key part of the Khmer court's religious ritual. “Hiraṇyadāma(n), the best of brahmins, with
superior intelligence like Brahmā, came, moved with compassion. To the king Jayavarman
II he carefully revealed a magic which had not been obtained by other people,” the text
reads. The king was instructed in four holy treatises. “After carefully extracting the
quintessence of the treatises by his experience and understanding of the mysteries, this
brahmin contrived the magic rites bearing the name of Devarāja, for increasing the
prosperity of the world.” But the description is sufficiently enigmatic that scholars cannot
agree on the cult's function. The term means obviously "king of the gods," in the sense that
one god, generally Śiva, was recognized as higher than others in the Hindu pantheon and
through his authority brought order to heaven. Court religious ritual, as described
repeatedly in the inscription, focused on maintaining a linga, or holy shaft, in which Śiva's
essence was believed to reside.
The inscription is also key to understanding important events in Khmer history, such as the
late 9th Century relocation of the capital from the area around the present-day village of
Roluos. “Again, the skillful Vāmaśiva was the preceptor of Śrī Yaśovardhana, bearing as
king the name Śrī Yaśovarman,” the Sanskrit text states. “Invited by the king, he erected a
liṅga Mount Yaśodhara, which was like the king of mountains (Meru) in beauty.” French
scholars initially believed that Śrī Yaśodharagiri was the mountain-like Bayon temple. But
it is now established that the Bayon was built almost three centuries later than the event
described in the inscription and that the linga was in fact placed in the newly
constructed Phnom Bakheng temple, which stands about two kilometers south of the Bayon
atop a real hill.
The text also notes the relocation of the capital from Angkor to the site now known as Koh
Ker under Jayavarman IV, and turmoil during the times of King Sūryavarman I. He is
described as having dispatched soldiers against people who had desecrated shrines in the
area of Sdok Kok Thom. Historians generally believe that Sūryavarman fought his way to
power, eventually driving out of Angkor a king named Jayavīravarman (who significantly
is not mentioned in the inscription).
Elsewhere, the text provides myriad details of everyday existence in the empire—the
establishment of new settlements, the recovery of slaves who had fled a pillaged settlement,
payments given for land, such as gold, lower garments, goats and water buffaloes.
The text describes the creation of Sdok Kok Thom itself. The family was gifted the land by
Udayādityavarman II, it says. The final member of the line, now in his role as construction
chief, "erected a stone temple with valabhi [spire], dug a reservoir, built dikes and laid out
fields and gardens." The precise boundaries of its land and the size, duty schedules and
male-female breakdown of local work teams that maintained the temple are listed.
Khmer inscriptions were created in part to glorify heaven and the earthly elite. For that
reason, their value as factual records is often thrown into question. But many parts of this
one are confirmed by other texts, and some of the places it describes have been reliably
located. Moreover, many of its numbers and descriptions, particularly concerning land and
its ownership, read as if they have the full accuracy and authority of modern courthouse

16
documents. Overall, there is general consensus among scholars that the words chiseled out
at Sdok Kok Thom are perhaps the most important written explanation that the Khmer
empire provided of itself.
The inscription's author or authors are not named. Many scholars conclude firmly that
Sadasiva wrote it, at least his lineage, Sak-Humphry believes the text was likely drafted in
consultation with the Brahman, but was
The most valuable inscription concerning Jayavarman II is the one dated in 1052 AD, two
centuries after his death, and found at the Sdok Kak Thom temple in present-day Thailand.
“When His Majesty Paramesvara came from Java to reign in the royal city of Indrapura,…
Sivakaivalya, the family’s purohit, was serving as his guru and held the post of royal
chaplain to His Majesty,” states the inscription, using the king’s posthumous name.[11] In a
later passage, the text says that a Brahman named Hiranyadama, “proficient in the lore of
magic power, came from Janapada in response to His Majesty’s having invited him to
perform a sublime rite which would release Kambujadesa [the kingdom] from being any
longer subject to Java.” The text also recounts the creation of the cult of the devaraja, the
key religious ceremony in the court of Jayavarman and subsequent Khmer people.
[Some inscription referring to King Jayavarman II]

"Then a brahman named Hiranyadama, skilled in magic science, came from Janapada,
because H. M. Paramesvara had invited him to perform a ceremony that would make it
impossible for this country of Kambuja to pay any allegiance to Java and that there should
be, in this country, one sole sovereign, who should be cakravartin."

"Then H. M. Paramesvara came from Java to be Kurung in the holy city of Indrapura. The
steng an Sivakaivalya, wise ancestor, was the guru, was the rajapurohita of His Majesty
Paramesvara"

"Then His Majesty was Kurung on the site of the royal city of Hariharalaya. The steng an
Sivakaivalya resided also in this city. As for his family, they were made pages of the King"

17
Angkor wat is the main and biggest temple complex in the old Angkor Thom city.
1). There are no “pujaris” (Hindu) at Angkor Wat. Though there are some Buddha-Bikshus -
they don’t know Sanskrit (I personally tried to converse with them and no body had a clue - this
was in 2015)
2). The main Vishnu “murti”is not in the main temple but in the museum.
3). The “garba-griham” (sanctum sanctorum) is permanently closed with stone slabs and in the
North side (there are 4 sides) they have installed a large Buddha statue outside “garba-griham”.
4). Cambodia as a nation largely depends on revenue from tourism - particularly the Siem Reap
province (border with Thailand) and Angkor Thom (Angkor dham).
5). There are 4 large temple complexes in Angkor Thom (the ancient city of Khmer dynasty) -
“Angkor wat” (Vishnu), “Baphuon” (Shiva), “Taprohm” (Brahma) and “Prasat Bayon”
(Avalokiteshwara). Except Angkor Wat - rest of the temples are in very bad shape.
6). Indian Government’s ASI is funding and helping Cambodian Government to restore these
temples. The ‘Taprohm’ (Brahma) is being restored with the help from Chinese.
7). One of my contact is a curator in Angkor Wat, Cambodia - he studied archaeology in India.
He knows a bit of Sanskrit - other than that hardly anybody in the temple complex know
Sanskrit.
8). There are more Sanskrit knowing people in Thailand than in Cambodia.
BRAHMIN POWER IN CAMBODIAS
Tamil andVedas- Tamil and Sanskrit names in Cambodian Inscriptions and Folktales

18
Tamil and Sanskrit names in Cambodian Inscriptions and Folktales South East Asian countries
were ruled by Hindu kings for over one thousand years. Influence of Sanskrit language is seen
everywhere, but Tamil influence was not noticed by many. When I read two books written by
Judith M Jacob, senior lecturer at SOAS, University of London, I made some marginal notes and
I give them below:-
Slave names in Cambodian inscriptions have beautiful Tamil and Sanskrit names. Some
musicians and dancers have very poetic names e.g Vasanta mallika, (spring jasmine) in Khmer
inscription K 557.
We may compare it with the 400 beautiful names in Rajaraja Choza inscriptions in Thanjavur.
He had given the names of all the 400 dancers employed in the big Hindu temple. Some of them
are beautiful Tamil names and others were beautiful Sanskrit names.

Slaves in Cambodia were treated as ‘goods’ possessed by an owner. They were gifted to temples
along with lands and other goods.
A case suggesting two dependent parents is recorded on inscription K904,A1.23,
“me kandan, ta kandan ku Kandan” meaning mother of Kandan, father of Kandan.
Kandan is a Tamil name derivedfrom Sanskrit Skanda.
Va and Ku are used frequently in inscriptions, Va is Mr and Ku is Mrs or Miss.
In folk tales Kandhan , with Tamil spelling, Kam Raj, Krishna Kumar and Suvanna Kumar
( Swarnakumara) are used. Though these names are Tamilized Sanskrit words these are more
common in Tamil Nadu than other parts of India.

19
Order of details in Inscriptions
Pre-Angkor inscriptions followed the same order in giving details like India. Here also we see
Indian influence.
The date or name of the reigning king;
The title and name of donors;
The name of the god;
Names of the people from whom the donor obtained land to offer to the foundation;
The extent, location, capacity of the donated rice fields;
The names of the donated slaves with an indication of their duties;
Details of the subsistence given to the religious personnel;
Details of other lands given to the foundation, orchards, market, garden etc
List of precious objects given to the foundation;
The statement s that the revenues are to be combined with those of another foundation ;
Warning of punishment for anyone using or abusing the belongings of the foundation.
King Vikramaditya
‘Satra keng kantrai’ is a collection of legal tales known also in Laos, Thailand and Burma. In

20
each case the dispute cannot be solved by a mere judge and has to be referred to the king. His
judgments are wise and fair. When two women claim to be the mother of one child, for example,
he settles the case very much as Solomon did.
It is like our Vikramaditya, a wise and just king.

Tamil Anangu
The frequent appearances in the stories of spirits ‘anak ta’ always associated with a specific
locality such as a strangely shaped tree trunk or huge rock may be compared with ‘Thaakku
Anangu’ in Sangam Tamil literature and Brahmarakshas in Sanskrit literature. This shows clear
Indian influence. (Thaaku Anangu= Anak Ta)
When we look at all these stories we come across Sanskrit or Tamil words or parallel Indian
stories. That shows even Solomon’s stories are borrowed from India and adapted.
Dhananjay
‘Themen Chey’ is a story known in Cambodia, Burma and Thailand. It is the corrupted form of
Dhananjayan, one of the popular names of Arjuna. Also a common name among business
community of Tamil Nadu. In the story, he is a poor boy who rises first to be the servant of a rich
man, then to attend upon the king, and finally to be the most eminent man in the land.
–subham–

Brahmin Power in South East Asian Countries-

21
Pictures shown here are taken from various sources such as Facebook friends, Books,
Google and newspapers; thanks. Pictures may be subject to copyright laws.

Brahmin Power in Cambodia ,Thailand Burma and Vietnam

Brahmins maintained powerful hierarchy for many centuries. They were well organised. They
came there around fifth century and increased in number due to a constant flow of immigrants
from India. During the reign of Yasovarman 889 CE, Saivism was predominant. We learn from
the following inscription that they enjoyed a position similar to that which was theirs in India.

The king,well versed in kingly duties, performed Koti Homa and Yajnas, for which he gave the
priest s magnificent presents of jewels, gold etc.

The cult of the Royal God, though founded by Jayavarman II, 802 CE, did not reach the heights
of its development until two centuries after wards, and was especially associated with
Vaishnavism and the temple of Angkor Wat. This cult led Brahmins enjoying even more exalted
position . The priest hood became hereditary in the family of Sivakaivalya, who enjoyed
immense power. This sacerdotal dynasty almost threw the royal dynasty into the shade.
Brahmins were depicted on the reliefs of Angkor Wat and Coedes has identified Drona and
Visvamitra amongst them. In one of the relief s which illustrates a royal procession, it is
interesting that the Brahmins were the only onlookers who do not prostrate before the king, as
was also the case in India. In the reliefs aristocracy wear the chignon and the lower castes short
hair.
One remarkable sign of the power of the Brahmins was that they had even marriage alliances
with the princesses. Bakus, the descendants of ancient Brahmins, chose one from them to
succeed if the royal family failed.

As early as the reign of Jayavarman V, Buddhism and Hinduism got mixed and the Brahmin
purohitas were expected to be well versed in Buddhist prayers and rites. But the Brahmin s of
Cambodia never sank so low as did those of Campa (modern Vietnam). In the Po Nagar
inscription of Campa, we read that the feet of the king were worshiped,even by Brahmins and
priests.

22
In Thailand

Though the religion of Thailand was Buddhism the royalty recruited Brahmin s from Cambodia.
For centuries Brahmin s enjoyed quite an important position.
The famous inscription dated about 1361 CE of King Dharma Raja mentioned the kings
knowledge of the Vedas and of astronomy. The inscription on the Siva statue found at Kamben
bejra recorded the desire of King Dharmasokaraja,(1510 CE), to exalt both Hinduism and
Buddhism.

Brahmins had access to sacred books and law books and so they served the royal s in various
capacities. The epigraph ic records demonstrate the powerful influence of purohitas in Burma
and Cambodia, where they often served under successive rulers and provided continuity to the
government in troubled times. In ninth century Angkor, for instance, Indravarman I had the
service of Sivasoma, who studied VedantA under Shankara.

Indian Brahmins are occasionally mentioned in the south East Asian inscription s and one
wondered how Brahmins travelled abroad when Manu and other lawmakers ban foreign travel
for Brahmins. These prohibitions may have had little practical effect, and would n of have
deterred ambitious men lured by the hope of honour and fortune in a distant land. In fact they
were invited by some rulers.

Not only in the Hindu courts in Cambodia but also in the courts of Pagan in Burma and Sukothai
in Thailand, the Brahmins conducted great ceremonies,such as the Royal Consecration and-
functioned as ministers and counsellors . The grand ceremony in Pagan required the services of
numerous Brahmins.In Cambodia Jayavarman VIII built a temple for the scholar priest
Jayamangalaartha and likewise for the Brahmin Vidyesavid. Who became Royal sacrificial
Priest. The Chinese visitor Chou Ta kuan refers to the presence of Brahmins wearing sacred
thread.

23
We have evidence of use of Sanskrit even in Sri Lanka. Thirteenth century work Kundamala was
composed in Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka, according to some scholars.

Source: Source books- From Turfan to Ajanta, Edited by Eli Franco and Monika Zin, Lumbini
International Research Institute, Nepal;2010

Sanskrit and Tamil Words in Cambodian Language

Compiled by London swaminathan

Article No.1906; Dated 2 June 2015.
Uploaded at London time: 20-39

Cambodians or Khmers are a race of people occupying the Mekong (Ma Ganga) River basin
what was known as Indo-China but now is South East Asia. The racial and linguistic family to
which the Cambodians belong is known as the Mon-Khmer family. Indians came from the
second century CE to trade and later to settle on the west coast of Indo China.

Funan= Panavan=Punal: Tamil Connection

1)The first Khmer texts, inscriptions of the 7 th and 8th centuries CE gave practical information
about religious foundations while Sanskrit was used for composing the panegyrics of Gods and
kings. Khmers regarded Sanskrit as the language of literature.
2)From the Chinese annals we learn that there was an indianized state called Funan in south of
Cambodia.
(My comments: The word Funan may mean Panavan (Pandya title) or Punal Nadu (water
country in Tamil). The reason for my conclusion is the first king of Vietnam (Champa) was Sri
Maran, a Pandya king (Tiru maran in Sangam literature)
3)The Indian connection is reflected in the legend which tells how an Indian, the Brahmin
Kaundinya, came to Cambodia and married Soma, the daughter of the king of the Nagas.

24
(My comments: Tamil and Sanskrit literature describe all lands lying beyond east of India or
South of India as Nagalokam. If it is further away from South East Asia they called those lands
Patala Lokam (Under world).

Reason for the name Kamboja/Cambodia

4)Another legend relates that the hermit Kambu Swayambuva married the heavenly nymph
Mera, a gift of the god Siva. This gave them the name Kambojas for the people.

5)Finally at the end of ninth century CE there was the beginning of the Angkor kingdom which
built the world famous monuments including Angkorwat. The earliest dated inscriptions are 611
CE (Khmer) and 613 (Sanskrit) but there were earlier dated Sanskrit inscriptions in
Champa/Vietnam

6)We know the names of six poets who wrote in Sanskrit during Angkor period. Indian epics
were read even before this period.

25
New Ramayana

7)The Ramakerti (16th century CE) presents Ram as the Buddha, but lot of Hindu gods are
referred to. Like Indians, Cambodians also worshiped the spirits inhabiting the rocks and trees.

8)Apart from writing on stone, the Khmers wrote on palm leaf. The Latania palm leaves were
first treated to make them supple. An iron stylus was used to engrave the writing. The oldest
manuscripts were preserved at a monastery in Battambang.

9) The Khmers have lively interest in the use of words. They were praised fr their riddles. The
hero of the folk tales and riddles was Thmenh Chey (Sanskrit name Dhananjaya). He was like
the great Tenali Rama, court jester of Vijayanagara emperor Krishna Deva raya. Dhanajaya
saves Cambodia from the Chinese by answering all the three riddles sent by king of China. There
are hundreds of stories about Dhanamjaya.
The names in Ramakerti are Rab for Ravana, Laks for Lakshmana, Hemavant for the Himalayas.
The end of Ramayana is changed in this work. Ram asked Lakshmana to execute Sita in the
forest. When Lava and kusa went to Rama’s court one was arrested and released later. Sita was
asked to go to Ayodhya. She refused and went to the underworld when falsely told that Rama
was dead

26
Khmer Dictionary

10)The Khmer lexicon includes a large body of fully integrated loan words, principally from
Sanskrit and Pali languages of India.
First period covers Pre Angkor and Angkor periods (7 th to 14th centuries CE): we find
inscriptions on stone in Sanskrit and Pali.
Second period covers the Middle period (16th to 19th centuries CE): Inscriptions on stone are in
Pali. Verse novels are in Sanskrit and Pali.
Early modern period covers 19th and early 20th century: Prose and poetry are in Sanskrit, Palai,
French , Thai and English.

11.In the inscriptions the first part and the last parts are in Sanskrit. First par contains prayer to
Hindu gods. Last part contains warnings of punishment to marauders. All types of hells are
mentioned for those who destry the inscriptions or the properties.

27
Sanskrit Names
12.The educated elite of Cambodia read and wrote Sanskrit. It became the practice of to use
Sanskrit for all elevated linguistic activities. Names of dancers, singers, musicians and officials
were in Sanskrit. Few examples: Vasantamallika/Spring jasmine, Tanvangi/Slender
limbed,Sakhipriya/Beloved lady friend , officer Dharmaraksa/Protector of the Law.

13.Like Dhananjaya, Vikram and Vetal type stories are also prevalent. Satra kin Kantrai is a
collection of legal tales known also in Laos, Thailand and Burma. In each case the dispute cannot
be solved by a mere judge and has to be referred to the king. His judgements are wise and fair.
When two women claim to be the mother of a child, he settles the case very much as Solomon
the wise did.

14.Indra figures as the helping god in many stories. This shows that the cultural contacts began at
a very early date than the inscriptions show.

Tamil Names

15.Dhananjaya goes to China and he dupes even the emperor of China like Tenali Rama duped
the Emperor of Vijayanagara. He says to the king that he has an Indri bird (Which is really a toy
kite). The emperor heaps handsome presents upon him. References to Thais and Vietnamese are
noticeably lacking in the folk tales. But a proverb explains this
The monkey is constantly occupied with chewing
The Thais with their text books
The Vietnamese with their pretences
The pure Khmers with the truth.

16. My comments: We already know that the script used in all the South East Asian countries
went from South India. All the scripts are based on Pallava Grantha. Even the early architecture
looked like Pallava cave temple where from it went to South America. Brahmin Kaundinya must
have gone from Tamil Nadu. The famous Tamil Saint Tirunjana Sambandha also belonged to
Kaundinya Gotra and we have a few Kaundinya Brahmins in the list of Tamil Sangam poets. In
the folk tales we have typical Tamil name Kandhan as the captain of King Brahmadutt. Other
names of interest in the stories are Kamaraj, Aruna Raj, Krishnakumar etc. Feminine Saskrit
names like Chandra, Chitra, Padma etc are common to both parts of India.

28
17.The Pre Khmer inscriptions looked exactly similar to South Indian inscriptions; the order of
the matter was
1.a) The date or name of the reigning king
2.b) The title and name of donors
3.c) The name of the God
d)Names of the people from whom the donor obtained the land to offer to the religious
foundation
e)Details of the price paid to those who relinquished the land
f)The extent, location and the capacity of the donated rice fields
g)The names of the slaves/workers donated with an indication of their duties
h)details of the subsistence to be given to the religious personnel
i)details of other lands given to the religious institution: orchards, gardens etc.
j)The list of the precious objects given to the foundation
k)the statement that the revenues are to be combined with those of another foundation
l)Warning of punishment for anyone using or abusing the belongings of the religious foundation.

Sanskrit Inscriptions in South East Asia!

Over 1250 inscriptions are discovered so far in South East Asian countries. Majority of them are
in Sanskrit language. Ancient Cambodia, known as Kingdom of Khmer covered most of the area
in South East Asia. Champa, what is now known as Vietnam, has the oldest Sanskrit inscription.
Since the name on the inscription is Sri Mara, I have interpreted it as the name of a Pandyan king
in my research article “A Tamil king who ruled Vietnam” — posted here on Sept 13 , 2011.
This is what I wrote,
“The inscription is known as Vo-Chanh Inscription. It was inscribed on a rock as two parts. This
is about the donation made by the family of the king Sri Maran. We have fifteen lines on one part
of the rock and seven more lines on the other side. Of these only nine lines are readable. Scholars
who took a copy of the inscription say the poetry part is in Vasantha Thilaka metre in Sanskrit
and rest is in prose.
The king donated all his property to the people who were close to him and ordered that it should
be honoured by the future kings. The inscription ends abruptly. But we could read the words ‘Sri

29
Mara raja kula’ very clearly. Though we couldn’t get much information about this king from
other sources, Chinese historians confirmed that the Hindu empire that existed in Vietnam, Laos
and Cambodia started with Sri Maran”.
Over 800 Sanskrit inscriptions were found in S.E.Asia until fifty years ago. Now more and more
inscriptions are discovered. Even a new underground city is discovered in 2013.
Cambodia has made unique contributions to Sanskrit literature especially in poetry according to
Dr M K Charan. He says, “The writers demonstrated full knowledge of various Indian sects.
They mastered the rhetorical and literary conventions like puns, alliterations, similes etc. and
virtually employed all the varied metres of Sanskrit poetics.
Cambodian epigraphy used both Sanskrit and old Khmer languages. They considered Sanskrit as
a sacred language and so used it to record royal genealogies, panegyrics of the founders of
monuments and donors, while old Khmer and Cambodian were used for the details which
followed. Even in South India writers used Sanskrit and Tamil in the same way. Sanskrit verses
praised the king and his Vamsavali (genealogy) whereas the Tamil section gave minute details of
the donation, the extension of the land or the gifts to temples or the Brahmins.

298 verses in one inscription! -Saivite Sanskrit Inscription

Since the Cambodian inscriptions covers a vast area covering several modern S. E. Asian
countries and period of 800 years from 7 th century to 14th century CE, we can’t expect uniformity
in the language of the inscriptions.
“We have positive evidence about the flourishing state of Sanskrit language during a span of
more than 800 years. Verses composed during the period of Jayavarman and Yasovarman
conform to Panini’s rules because the composers had a thorough knowledge of grammar”, says
DR MK Charan. Many of the Sanskrit verses are so beautiful that we do not find their parallel in
India. A new Kavya style named Manohara has been referred to in the Pre rup inscription.
Inscriptions are in beautiful and flawless Kavya style. They exhibit a thorough knowledge of
different metres and most developed rues and conventions of rhetoric and prosody.

30
Buddhist Inscription/Pallava Grantha Script

The oldest inscription found in Cambodia is of fifth century CE. Out of the five verses contained
in this inscription, four are in sardulavikridita metre and one shows familiarity with Hindu
mythology. Some of the inscriptions are very big compositions. The Prasusti of Rajendravarman
which contains 298 verses excess all others in size.
J F Stall says, “The Vocañh inscription is written in regular Sanskrit prose, and most of the
inscriptions from Cambodia are written in a more correct form of Sanskrit than that which is
used in some of the inscriptions from India. The reason for this may be that the Cambodians
learned Sanskrit from grammar books and not from native speakers. The Indian grammarian
Panini is in fact honoured by being mentioned in these inscriptions; other linguistic works are
referred to as well”.
Jean-Michel Filippi, Professor of Linguistics at Royal Phnom Penh University wrote in June
2013, “Cambodian inscriptions make you feel dizzy: new inscriptions are still regularly found
and they are very far from having been translated and commented upon.
The implications of this fact are obvious: Cambodian general history may well be known, but
there remains very many obscure points which will only be made clear when the inscriptions are
deciphered. Thus there is a strong chance that a book about pre-Angkor or Angkor Cambodia
written 20 years ago may be simply refuted by the discovery or the deciphering of an
inscription”.

Pallava Grantha Script

Lakshminarayana dasa and Bhaktin Kaunteya of Iskcon, Cambodia, are writing about research in
this area and add
“In the beginning of Christian era, Khmer language was only a spoken language. In other terms,
at that time, the Khmer did not know how to write. The ancient Khmers borrowed the Indic
script to record their own language. So the modern Khmer language is written in a script, which
is borrowed from India. It is precisely the Grantha Brahmi script, which is the mother of modern
Khmer script. Cambodia has also adopted the Devanagari script and Pallava Grantha script in
order to develop its actual alphabets. In the present day Cambodian, about seventy percent words

31
are borrowed from Sanskrit. Such common words as dhanagara (bank), durasabda
(telephone),bhasa (language), etc are derived from Sanskrit.
Sanskrit was the court language of the Khmer Empire for more than thousand years. All the royal
orders, land transactions, temple administration were recorded in Sanskrit. Slowly the Khmer
language shared this role in course of centuries. So after seventh century we find inscriptions
partly written in Sanskrit and partly in Khmer.

About 1250 inscriptions have been discovered from the Ancient Angkor Empire. The majority is
written in Sanskrit. The aim of the present research is to explore various aspects of cultural
relations between India and Cambodia as presented in the epigraphic literature of this country”
Sources:–
Studies in Sanskrit Inscriptions of Ancient Cambodia by M K Charan, 1974
Articles by J F Stall, Jean-Michel Filiippi and Iskcon, Cambodia.
Who is Dhananjayan?

Vo Canh Inscription in Vietnam (Champa) RIGHT

Picture: Dhananjayan with folded hands on left & Pandya king on the right.
I was fascinated by the name DHANANJAYAN when I found it in Mahabharata, Alupa coins,
Cambodian folk tales, Vishnu Sahasranama, Nagas and history of Madurai Meenakshi temple. I
also knew that Dhanajayans are famous names in Bharatanatyam. But I was provoked to do some

32
research in to it when I read Dhanajayan under baby names it is the name of Murugan (Lord
Skanda). I think it is wrong because I found no proof for that claim.

The most famous Dhanajayan was Arjuna. One of his ten names was Dhanajayan. If the roar of
thunder is heard, Hindus used to recite the ten names of Arjuna to avoid thunder striking them.
Arjuna got this name when he won the wealth (Dhanam= wealth, Jayan= victor) of Uttarakuru
country in the north.

Bhagavad Gita Dhanajayan

The name Dhananjayan comes in Vishnu Sahasranama (couplet 70) as one of the names of Lord
Vishnu. The meaning according to Sahasranama bhasyam is:
“Arjuna is called so because by his conquest of the kingdoms in the four quarters, he acquired
great wealth (Dhanam). Arjuna is a Vibhuti, a glorious manifestation of the Lord, according to
the statement of the Gita (10:57): Panadavanam dhananjaya:–among the Pandavas, I am
Dhananjaya, says Krishna.”

Pandya Dhanajaya on Coins:

The Alupas, one of the very ancient dynasties of Karnataka, ruled for over a thousand years in
the coastal tract of Karnataka. Even Ptolemy (79 to 168 AD) refers to the Alupas. They are
referred to in the famous Halmidi (500 AD) inscription. The Alupas belonged to the lunar race
and had fish as their royal emblem, exactly like the Pandyas of Madurai. Among the most
important titles of the Alupas, were Pandita Pandya and Pandya Dhananjaya. This has been
found on coins and inscriptions in Kannada. This shows Pandyas were very familiar with the
name Dhanajaya. This takes us to the history of Madurai Meenakshi Temple.

Picture of Golden Lotus tank in Madurai Temple

Dhanajaya statue in Madurai

The story of the world famous Madurai Meenakshi Temple begins with a merchant called
Dhananjaya. (Please read my article THE WONDER THAT IS MADURAI MEENAKSHI
TEMPLE in this blog). A merchant by this name travelled to a neighbouring town and returned
to his home town Manavur through the thick forest of Kadamaba trees. Since the sun was already

33
set he took rest under a tree. Suddenly he saw bright lights. He hid himself and watched Indra
and other angels from the heaven came down to earth doing Puja to a Linga (formless Shiva). He
was so excited and reported it to the Pandya king Kulasekara the very next morning. The king
visited the place with all his retinue immediately and built a temple over the Shiva Lingam and a
city slowly came up around this temple. Anyone can see Madurai as a well planned city in the
shape of squares within squares round the temple. It is called lotus city.
The statue of Dhanjaya is in the Golden Lotus Tank pillar inside Maduari temple. This story is
narrated in Thiru Vilayadal Puranam in Tamil.
Surprise from Cambodia
Mahabharata’s character Arjuna had good connection with the south of India by marrying
Chitrangada. They had a son by name Babruvahana/bull vehicle which also links to Shiva whose
vehicle is a bull. When we read that Dhananjaya Pandya in Karnataka and Dhannjaya’s early
connection with Manalur, the previous capital of Pandya, we see a link between Arjuna-Pandya-
Dhananjaya-fish symbol- Bull Vahana/vehicle etc. This calls for deeper research in to this area.

Picture of Halmidi Kannada inscription

The next surprise comes from Cambodia. If someone sees names like Rama, Krishna, Buddha in
Cambodia one won’t be surprised because we have a history of Hindu rule in South East Asia for
1300 years. (Please read my article THE PANDYA KING WHO RULED VIETNAM). This
Dhananjayan is neither a king nor a historical figure. But he was a jester in a folk tale. The
famous stories of Tenali Rama are duplicated in Cambodia by replacing Tenali Rama’s name
with Dhananjaya. How did his name travel that far from India and how did he become a jester or
clown is a mystery. This calls for more research.

Judith Jacob in her book ‘Cambodian linguistics, literature and history’ says:
“Thmenh Chey (Dhmen Jay or Dhananjay) is a story known also in Burma and Thailand.
Thmenh Jay is a poor boy who rise, first to be the servant of a rich man, then to upon to attend
the king and finally to be the most eminent man in the land. All this he does by his wits and in
particular by outwitting his current master in verbal adroitness”.
I have read some of the stories and they are very similar to stories of Tenali Rama.
Asvagosha’s Dhanajaya

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Asvagosha was one of the great writers of ancient India. He lived in the period of Kushan
emperor in first century AD. Unlike other Buddhist writers he wrote in Sanskrit. Many Kavyas
and dramas are attributed to him. One of the characters in Asvagosha’s drama was Dhananjaya!
Probably Cambodian’s followed this fictional character to create their jester.

More Dhananjayans
Dhananjayan is a famous name in Bharatnatyam in Chennai. The couple started their own school
in their names. The ancient Djhanajayas include the son of Naga woman Kadru, a Jain author
who wrote ‘Dhananjayam’ and a commander in Lord Muruga’s army. This is the only link with
Muruga/Skanda. Dhanajayan is one of the names of Agni/fire. Since Vedas connect Agni to Lord
Skanda/Murugan we may see some distant link to Murugan.
Divākarapaṇḍita, original name Divākara, (born 1040, Cambodia—died c. 1120), Hindu of the
Brahman (priestly) caste who rose through religious and administrative ranks to serve four
Cambodian kings—Harshavarman II, Jayavarman VI, Dharanindravarman I, and the great
Suryavarman II—and who was the most trusted adviser to three of them.
The highly opportunistic Divākara was able not only to survive the successive usurpations of
monarchies but also to ingratiate himself with each new sovereign. Divākarapaṇḍita played a
singular role in Cambodian history, for it was at his urging that Suryavarman II began
construction of the temple of Angkor Wat, one of the world’s largest religious edifices and
certainly one of the greatest achievements of ancient Khmer, or Cambodian, civilization. One of
the monuments of Angkor Wat commemorates this powerful Brahman.

Many historical rulers came from other castes, or were descended from non-Hindu foreign
conquerors, and were either granted de facto Kshatriya status by virtue of the power they held, or
they created fictionalized family histories to connect themselves to past Kshatriya rulers. For
instance, the Sakas, Yavanas, Kambojas, Pahlavas, Paradas, and so on, were foreign invaders
from the northwest, but were assimilated into the Indian community as Kshatriyas.

 Though the Ashtadhyayi of Panini (sutra 4.1.168-175) attests that the Kamboja
and Gandhara were very important Kshatriya kingdoms of Uttarapatha during or prior to
Paninian times (500 B.C.E.), they came to be regarded as Sudras for not following the
teachings of the Vedas.
 The Manusmriti, written about 200 C.E. states that the Sakas (Scythians), Yavanas
(Ionian, Indo-Greeks), Kambojas (Central Asians), Paradas (Sinkiang), Pahlavas
(Persians), Kiratas (Nepal, Assam), Dravidas, Thevar (Tamil), and Daradas were
originally noble Kshatriyas but were relegated to the Barbaric (Vrishala) status due to
their neglect of the Brahmanas as well as due to their non-observance of the sacred
Brahmanical codes (X/43-44).
 Anushasanaparava of the Mahabharata also views the Sakas, Kambojas and the Yavanas.
in the same light. Patanjali in his Mahabhasya regards the Sakas and Yavanas as pure
Sudras (II.4.10).
 The Vartika of the Katyayana informs us that the kings of the Sakas and the Yavanas,
like those of the Kambojas, may also be addressed by their respective tribal names.
 The Mahabharata also associates the Sakas, Yavanas, Gandharas (Northwest India),
Kambojas (Pamir-Badakshan), Pahlavas, Tusharas, Sabaras, Barbaras, Dravidas, and
Boyars, and so on, and addresses them all as the barbaric tribes of Uttarapatha.

35
  The Kishkindha Kanda of the Ramayana locates the Sakas, Kambojas, Yavanas, and the
Paradas in the extreme north-west beyond the Himavat (that is, Hindukush) (43/12) in the
Shakadvipa, adjoining the land of Uttarakurus.
 The Udyogaparava of the Mahabharata (MBH 5/19/21-23) tells us that the composite
army of the Kambojas, Yavanas and Sakas had participated in the Mahabharata war
under the supreme command of Sudakshina Kamboja. The epic repeatedly applauds this
composite army as being very fierce and wrathful. Some verses of Mahabharata also
attest that the Tusharas or Tukharas were also included in the Kamboja division (for
example, MBH 6.66.17-21; MBH 8.88.17).
 Puranic accounts attest that the Dravidas are Kshatriyas and are said to be descendants of
the sons of Vishwamitra. Like the Kambojas, Sakas, Yavanas, Daradas, Khashas, and so
on, the Dravidas were recorded as Kshatriyas who no longer were initiated into the sacred
thread due to their neglect of the Brahmanas as well as due to their non-observance of the
sacred Brahmanical codes.

Within the complex and multifaceted world of Hindu symbolism, the Kshatriyas class is
represented by the Nyagrodha Banyan tree and the danda (staff). When a Kshatriya undergoes
his initiation ceremony, a "staff made of [the aforementioned] wood is given to
the Kshatriya initiate with a mantra imparting physical vitality or 'ojas'".

Mahajanapadas
The gaṇa sangha form of government was a oligarchic republic during the period of
the Mahajanapadas (c. 600-300 BCE), that was ruled by Kshatriya clans. However, these
kshatriyas did not follow the Vedic religion, and were sometimes called degenerate Kshatriyas or

36
Shudras by Brahmanical sources. The kshatriyas served as representatives in the assembly at the
capital, debated various issues put before the assembly. [17] Due to the lack of patronage of Vedic
Brahmanism, the kshatriyas of the gana sanghas were often patrons of Buddhism and Jainism.
In the kingdoms of the Mahajanapadas, the king claimed kshatriya status through the Vedic
religion. While kings claimed to be kshatriya, some kings came from non-kshatriya origins.
After the Mahajanapada period, most of the prominent royal dynasties in northern India were not
kshatriyas. The Nanda Empire, whose rulers were stated to be shudras, destroyed many kshatriya
lineages.
According to Devaraja teaching, kings were revered like gods and had ultimate control over
the kingdom. This belief was the basis for Khmer kings to embark on massive architectural
projects such as Angkor Wat and Bayon, to celebrate the king's divine rule on earth.
The Empire also adopted the Hindu caste system, whereby commoners such as rice farmers and
fishermen formed the majority of the population. The minority higher castes were Kshatriyas,
such as royalty, nobles, warlords, soldiers, and warriors; and Brahmins such as priests.
Aside from those there were also traders and artisans. Slaves made up the lowest social caste,
and they were probably the laborers who worked on the many building projects of the empire.
Cambodia experienced its most glorious days during the Angkor Empire.The emperor once
reigned over most of Indochina, including today's Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and
Laos. The Angkor royal court was famous for grand ceremonies, festivals, and rituals. The king
was surrounded by ministers, state officials, nobles, royalty, palace women, and servants, and
protected by guards and troops.

Dress was elaborate and there were large free standing armies. To extend their territories, they
frequently conducted military campaigns against the neighboring Cham, Dai Viet, and Thai
warlords. Power struggles over succession were common in the royal court. The Angkor Empire,
also known as the Khmer Empire, began in 802 AD when Jayavarman II wrested the land from
Javanese control. At that time, there were no united kingdoms in Cambodia.

After expelling the Javanese, Jayavarman II celebrated independence by conducting an elaborate

consecration ritual in Phnom Kulen, proclaimed himself king, and adopted the Devaraja cult of
Hinduism as the state religion.Devaraja is a term in Sanskrit meaning "god-king". True to its
name, the Devaraja cult taught that the king was a universal ruler, a manifestation of the Hindu
god, often known as Shiva or Vishnu.

Within a few centuries, the Angkor Empire grew to be the greatest ever in mainland Southeast
Asia. Jayavarman II was followed by a succession of kings who contributed to the growth of the
empire through alliances with neighboring kingdoms and conquests, building projects,
establishment of new cities, and development of hydraulic and irrigation systems.
Ancient Khmers were a traditional agriculture community and were dependent on massive and
complex hydraulics systems, including networks of canals and barays, or giant water reservoirs.
These facilities enabled more intense rice cultivation, which increased food security, supported
the growth of the Khmer economy, and increased wealth.
Indian Trade with neighbouring countries was at Its peak In 5 th Century B.C.. Indian traders abd
businessmen were seafaring to the countries of the SUVARNABHUMI through the ports at
CHAMPA.. These included Burma, Malaya, Siam, Cambodia , Ceylon. These Indian

37
Businessmen were of two types- those who returned and those who stayed on in those lands thus
establisheing their culture In South-East Asia through thgese business related exchanges of
economy and culture. Of the lattrer one can say that they helped in settling up efficient Political
System of those Countries. Brave Kshatriya warriors doubled as traders and mercenaries
whereas wandering hindu priests became the missionaries of Hinduism spreading Hindu religion
and Pphilosophy.

By 2nd Century B.C., many Indian influenced states were established within Indo-China region.
Cambodia which was situated In Southern Indo-China then known as KAMBUJ State under
the territory of Funan. By 1 st BC Indians made colonies were established in States Like
Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia and Siam Hundreds Of Sanskrit inscriptions have been
recovered from these countries establishing the fact that Sanscrit was the State Language Of
these countries.
In his paper Kalinga and Funan : A Study in Ancient Relations, Dr. Benudhar Patra states that even though the origin of
the kingdom of Funan, is shrouded in mystery, K’ang T’ai, a Chinese envoy who visited Funan in the middle of the
third century CE recorded that, the first king of Funan was a certain Hun-t’ien, that is, Kaundinya, who came either from
India or from the Malay Peninsula or the southern islands. This Chinese version of the dynastic origin of Funan has been
corroborated by a Sanskrit inscription of Champa belonging to the third century CE. Though scholars agree on the
point that the kingdom of Funan came into existence some time during the first century CE, after union of a Brahmin
named Kaundinya with the Naga Princess Soma(Lieu-Ye), there is considerable disagreement on the homeland of
Kaundinya. This mystical union which was still commemorated at the court of Angkor at the end of the thirteenth century
in a rite identical with that of the Pallava kings of Kanchi made some scholars to believe that Kaundinya probably belonged
to the Pallava kingdom.10 On the basis of the Mysore inscription (2nd century CE) which records the grant of land, to a
Siva shrine of the Brahmins of the Kaundinya gotra (clan), Kaundinyas might have migrated from Mysore to Indo-
China.according to a source others rejecting this view and proposing that the migrating clan of Kaudinyas might have
emerged from the Amaravati region of Andhra on the ground of the discovery of specimens of Amaravati style of sculpture
at Dong Duong which was then under Funan.

The main reason for the belief that the homeland of Kaundinya Brahmins of Funan could be
Mahendra Parvata of Kalinga arises from the fact that the name of Mahendra Mountain appears in the
history of Funan on two important occasions. The History of the Southern Ch’i states that during
the reign of Jayavarman (5th century CE) ‘the custom of this country [Funan] was to worship the God
Mahesvara (Siva)’who continually descends on Mount Mo-tan. Mo- tan could be another name of
Mahendragiri of nOrissa which was also considered as an abode of Lord Siva and early Saivism. It
was shortly before c. 500 CE that the Gangas of Kalinga(the Eastern Gangas) were worshipping
Siva- Gokarnasvamin as the tutelary deity of the family (ista-devata) on Mahendra Mountain. Even
now there is the shrine of Gokarnesvara on the top of the hill. Worshipping of Gokarnasvamin (on
Mahendra Parvat in Kalinga) and Mahesvara (in Funan) belonged to the same time. This led to
an important assumption that as Funan was Indianised by the traders and merchants from the eastern
coast of India, the migrants, with the passage of time named a local mountain of Funan as
Mahendraparvata after the Mahendra Parvata of Orissa which had god
Mahesvara(Gokarnesvara) on it. One thing is clear that Koundinya, also known as Ājñātakauṇḍinya,
Pali: Añña Koṇḍañña, was not the brahmin, who became Buddhist monk and an ardent follower
of Gautama Buddha and the first to become an arhat. One who lived during the 6th century BCE
in what are now Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, India. According to traditional accounts, at the time of

38
Gautama Buddha's birth, he predicted his future destination as an enlightened teacher.The
naming of Mahendraparvata mountain in Funan after the one of the same name in Orissa
logically implies that Kaundinya and early emigrants most probably went from Kalinga region,
especially from the Mahendraparvata region. This is further corroborated by Jayavarman II (9th
century CE) of Cambodia who went to reign at ‘Mahendraparvata” and installed a miraculous
Siva linga there as devaraja or king of gods (which is god Siva or Mahesvara himself in c. 802
CE) with the help of a Brahman named Hiranyadama16 whom he invited from Janapada
(probably in India). Jayavarman II is most often cited in the inscription as “the king who
established his residence on the summit of Mount Mahendra”. This Mahendraparvata (i.e. Mount
Mahendra) has been indentified with Phnom Kulen, the sandstone plateau that dominates the
northern part of the Angkor plain.17 As Jayavarman II went to Mahendra Parvata to reign and
established his residence there, it appears that mount Mahendra which was considered as Kula
Parvata (Phnon Kulen) and used as the abode of devaraja was already there in Funan (Cambodia)
before the reign of Jayavarman II. So, this could have been the mount Mo-tan of the Chinese
record of the fifth century CE. This indicates that the Kaundinyas of Funan were not only ardent
Saivites but also had intimate association with the Mahendra Parvata of Kalinga and there was
close contact between Kalinga on the eastern sea coast of India and Funan of IndoChina. It is a
well known fact that fifth century CE onwards Saivism became popular both in ancient Orissa
and Cambodia. God Siva was worshipped in Funan under different names like Mahesvara and
Tribhubanesvara.

39
 II
9 Planets or 9 GRAHA in ANGKOR Frescos
Dr Uday Dokras, PhD Stockholm

NTRODUCTION: Ancient Indian scholars extensively studied the stars

and other celestial bodies in the never-ending spatial sky. This
thorough study of astronomy and astrology eventually created the
the nine planets, influence the lives of the earth dwellers. Though not
all members of the Navagraha are planets; Surya, the sun is a star;
Chandra, the moon is the natural satellite of Earth; Rahu and Ketu are
lunar nodes that are responsible for eclipses of the sun and moon.

The below reproduced narrative is from the pictorial series The Ratnas Of
Samudra Manthan-or Churning of the Oceans By Shivam Pathania( AMAR
CHITRA KATHA) copied and pasted for simplicity in explaining in this paper
that already stretches over 20 pages.

Samudra Manthan or the churning of the ocean is one unique occasion in

Hindu Mythology, when the Devas and their arch-nemesis, the Asuras, unite
for an important reason. Expression in Angkor wat and other Temples and
has a direct bearing on understanding why the 9 planets are important to
understand the depiction in the Frescos and carvings. As compared to the
100’s of Km of the reliefs the occasional occurrence of the 9 planest has
not attracted much attentoion from scholars and hardly 1 or 2 papers throw
light on the subject- the most comprehensive being the one quoted below
as a footnote(- viz Nine Deities Panel in Ancient Cambodia , Chhum Menghong , Journal of Buddhist and Hindu Art,
Architecture and Archaeology of Ancient to Premodern Southeast Asia 2019)

This particular mythology has been popular in Hindusim. If there are

millions of Hindus in India then each and every one has done a Pooja of the
9 planest at least one in his or her lifetime and many like me do it several
times a year.

The churning of the ocean was a result of a curse by Sage Durvasa. From
this churning arose the many planets of the 9.

Once, he offered a garland to Indra, the king of Devas. Indra accepted the
garland and showed his happiness, putting the garland on his elephant,
Airavata, as an ornament. Airavata, irritated by the scent of the garland,

40
picked it with his trunk and threw it on the ground. Durvasa was furious
and cursed Indra and the devas to lose their kingdom, power, and glory.

As a result, Indra’s mighty vahana instantly went into oblivion. Lakshmi,

the goddess of fortune, could no longer stay in the same realm as the
Devas, and parted ways with her consort, Vishnu. She made the depths of
Kshir Sagar her new home. Due to Lakshmi’s absence in Devlok, the devas
lost all their riches. The luminous Chandra, adorning Shiva’s matted hair,
disappeared too. Robbed of their power, the devas were soon defeated by
the asuras in battle. The defeated devas approached Lord Vishnu for a
solution, who advised them to churn Kshir Sagar, to obtain Amrit. Amrit or
the elixir of immortality would help the devas regain their powers. The
Asuras willingly offered to assist their half-brothers since they too wanted
immortality and invincible powers by consuming Amrit.

Mount Mandara was used to churn the ocean, which was kept afloat in the
ocean by Kurma, Vishnu’s turtle avatar. The Naga king, Vasuki, who Shiva
wears as a garland, became the churning rope. Several precious
items, ratnas, emerged from the cosmic ocean which were distributed
amongst the Devas, the Asuras and the Sages.
Halahala

Illustration: Sanjay Valecha and Durgesh Velhal

The Halahala was a deadly poison that had the potential to destroy all
beings in the three realms. None amongst the armies of asuras and devas
stepped in to stop the poison from spreading into the universe as they
feared the poison would destroy them too. Lord Shiva descended from
Mount Kailash to consume the poison. Goddess Parvati, Shiva’s consort,
used her powers to stop the Halahal in Shiva’s throat, and as a result, his
throat turned blue. Thus he came to be called Neelkanth.
Airavata
Airavata, the king of elephants, was a white coloured winged being with six
trunks and six pairs of tusks. He said to dig his trunk deep into the ground
and reach water which is inaccessible to humans. He uses his trunk to
spray the water in the form of monsoon showers. After appearing from the
cosmic ocean, Airavata chose to serve his master Indra, who was delighted
to reunite with his loyal vahana.
Uchhaisravas

41
Often considered as the king of the horses, the seven-headed, snow-white
horse, was one of the three animals that appeared during the Samudra
Manthan. The magnificent steed was taken by Indra.
Eventually, Uchhaisravas came into the hands of King Mahabali, the asura
king, who ruled over the three worlds.
Once Goddess Lakshmi was spellbound by the beauty of Uchhaisravas and
forgot to pay attention to her consort, Vishnu. This infuriated him and he
cursed Lakshmi to be born as a mare.
The colour of Uchhaisravas’ tail once became a topic of debate for two
sisters, Kadru and Vinata. The sisters studied the horse from a distance and
Vinata declared that the horse’s tail was white, while Kadru insisted that
the tail was black. The sisters decided to come back and see the horse the
next day. Whoever of the two had guessed the wrong colour, would have to
become the slave of the other. Kadru won the bet by treachery as she
commanded her sons, the Nagas, to cover the tail of the horse. Thus Vinata
ended up becoming Kadru’s slave.
Kamdhenu

Kamdhenu was one of the precious ratnas obtained from the cosmic ocean
and is considered to be the mother of all cattle. Kamdhenu is depicted with
the face of a woman, the body of a cow with a pair of wings and the tail of
a peacock. She was given to the Saptrishis as she provided them with
ample milk. The milk was used to prepare curd and ghee which were
regularly required for their sacred rituals. According to the Mahabharata,
Kamdhenu was in the possession of one of the Saptrishis, Jamadagni. The
sage invited King Kartavirya Arjuna to a feast. The greedy king learnt about
the resourcefulness of Kamdhenu and forcefully took Kamdhenu and her
calf away from the sage. The sage’s son, Parshurama, the sixth avatar or
incarnation of Vishnu, single-handedly defeated the king and his army,
successfully retrieving the sacred cow and her calf.
Apsaras
Apsaras are female heavenly spirits of Devaloka or the home of the gods.
They are associated with music and dance. After appearing from the cosmic
ocean, they chose Gandharvas as their companions. The Gandharvas
served as musicians in Indra’s court. Indra, who was constantly insecure
about his throne, often commanded the enchanting apsaras to distract
sages or asuras from their tapasya to achieve his own ends.
Parijat
From the depths of the ocean, sprung a divine flowering tree called the
Parijat. The flowers of the tree were white, with a tinge of orange at the

42
stalk. Indra decided to keep the beautiful flowering tree with the
enchanting fragrance for himself and planted the tree in his garden in
Devaloka. Yugas later, Krishna and Indra duelled over the tree as Krishna
wanted to bring the tree bearing the scented flowers to Prithvilok for his
wives Satyabhama and Rukmini. Eventually, Krishna defeated Indra, and
took the tree. The tree has a special significance in Hinduism, as it is
forbidden to pluck its flowers and only the fallen flowers can be used to
worship deities.

Vishnu’s Sharanga bow, Panchajanya Conch, and Kaustubh Mani

The Sharanga bow was one of the two divine bows crafted by Vishwakarma,
the architect of the gods. Vishnu used the bow in his Parshurama, Rama
and Krishna avatars. Before returning back to his holy abode, Vishnu, in the
form of Krishna, left the bow in the possession of Varuna, the god of
oceans.
In ancient times the sound of the conch signified the beginning of a war.
Vishnu’s conch, Panchajanya is a symbolic way of portraying his role as the
preserver of the universe. God steps into battlefields again and again, in
different avatars to save humanity.
Kaustubh Mani is a sacred precious gemstone that is embedded in the
necklace worn by Vishnu. The gemstone is said to be as beautiful as an
exotic lotus and as radiant as the sun.
Illustration: Sanjay Valecha and Durgesh Velhal
Chandra
The moon God Chandra appeared as one of the precious ratnas and took
refuge in the matted hair of Shiva. His father-in-law, Prajapati Daksha once
cursed him for not being a good husband to his daughters. Due to the
curse, Chandra lost his powers and his body started withering. After
extensive prayers, Shiva came to the deity’s rescue and wore him as an
ornament in his hair to neutralize the curse. However, Chandra still waxes
and wanes as a result of that curse.
Lakshmi and Alakshmi

Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth, prosperity and fortune. She is one of

the three supreme goddesses, with Saraswati and Parvati. She emerged
from the cosmic ocean draped in her red and gold saree while seated on a

43
grand lotus with smaller lotuses in her hands. After a long time of
separation, the goddess was finally reunited with her consort, Lord Vishnu.
Her return brought back the riches of the devas, giving Devaloka its earlier
splendour.
The arrival of Lakshmi was followed by her counterpart and elder sister,
Alakshmi, who had unkempt hair and was draped in a single white cloth.
She is the goddess of misfortune, poverty and misery and is said to visit
houses filled with ego, pride, selfishness, and envy. Unlike her sister
Lakshmi, who likes sweet food, Alakshmi has an appetite for hot, sour and
pungent food. So, many Hindu households often hang lemon and chillies at
their doorstep to satisfy the appetite of the goddess of misfortune.
Dhanvantri

Dhanvantri, the physician of the gods, appeared from the turbulent ocean
carrying the pot of Amrita. Dhanvantri was responsible for teaching the
ancient knowledge of medical science, Ayurveda, to mortals. Brahma
created Ayurveda, before he created mankind, but the vast knowledge of
medical science was difficult for mortals to understand. So, Dhanvantri
split the original text into eight divisions and taught his disciples.
Amrita

As soon as Dhanvantri appeared with the pot of Amrit, the Asuras snatched
the pot and planned to consume the entire pot of elixir. Vishnu devised a
plan and took the form of an enchanting woman, Mohini. Mohini used her
charm to lure the asuras out of hiding and used the opportunity to take the
pot back to the Devas. While the devas were consuming the elixir to regain
their divine strength back, one of the asuras, Rahuketu disguised himself
as a deva to taste the Amrit. However, he was discovered just as he was
pouring the liquid into his mouth. Vishnu instantly hurled the Sudarshan
Chakra and beheaded Rahuketu but the amrita had already reached the
asura’s throat. Rahuketu’s head and body were flung on opposite sides of
the universe and became Rahu and Ketu.

NINE PLANETS TEMPLE AT KONARK

The architectural use of the Navagrahas is according to the medieval convention
here in this Temple, It is here a kind of prophylatic measure for the safety of the
temple and can be seen almost in every temples in India. In the below shown
example of an Indian Temple of Konark, the lintel-slabs of all the earlier shrines of

44
the Bhaumakara period, there contain only the figures of eight grahas (planets).
Ketu making his appearence on the architraves from the Ganga period onwards.

In carving out the images in, their attributes are not correctly attended to. They are
made mostly alike in from, except a few in the group. Most of them are holding
rosary and kamandalu in their hands, wearing high pointed crowns and sitting on
lotuses the descriptions in the puranas.

A huge chlorite slab, 20 feet (6 metres) long, four feet (1.2 metre) high and seven
feet (2 metres) deep was used as an architrave, above the main entrance to the
Jagamohana. This is made into nine different panels representing the Navagraha
(Nine Planets) figures and richly ornamented.

9 Graha in Konark

From Takeo Province Angkor in a Museum ABOVE RIGHT

45
 A
ngkor

46
 In the ancient Khmer context, some divinities in the so-called 9 planet
(navagrḥa ) ensemble are actually lokapāl, or ‘guardians of the world’.

47
Identifying each individual divinity in a systematic manner is challenging as
the reliefs are found from the 7th century CE (Sambor Prei Kuk style) until
the early 13th century (Bayon style).

Four divinities maintain a fixed position over this period: on the far
left are the planets Surya and Candra, and on the far right are Rahu and
Ketu. Of the other five remaining figures, only some can be positively
identified, and their positions are interchangeable. Generally, reading from
left to right, the third figure is Yama, the fourth is Brahma, the sixth is
Kubera, and the seventh is Agni. The divinity occupying the middle position
is Indra, who always appears mounted on an elephant. Interpretation of the
function of the nine divinities panels poses a second challenge due to the
fact that few have been found in their original contexts. These few were
located inside a ‘library’ set to the southeast of a temple’s main sanctuary.
Even this site contextualization has not however allowed for clear
interpretation of function.

Navadevas panel from Kuk Roka temple, ca. late 12th century. Stone. National Museum of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, Ka.1658.
Deities from left: Sūrya, Candra, Yama (?), Brahmā or Varuṇa, Indra, Kubera, Agni, Rāhu and Ketu. Photograph by Chhum
Menghong

from Bihar India

48
______________________________________________________________________________-

Nine Deities Panel in Ancient Cambodia , Chhum Menghong , Journal of Buddhist and Hindu Art,
Architecture and Archaeology of Ancient to Premodern Southeast Asia 2019

The construction of Angkor Wat is thought to have taken 35 years,

300,000 laborers and 6,000 elephants, according to inscriptions.

Angkor Wat was initially designed and constructed in the first half of the 12th
century, during the reign of Suryavarman II (ruled 1113 – c. 1150), as the king’s
state temple and capital city. It was built without the aid of any machinery, as there
was no machinery available at that time.

The temple walls are decorated with thousands of storytelling bas-reliefs.

The bas-reliefs on the walls represent important deities and figures in the Hindu and
Buddhist religions and key events in their narrative tradition.

Carved Bas Reliefs of Hindu Narratives

There are 1,200 square meters of carved bas reliefs at Angkor Wat, representing
eight different Hindu stories. Perhaps the most important narrative represented at
Angkor Wat is the Churning of the Ocean of Milk(below), which depicts a story about
the beginning of time and the creation of the universe. It is also a story about the
victory of good over evil. In the story, devas (gods) are fighting the asuras (demons)
in order reclaim order and power for the gods who have lost it. In order to reclaim
peace and order, the elixir of life (amrita) needs to be released from the earth;

49
however, the only way for the elixir to be released is for the gods and demons to
first work together. To this end, both sides are aware that once the amrita is
released there will be a battle to attain it.

Churning of the Ocean of Milk (detail), Angkor

Wat. Siem Reap, Cambodia, 1116-1150
Churning of the Ocean of Milk (detail), Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia, 1116-1150 (photo: John
Brennan, CC BY-ND 2.0)

The relief depicts the moment when the two sides are churning the ocean of
milk. In the detail above you can see that the gods and demons are playing a sort of
tug-of-war with the Naga or serpent king as their divine rope. The Naga is being
spun on Mt. Mandara represented by Vishnu (in the center). Several things happen
while the churning of milk takes place. One event is that the foam from the
churning produces apsaras or celestial maidens who are carved in relief throughout
Angkor Wat (we see them here on either side of Vishnu, above the gods and
demons). Once the elixir is released, Indra (the Vedic god who is considered the
king of all the gods) is seen descending from heaven to catch it and save the world
from the destruction of the demons.

The nine deities panel has been found in large numbers and existed with
several configurations of deities in ancient Cambodia. The oldest known example
dates from the pre-Angkorian period and shows the navagrahas (nine celestial
bodies) in a standing posture. The iconographic form differs on Angkorian-period
panels, with the nine deities on their individual vāhana (mount). By reanalysing the
iconography of the deities and the typological development of the panels, it is
argued that this later group represents the navadevas, a term used to designate the
combination of four grahas and five dikpālas (guardians of the directions). This

50
study also considers issues relating to the imagery’s meaning and significance,
based on their iconographic and architectural contexts in Khmer temples. The
colocation of the navadevas and related iconographic themes including Viṣṇu
Anantaśayana, the grahas as seven ṛṣis, and the mātṛkās, clarifies that the
imagery’s meaning relates to the celestial bodies, the directions and the notion of
cosmological order. The panel was used both as a lintel above a temple doorway
and installed inside the sanctum as an independent object near the image of the
main deity, and appears to have been especially associated with shrines located in
the southeast of a temple complex. The sig Angkor Wat is dedicated to the Hindu
god Vishnu who is one of the three principal gods in the Hindu pantheon (Shiva and
Brahma are the others). Among them he is known as the “Protector.” The major
patron of Angkor Wat was King Suryavarman II, whose name translates as the
“protector of the sun.” Many scholars believe that Angkor Wat was not only a
temple dedicated to Vishnu but that it was also intended to serve as the king’s
mausoleum in death.

Three years after King Suryavarman II came to the throne, he started the
construction of Angkor Wat most probably in the year 1116 C.E-with construction
ending in 1150, shortly after the king’s death. Evidence for these dates comes in
part from inscriptions.

Carved Bas Reliefs of Hindu Narratives

These reliefs represent eight different Hindu stories. According to ancient Sanskrit
and Khmer texts, religious monuments and specifically temples are to be organized
in such a way that they are in harmony with the universe, meaning that the temple
should be planned according to the rising sun and moon, in addition to symbolizing
the recurrent time sequences of the days, months and years. The central axis of
these temples should also be aligned with the planets, thus connecting the
structure to the cosmos so that temples become spiritual, political, cosmological,
astronomical and geo-physical centers. They are, in other words, intended to
represent microcosms of the universe and are organized as mandalas—diagrams of
the universe.

In Planetary clustering and navagraha at Banteay Srei , Asger Mollerup found that
an inscription at Prasat Banteay Srey, 15 km north of Angkor Wat in Cambodia,
dates the inauguration of this Shivaite sanctuary to coincide with a planetary
alignment. A planetary clustering or planetary alignment is when the five planets
visible to the naked eye are observable at dawn or dusk above the eastern or
western horizon. The five planets form together with the sun, the moon, Rahu and
Ketu the Indian concept the Navagraha. A close gathering of the five planets is an
impressive celestial event and has been described in ancient Indian and Chinese
records and calculations.1 Based on that your author predicted the performance of a
Navagraha Puja or adoration to the Gods to bless the temple and the consecration.

____________________________________________________________________

1 https://www.academia.edu/41864223/Planetary_clustering_and_navagraha_at_Banteay_Srei

51
NAVAGRAHA PANELDS IN KHEMER TEMPLES

1. Navagrahas panel from Sambor Prei Kuk, ca. 7th century. Stone
2. Navadevas panel from the Bayon, ca. 13th century. Stone
3. Navadevas panel from Prasat Neang Khmau, ca. 2nd half of 9th century. Stone
4. Preah Khan temple, ca. late 12th century
5. West Mebon temple, ca. 11th century. Stone.
6. Ba Kan temple, ca. late 10th century. Stone
7. East Mebon temple, ca. 10th century. Stone
8. Preah Pithu temple, ca. late 10th century
9. Phnom Penh, Ka.3216
10. Wat Prei Phdao, near Siem Reap
11. Pedestal with 9 holes, installed on a brick terrace next to the image of Harihara, in tower
N10, North group, Sambor Prei Kuk, ca. 7th century. Stone
12. Navadevas on a lintel at Neak Ta Kong Srok temple, ca. mid-10th century. Stone
13. . Navagrahas on a pre-Angkorian lintel, provenance unknown, ca. 2nd half of 7th century.
Stone
The above clusterings of the planets is an ancient good fortune ritual or worship. Putting the
carvings of these or having small statutes or pictures in homes today is a common occurring
phenomenon in millions of hindu homes and home alters or devagriha>

CLUSTERING of GODS & GODDESSES IN HINDUISM

Clustering of Gods and Goddesses in a Hindu religion Phenomenon. In the Puranic

traditions, of course, the cluster of goddesses is elaborated as the Matrikas. The
Matrikas are, sometimes, identified with the Kritikkas, but more commonly are seen
as the female form of various gods, like Indrani of Indra, Brahmani of Brahma,
Vaishnavi of Vishnu, Narasimhi of Narasimha, Varahi of Varaha, Shivani or
Maheshwari of Shiva.

These various female gods join Durga, in the battle against the various asuras.
These goddesses became powerful as the influence of the goddess increased in
Hinduism. Another cluster that is popular nowadays is the Tantrik cluster of Maha
Vidyas, the 10 wisdom deities. Some of them are the young Sodasi, the 16-year-old,
or Kamala, the full-blown lotus woman, or Dhumvati the old hag, or Baglamukhi.
The idea of multiple women also come from folk literature as the Yoginis. There are
the 32 Yoginis that are fixed on the throne of Vikramaditya who will destroy
unworthy men who dare sit on the throne. There is also the Chausat Yoginis or 64
yoginis who play music around Shiva while Shiva dances for them. It is the reverse
version of the Krishna Maharaas, where Krishna plays the music and the gopikas
dance around him. In the Yogini Mandala, the woman play music while the man
dances.

52
The Mahavidya ( Great Wisdoms) are a group of ten aspects
of Mahadevi in Hinduism. These.10.Mahavidyas.are Kali, Tara, Tripura Sundari
(Shodoshi), Bhuvaneshvari, Tripura
Bhairavi, Chhinnamasta, Dhumavati, Bagalamukhi, Matangi and Kamala.

The development of the Mahavidyas represent an important turning point in

the history of Shaktism as it marks the rise of the Bhakti aspect in Shaktism, which
reached its zenith in 1700 CE. First sprung forth in the post-Puranic age, around 6th
century C.E., it was a new theistic movement in which the supreme being was
envisioned as female. A fact epitomized by texts like Devi-Bhagavata Purana,
especially its last nine chapters (31-40) of the seventh skandha, which are known as
the Devi Gita, and soon became central texts of Shaktism. In a story from the
Shakta Maha-Bhagavata Purana, which narrates the creation of all the
Mahavidyas, Sati, the daughter of Daksha and first wife of god Shiva, feels insulted
that she and Shiva are not invited to Daksha's yagna ("fire sacrifice") and insists on
going there, despite Shiva's protests. After futile attempts to convince Shiva, the
enraged Sati transforms into the Mahavidyas, who surround Shiva from the ten
cardinal directions.

The ten corresponding Avatars with

Mahavidyas
no. Goddess names Avatar names
1. Kali Krishna
2. Tara (Devi) Rama
3. Lalita Tripura Sundari Vamana
4. Tripura Bhairavi Varaha
5. Bhuvaneshvari Kalki
6. Chhinnamasta Narasimha
7. Matangi Parashurama
8. Bagalamukhi Kurma
9. Kamalatmika Balarama
10 Dhumavati Matsya

Similarly, Matrikas or "divine mothers" also called Matar or Matri, are a group of
mother goddesses depicted together in Hinduism. The Matrikas are often depicted
in a group of seven, the Saptamatrika(s) (Seven MothersHowever, they are also
depicted as a group of eight, the Ashtamatrika(s).

In the Brihat Samhita, Varahamihira says that "Mothers are to be made with
cognizance of gods corresponding to their names." They are associated with these
gods as their spouses or their energies (Shaktis) Brahmani emerged
Brahma, Vaishnavi from Vishnu, Maheshvari from Shiva, Indrani from Indra, Kaumari
from Skanda, Varahi from Varaha and Chamunda from Devi, and additionals
are Narasimhi, Vinayaki.

53
Originally believed to be a personification of the seven stars of the star cluster
the Pleiades, they became quite popular by the seventh century and a standard
feature of goddess temples from the ninth century onwards. [8] In South India,
Saptamatrika worship is prevalent whereas the Ashtamatrika are venerated
in Nepal, among other places.

The Matrikas assume paramount significance in the goddess-oriented sect

of Hinduism, Tantrism. In Shaktism, they are described as "assisting the great
Shakta Devi (goddess) in her fight with demons." [11] Some scholars consider
them Shaiva goddesses. They are also connected with the worship of warrior
god Skanda. In most early references, the Matrikas are associated with the
conception, birth, diseases and protection of children. They were seen as
inauspicious and the "personification of perils", propitiated in order to avoid those
ills, that carried off so many children before they reached adulthood. They come to
play a protective role in later mythology, although some of their early inauspicious
and wild characteristics continue in these legends. Thus, they represent the
prodigiously fecund aspect of nature as well as its destructive force aspect.

There are several Puranic texts related to the origin of Matrikas. Matsya
Purana, Vamana Purana, Varaha Purana, Kurma Purana and
the Suprabhedagama contain references to Matrikas, and this asserts their
antiquity.

According to the Shumbha-Nishumbha story of Devi Mahatmya, Matrikas appear

as Shaktis from the bodies of the gods – Brahma, Shiva, Skanda, Vishnu, Indra;
[45]
having the form of each, approached Chandika (identified with Devi) with
whatever form, ornaments and vehicle the god possessed. In that form, they
slaughter the demon army. Thus, the Matrikas are goddesses of the battlefield.
They are described as assistants of Durga having sinister as well as propitious
characteristics.] After the battle, the Matrikas dance drunk with their victim's
blood. This description is repeated with little variation in Devi Bhagavata Purana
and Vamana Purana. The Devi-Bhagavata Purana mentions three other goddesses,
Shaktis of other gods' in addition to the Saptamatrika, making a group of 10
Matrikas.

According to latter episode of Devi Mahatmya, Durga created Matrikas from herself
and with their help slaughtered the demon army. In this version, Kali is described as
a Matrika, who sucked all the blood of demon Raktabija. Kali is given the
epithet Chamunda in the text. When demon Shumbha challenges Durga to a single
combat, she absorbs the Matrikas in herself and says that they are her different
forms.[ In the Vamana Purana too, the Matrikas arise from different parts of Devi
and not from male gods although they are described and named after the male
deities.

In Matsya Purana, Shiva had created seven Matrikas to combat the demon Andhaka,
who had the ability to duplicate from each drop of his blood that falls from him
when he is wounded. The Matrikas drink up his blood and help Shiva defeat the
demon. After the battle, the Matrikas begin a rampage of destruction by starting to
devour other gods, demons and peoples of the world. Narasimha, Vishnu's man-lion
incarnation, creates a host of thirty-two benign goddesses who calm down the

54
terrible, fire-breathing Matrikas. Narasimha commanded the Matrikas to protect the
world, instead of destroying it and thus be worshipped by mankind. At the end of
the episode, Shiva's terrible form Bhairava is enshrined with the images of the
Matrikas at the place where the battle took place. This story is retold in
Vishnudharmottara Purana.[54] Vishnudharmottara Purana further relates them with
vices or inauspicious emotions like envy, pride, anger etc.

Navagraha are nine heavenly bodies (as well as deities) that influence
human life on Earth in Hinduism and Hindu astrology. The term is derived
from nava ("nine") and Graha (planet, seizing, laying hold of, holding).

The Navagraha are

1. Surya: the Sun
2. Chandra: the Moon
3. Mangala: Mars
4. Budha: Mercury
5. Bṛhaspati: Jupiter
6. Shukra: Venus
7. Shani: Saturn
8. Rahu: Shadow body associated with the ascending (or north) lunar node
9. Ketu: Shadow body associated with the descending (or south) lunar node

Muthuswami Dikshitar, a Carnatic music composer from southern India composed

the Navagraha Kritis in praise of the nine planets. Each song is a prayer to one of
the nine planets. The sahitya (lyrics) of the songs reflect a profound knowledge of
the mantra and jyotisha sastras.

Navagraha temples devoted to Navagraha—the nine (nava) major celestial bodies

(Grahas) of Hindu astronomy.These temples are made of stones and are very
beautiful. These celestial bodies are
named Surya (Sun), Chandra (Moon), Mangala (Mars), Budha (Mercury), Brihaspati (J
upiter), Shukra (Venus), Shani (Saturn), Rahu (North Lunar Node)

55
and Ketu (South Lunar Node). Many temples in South India contain a shrine
dedicated to the Navagrahas. However, the term Navagraha temples refers to a
cluster of nine separate temples, each an abode of one of the Navagrahas.

The Temple as a Mandala- Avittathur Mahadeva Temple

Chola Temples-The Navagraha temples in Tamil Nadu are a cluster of

Navagraha Temples dating from the Chola dynasty. During the Chola dynasty
near Kumbakonam in Tamil Nadu many temples were built. The Angkor Wat is a
reflection of the Chola Religio-cultural traditions albit on a grander scale .
As per Hindu legend, Sage Kalava was suffering from serious ailments along with
leprosy. He prayed to the Navagrahas, the nine planet deities. The planets were
pleased by his devotion and offered cure to the sage. Brahma, the Hindu god of
creation, was angered as he felt that the planets have no powers to provide boons
to humans. He cursed the nine planets to suffer from leprosy and were sent down to
earth in Vellerukku Vanam, the white wild flower jungle - the modern time Suryanar
Kovil. The planets prayed to Shiva to relieve them off the curse. Shiva appeared to
them and said that the place belonged to them and they would have to grace the
devotees worshipping them from the place. Each temple is located in a different
village, and is considered an abode of one of the Navagrahas. However, eight
among these temples are dedicated to Shiva. The Surya temple is the only one
dedicated to the Graham. In fact, it is dedicated entirely to the worship of the Sun-
God and the other navagrahas, the former being the object of worship as the
principal deity and the latter as attendant deities. It was built around the 11th or
12th century. The other temples were built earlier, ranging back to 7th-9th century.

1. Surya Navagrahastalam -- Sooriyanar Kovil (Thanjavur District)

2. Chandra Navagrahastalam -- Thingalur (Thanjavur District)
3. Angaarakan Navagrahastalam -- Vaitheeswaran Kovil (Mayiladuthurai district)
4. Budha Navagrahastalam -- Thiruvenkadu (Mayiladuthurai district)
5. Guru Navagrahastalam -- Alangudi(Thiruvarur District)
6. Sukra Navagrahastalam -- Kanjanur (Thanjavur District)
7. Shani Navagrahastalam -- Thirunallar (Karaikal)
8. Raahu Navagrahastalam -- Thirunageswaram (Thanjavur District)
9. Ketu Navagrahastalam -- Keezhperumpallam (Mayiladuthurai district)

56
 10.Angineeshwar temple -- Birth place of Lord Sanieeswarar and Lord
Yematharmar, Kodiyalur, Thirumeyachur, Thiruvarur District.

Legand- As per Hindu legend, Sage Kalava was suffering from serious ailments
along with leprosy. He prayed to the Navagrahas, the nine planet deities. The
planets were pleased by his devotion and offered cure to the sage. Brahma, the
Hindu god of creation, was angered as he felt that the planets have no powers to
provide boons to humans. He cursed the nine planets to suffer from leprosy and
were sent down to earth in Vellurukku Vanam, the white wild flower jungle - the
modern time Suryanar Kovil. The planets prayed to Shiva to relieve them off the
curse. Shiva appeared to them and said that the place belonged to them and they
would have to grace the devotees worshipping them from the place. This is the only
temple where there are separate shrines for each of the planet deities.

The Changed positions of the Dieties in the Cambodian relics highlights the
importance of comparing to Khmer iconography, rather than considering only the
Indian context. The deities occupying the third, fourth, sixth and seventh positions
appear to change positions here, and are variously mounted on a bird, antelope,
goat, horse, bull, buffalo or rhinoceros. Scholars including Bhattacharya and
Malleret have previously suggested different identifications of these deities based
on their vāhana. For instance, a deity riding a haṃsa bird appears especially in
fourth position,
Navgraha – the nine planets as per Hinduism.
However, I would not attach too much importance to this because in Hinduism,
Various Gods have become favourite of the populous depending on the time, i.e.
like a trend. Today for instance SHANI is very popular in India, because the Planet
as an astrological landmark on lives of people is the supposed root cause of
impediments in life. Ganesh, on the other hand, is a revered God without getting a
place on the 9 for the simple reason that he is Vignaharta or remover of obstacles.

A close up of detailed carvings of

Ganesha elephant and monkey Buddhist mythology. In black and white. At the Angkor Wat temple
complex in Siem Reap, Cambodia

57
In Vedic astrology, there are 9 planets. These are known as Nav (9) and grahas
(planets ). Navgraha

The nine bodies (navagraha)

1. Sun (Soorya)
2. Moon (Chandra)
3. Mars (Mangla/Sevvai)
4. Mercury (Budha)
5. Jupiter (Guru)
6. Venus (Sukra)
7. Saturn (Shani)
8. Upper lunar node (Rahu)
9. Lower lunar node (Ketu)

Surya
Surya is the chief, the solar deity, one of the Adityas, son of Kasyapa and one of his
wives Aditi, of Indra. He has hair and arms of gold. His chariot is pulled by seven
horses, which represent the seven chakras. He presides as “Ravi” over “Ravi-vaara”
or Sunday.

Surya the sun God |

58
In Hindu religious literature, Surya is notably mentioned as the visible form of God
that one can see every day. Furthermore, Shaivites and Vaishnavas often regard
Surya as an aspect of Shiva and Vishnu, respectively. For example, the sun is called
Surya Narayana by Vaishnavas. In Shaivite theology, Surya is said to be one of eight
forms of Shiva, named the Astamurti.
He is said to be of Sattva Guna and represents the Soul, the King, highly placed
persons or fathers.
According to Hindu scriptures, among the more renowned progenies of Surya are
Shani (Saturn), Yama(God of Death) and Karna (Mahabharata fame).
Stotra:
Javaa kusuma sankasam kashyapeyam mahadutim
Tamorim sarva paapghnam pranatosmi divakaram
Chandra

Mangal///Chandra the Moon God |

Chandra is a lunar deity. Chandra (moon) is also known as Soma and identified with
the Vedic Lunar deity Soma. He is described as young, beautiful, fair; two-armed
and having in his hands a club and a lotus. He rides his chariot (the moon) across
the sky every night, pulled by ten white horses or an antelope. He is connected with
dew, and as such, is one of the gods of fertility. He is also called Nishadipati
(Nisha=night; Adipathi=Lord) and Kshuparaka (one who illuminates the night).
He as Soma, presides over Somavaaram or Monday. He is of Sattva Guna and
represents the Mind, the Queen or Mother.
Stotra:
Dadhi shankha tushaarabham ksheero darnava sambhavam
Namaami shashinam somam shambhor mukuta bhooshanam.

Mangala

Mangala is Bhauma (‘son of Bhumi’ or Bha) in Sanskrit. He is the god of war and is
celibate. He is considered the son of Prithvi or Bhumi, the Earth Goddess. He is the
owner of the Aries and Scorpio signs, and a teacher of the occult sciences (Ruchaka
Mahapurusha Yoga). He is of Tamas Guna in nature and represents Energetic

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action, confidence and ego. He is painted red or flame colour, four-armed, carrying
a trident, club, lotus and a spear. His Vahana (mount) is a ram. He presides over
‘Mangala-vaara’ or Tuesday.
Stotra:
Dharanee garbha sambhootam vidyut kaanti samaprabham
Kumaram shakti hastam tam mangalam pranamamyaham.
Budha
Budha is the god of the planet Mercury and the son of Chandra (the moon) with
Tara (Taraka). He is also the god of merchandise and protector of merchants. He is
of Rajas Guna and represents Communication.

Guru or Jupiter | Budha |

He is represented as being mild, eloquent and of greenish colour. He is represented

holding a scimitar, a club and a shield, riding a winged lion in Ramghur temple. In
other illustrations, he holds a sceptre and lotus and rides a carpet or an eagle or a
chariot drawn by lions. Budha presides over ‘Budha-vaaram’ or Wednesday.
Stotra:
Priyangu kalika shyaamam roopena pratimam budham
Soumyam soumya gunopetam tam budham pranamamyaham
Guru
Brihaspati is the Guru of Devas, personification of piety and religion, the chief
offerer of prayers and sacrifices, represented as the Purohita of the gods with whom
he intercedes for men. He is the Lord of planet Jupiter. He is of Sattva Guna and
represents knowledge and teaching. He is often known simply as “Guru”.
According to Hindu scriptures, he is the guru of the Devas and the nemesis of
Shukracharya, the guru of the Danavasa. He is also known Guru, the god of wisdom
and eloquence, to whom various works are ascribed, such as the “atheistic”
Barhaspatya sutras. Guru is usually depicted with an elephant or chariot drawn by
eight horses as his vehicle. He is also depicted in a lotus flower.
His Tattva or element is Akasha or ether, and his direction is north-east. He is
described of yellow or golden colour and holding a stick, a lotus and his beads. He
presides over ‘Guru-vaaram’, Brihaspativaara or Thursday.

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Stotra:
Devanaam cha rishinaam cha gurum kaanchan sannibhaam
Buddhi bhootam trilokesham tam namaami brihaspatim.
Shukra
Shukra, Sanskrit for “clear, pure” or “brightness, clearness”, is the name the son of
Bhrigu and Ushana, and preceptor of the Daityas, and the guru of the Asuras,
identified with the planet Venus (Shukracharya). He presides over ‘Shukra-vaara’ or
Friday. He is Rajas in nature and represents wealth, pleasure and reproduction.

Shani or Saturn | Shukra or Venus |

He is of white complexion, middle-aged and of agreeable countenance. He is
described variously mounted, on a camel or a horse or a crocodile. He holds a stick,
beads and a lotus and sometimes a bow and arrow.
Stotra:
Hima kundaa mrinalaabham daityanaam paramam gurum
Sarv shastra pravaktaaram bhargavem pranamamyaham.
Shani
Shani is one of the nine primary celestial beings in Hindu astrology (that is, Vedic
astrology). Shani is embodied in the planet Saturn. Shani is the son of Surya. His
Tattva or element is air, and his direction is west. He is Tamas in nature and
represents learning the hard way, Career and Longevity.

The origin of word Shani(शनि) comes from the following: Shanaye Kramati Sa: (शनये
क्रमति सः) i.e. the one who moves slowly. Shani is actually a demi-god and is a son
of Surya (the Hindu Sun God) and surya’s wife Chhaya. It is said that when he
opened his eyes as a baby for the very first time, the sun went into an eclipse,
which clearly denotes the impact of Shani on astrological charts (horoscope).

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He is depicted dark in colour, clothed in black; holding a sword, arrows and two
daggers and variously mounted on a black crow or a raven. He presides over ‘Shani-
var’ or Saturday.
Stotra:
Neelanjana samaabhasam ravi putram yamagrajam
Chaaya martanda sambhootam tam namaami shanaischaram.
Rahu
Rahu is God of the Ascending / North lunar node. Rahu is the head of the demonic
snake that swallows the sun or the moon causing eclipses, according to Hindu
scriptures. He is depicted in art as a dragon with no body riding a chariot drawn by
eight black horses. He is a Tamas Asura who does his best to plunge any area of
one’s life he controls into chaos. The rahu kala is considered inauspicious.

Rahu the lod of the Ascending According to

legend, during the Samudra manthan, the asura Rahu drank some of the divine
nectar. But before the nectar could pass his throat, Mohini (the female avatar of
Vishnu) cut off his head. The head, however, remained immortal and is called Rahu,
while the rest of the body became Ketu. It is believed that this immortal head
occasionally swallows the sun or the moon, causing eclipses. Then, the sun or moon
passes through the opening at the neck, ending the eclipse.
Stotra:
Ardha Kaayam mahaa veeryam chandraditya vimardhanam
Simhika garbha sambhootam tam rahum pranamaamyaham.
Ketu

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 Ketu the Lord of Descending
Ketu is the Lord of Descending. He is considered as Tail of the Demon Snake. It is
believed to have a tremendous impact on human lives and also the whole creation.
In some special circumstances it helps someone achieve the zenith of fame. He is
Tamas in nature and represents supernatural influences.
Stotra:
Palaash pushpa sankaasham taraka graha mastakam
Roudram roudraatmakam ghoram tam ketum pranamaamyaham.
Graha Stuti:
Brahma, Muraari, Sripuraantakaari, Bhanu, Shashi, Bhoomisuto, Budhascha
Guruscha, Shukra, Shani, Rahu, Ketavah, kuruvantu sarve mama suprabhatam
These Navagrahas fall under the the Hindu Astronomy and play a major part in the
Hindu astronomical sphere. The Hindu astronomy whose origin dates back to the
time of Vedas is concerned with the placement of nine planets and their influence
on the world and on an individual. According to the Hindu astrology, the position of
the planets when a person is born determines his potential in life.
The nine planets collectively are called Navagrahas. These 9 planets are worshipped
by Hindus to overcome any hindrance, obstacle or bad luck. They are found mostly
in all the temples and faithful believers pray to the Navagrahas before they pray to
any other deity.
Out of those nine planets, seven are named after the planets in the Solar System
and the other two are actually demons who managed their way into this group by
trickery – Rahu and Ketu. Depending upon their location in the planetary system,
they are deemed either auspicious or inauspicious. While Navagrahas are found in
every temple, there are some temples that are solely dedicated to them. One such
temple is the Navagraha temple located in the outskirts of Ujjain.

A number of scholars have undertaken research on ancient Khmer sculpted

representations of the called navagroḥ or phkāy nabagroḥ. The first person to have
studied this topic in detail was Kamaleswar Bhattacharya1 . Soon after, Louis

63
Malleret wrote a summary of the issues at hand. The panels even today in
Cambodia are sculpted with nine divine figures – hence the appellation of naba (or
nava in Sanskrit), meaning nine. On the other hand, the use of the second term,
groḥ, to name this iconographic type is not entirely accurate, because, of the 9
figures, some are indeed groḥ (planets) while others are just divinities. In Sanskrit,
the word groḥ or graha refers to the planets - places distinct from our earth. The
discrepancy I note only occurs in the Cambodian context. In India, the nine divinities
are the navagraha, corresponding to the seven days of the week plus Rahu who is
considered to be a planet connecting two planets, with Ketu, also called a comet.

GEMSTONES & 9 BODIES

These 9 Celestial bodies is what influences use of 9 gemstones which are tied to
mythological concepts around cosmology and astrology and the "Navagrahas", or
"nine celestial gods". In Thailand, the Navaratna is officially recognised as a
national and royal symbol of the king. A high award given by the king is called
"Noppharat Ratchawaraphon" (the Ancient Auspicious Order of the Nine Gems).

Ribbon of the Order

The decoration consists of a single class (Knight). The insignia is:
 Pendant of the Nine Gems, on a yellow sash with a red, blue and green trims,
worn over the right shoulder of the left hip (for men). For women, the Pendant of
the Nine Gems is attached onto a silk ribbon, worn on the front left shoulder.
 Star of the Nine Gems, to wear on the left chest
 Gold Ring of the Nine Gems, for men, to wear on the right ring finger.

Late Thai astrologer Horacharn Thep Sarikabutr has given the meaning of these
nine gems in his Parichad-Jataka (chapter 2, verse 21, page 35–36) translated as
follows
"Top quality and flawless ruby is the gem for the Sun, natural pearl for the Moon,
red coral for Mars, emerald for Mercury, yellow sapphire for Jupiter, diamond for
Venus, blue sapphire for Saturn, hessonite for Rahu (ascending lunar node), and
cat's eye for Ketu (descending lunar node)."
This quote attributed to the Sanskrit "Brihat Jatak" is also quoted in the "Mani-mala"
page 575, verse 79 by S.M. Tagore (1879), and also in the ancient "Jataka Parijata,"
chapter 2, sloka 21 compiled by Sri Vaidyanatha Dikshitar,
माणिक्यं तरणेः सुजात्यममलं मुक्ताफलं शीतगोः
माहेयस्य च विद्रुमं मरकतं सौम्यस्य गारुत्मतम
देवेज्यस्य च पुष्पराजमसुराचार्यस्य वज्रं शनेः
नीलं निर्मलमन्ययोश्च गदिते गोमेदवैदूर्यके
and reads in Sanskrit transliterated as follows:
māṇikyaṃ taraṇeḥ sujātyamamalaṃ muktāphalaṃ śītagoḥ
māheyasya ca vidrumaṃ marakataṃ saumyasya gārutmatama
devejyasya ca puṣparājamasurācāryasya vajraṃ śaneḥ
nīlaṃ nirmalamanyayośca gadite gomedavaidūryake
Translation:
 Ruby (māṇikyaṃ) for Surya (taraṇeḥ) (Sun),

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 Pearl (muktāphalaṃ) for Chandra (Moon),
 Red coral (vidrumaṃ) for Mangala (māheya) (Mars),
 Emerald (maratakaṃ) for Budha (saumya) (Mercury),
 Yellow sapphire (puṣparājaṃ) for Bṛhaspati (devejya) (Jupiter),
 Diamond (vajraṃ) for Shukra (asurācārya) (Venus),
 Blue sapphire (nīlaṃ) for Shani (Saturn),
 Hessonite (gomeda) for Rahu (the ascending lunar node)
 Cat's eye (vaidūryaṃ) for Ketu (the descending lunar node),
"...these gems must be high-born and flawless."
The traditional setting and arrangement of these
nine gems is shown in the illustration. A ruby
(representing the Sun) is always in the center,
surrounded (clockwise from the top) by a
diamond, a natural pearl, red coral, hessonite, a
blue sapphire, cat's eye, a yellow sapphire, and
an emerald. This is the same placement as the
Nava-graha Yantra.
Traditionally, no gem other than a ruby or a red
spinel is set in the center of a nine gems
arrangement. To do so is believed to go against
the flow of nature. Because the Sun is the center
of the solar system, its gem is positioned in the
heart of a Navaratna Talisman.
For an example of the navaratna in a necklace
setting, see Thailand's "The Queen
Sirikit Navaratna."

Thailand's "Queen Sirikit Navaratna"

necklace.

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 III
9 Graha Puja performed at Bantey Sarai( near Angkor Wat)
1200 years ago
Dr. Uday Dokras Ph D SWEDEN

Discovery that a Satyanarayan (9 Graha) Puja was performed on 22nd of April 967 AD at
largest Temple in the world- Bantey Sarai part of the Angkor Vat complex.

In Planetary clustering and navagraha at Banteay Srei , Asger Mollerup found that an inscription at
Prasat Banteay Srey, 15 km north of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, dates the inauguration of this
Shivaite sanctuary to coincide with a planetary alignment. A planetary clustering or planetary
alignment is when the five planets visible to the naked eye are observable at dawn or dusk above
the eastern or western horizon. The five planets form together with the sun, the moon, Rahu and
Ketu the Indian concept the Navagraha. A close gathering of the five planets is an impressive
celestial event and has been described in ancient Indian and Chinese records and calculations.

https://www.academia.edu/41864223/
Planetary_clustering_and_navagraha_at_Banteay_Srei

The Navagraha Pooja is a time tested vedic ritual to enable the performer to attain success
in his life path and enable him to be the benefactor of good things and deeds. The pooja is
worship of 9 planets on the natal chart of the person as well as in the heavens( skies) that
control our deeds desires and results and outcomes of the same. The pooja creates a
favorable ambience in the context of the present and future of the persons performing and
guide them to success.

Bantey sarai part of the Angkor Wat complex, on the other hand, a -UNESCO world heritage
site - is an enormous temple complex located in northern part of the country Cambodia in South

66
East Asia. It was originally built in the first half of the 12th century as a Hindu temple in the
form of a mandala dedicated to God Vishnu on a site 400 sq acres. In those ancient days, t o
commemorate the inauguration of the Bantey sarai part of the Angkor Wat- largest Hindu
temple in the world to Lord Śrī Tribhuvanamaheśvara-a Satyanarayan (9 Graha) Puja was
performed when the 9 planets were actually visible to the eye. An inscription presenting the
astronomical setting when the main deity of the shrine was consecrated, has been discovered 15
km north of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. At Bantey sarai as contemplated by Asger Mollerup
Independent scholar. This event he says is is mentioned in the inauguration inscription of the
Sivaite Prasat Banteay Srey, not Angkor. The inscription is dated not in numbers but by a description
of the celestial sphere, which he reconstructed.

Dr Uday Dokras, Nagpur’s erudite Hindulogist and Vastu Purusha mandala (Astrology) expert
believes that Venus-Jupiter conjunctions are not rare; but beautiful. Two examples occured in
2019- 24 January and 24th of November at dusk. A very close encounter between Venus and
Jupiter will also occur on 2 nd May 2022 when the two planets will rise at 03:23 (local time). In
the end of May, 2022, four of the five-planets of the navagraha will be visible on the night sky
every night, culminating on 29 th May when Mercury and the moon joins the celestial show
before dawn.

According to Asger Mollerup The most magnificent celestial show of this century will take place
after dawn the 8th of September 2040, when the moon will resemble that on the matted hair of
God Shiva and all 9 planets grouped together with the Planetary clustering of a navagraha.

The waning crescent adorning the hair of Lord Shiva

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Every scientific theory starts as a hypothesis. A scientific hypothesis is a suggested solution for
an unexplained occurrence that doesn't fit into a currently accepted scientific theory. In other
words, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a hypothesis is an idea that hasn't been
proven yet. If enough evidence accumulates to support a hypothesis, it moves to the next step —
known as a theory — in the scientific method and becomes accepted as a valid explanation of a
phenomenon.

Ancient Indians and mathematicians developed many such hypotheses and made observations to
either accept or reject their hypotheses. They regularly measured things such as in which part of
the sky the so called navagrahas were to be seen, tracked down their movements such as
trajectory, degree etc. They noted down these and performed mathematical calculations. If you
have certain good number of observations, as per statistics you may use the outcomes of the
calculations to either accept or reject your hypothesis. Note that theories evolve and change over
time. They are not set in stone. As new evidence comes out theories often change. Among many
other things, ancient Indians had developed algebra to perform calculations. The picture below is
of Aryabhata, the person who created the number zero. He was born in 476 AD. His
contributions include Place value system and zero, Approximation of π, Trigonometry,
Indeterminate equations, Motions of the solar system, Eclipses, Sidereal periods,
Heliocentrism. For his explicit mention of the relativity of motion, he also qualifies as a major
early physicist.

68
Aryabhata correctly insisted that the earth rotates about its axis daily, and that the apparent
movement of the stars is a relative motion caused by the rotation of the earth, contrary to the
then-prevailing view, that the sky rotated.

This is indicated in the first chapter of the Aryabhatiya, where he gives the number of rotations
of the earth in a yuga, and made more explicit in his gola chapter.

Because they did have access to some technology.

Ancient indians also had instruments to observe things. A living example of this is the current
Jaipur Jantar Mantar, a collection of nineteen architectural astronomical instruments and is
currently a UNESCO World Heritage site. The observatory consists of nineteen instruments for
measuring time, predicting eclipses, tracking location of major stars as the earth orbits around the
sun, ascertaining the declinations of planets, and determining the celestial altitudes and related
ephemerides.

69
Jantar Mantar deploys all three ancient coordinate systems of the five celestial coordinate
systems known. In the image above, the red (ecliptic) and blue (equatorial) coordinate systems
are two of the three classical systems that feature in the monument's instrument.

Many references of ancient scientific instruments used by Ancient Indians have been found. See
example below.

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The most important aspect of this is that the ancient Indians knew that the grahas moved
in elliptical paths. This is also mentioned in the Rig Veda.

They knew about more than 9 grahas ( the Navgrahas mentioned are used for Astrology
and not for Astronomy)

The earliest astronomical text —named Vedānga Jyotiṣa, written somewhere around 1st
millennium BCE, also details astronomical calculations, calendrical studies, and establishes rules
for empirical observation. As per one historian, Twenty-seven constellations, eclipses, seven
planets, and twelve signs of the zodiac were also known at that time.
Our ancient seers first confirmed the existence of planets and their influence on human life
through Divya Drishti. Later, Indian astronomers(Bhaskara, Varahamihra, Aryabhatta)
developed mathematical correlations to find distant objects. Varahamihra developed Surya
Siddhanta that becomes the pioneer text of Indian astronomy.

The below answer is a bit philosophical concept, but trust me it will really inspire you.

The tool of confirmation

According to Indian philosophy, the confirmation can be done in 3 ways

1. Katchi pramana - Visual confirmation

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 2. Anumana pramana - Confirmation by logics
3. Agama pramana - Confirmation by seers through Divya Drishti or Yoga katchi
Source: Saiva Sidhanta

Let us look into each one of these.

Katchi pramana - Visual confirmation

The visual confirmation may give literal meaning as confirmation through eyes, but visual
confirmation actually means that confirmation through sensory organs. Humans have 5 sensory
organs viz eyes(seeing), ears(hearing), nose(smelling), tongue (tasting) and body(touching) and
we use one or more than one of the sensory organs at a time to confirm the object or a situation.
For example, the shape of an object can be confirmed by seeing.

The process of Visual confirmation

We may generally think that our sensory organs will do the confirmation by itself. But the five
sensory organs are just an instrument to capture the data and send it to another source to confirm.
There are 4 more inner instruments that will help in the process of confirmation. They are

1. Manash - Mind
2. Buddhi - Intellect
3. Cittam - Pure intellect
4. Ahankara - Ego or identity
Source: Saiva Sidhanta
The sensory organs are external instruments and these four(Manas, Buddhi, Cittam and
Ahankara) are termed as inner instruments.

Let us look into the process of visual confirmation

When the sensory organs capture the data(through eyes or ears etc), it will send them to Manas.
The Manas is the silo of memory. These memories are from various sources such as Karmic
memory(memories from our past birth), evolutionary memory - memory gain through evolution
(for ex: calf immediately after birth know how to suck the milk), sensory memory, etc. So the
mind will process the data sent by sensory organs and list out the options from its memory. For
example, if you see an object(say a table). The sensory organ(in this case eyes) will capture the
solid form and will send it to Manas. The Manas will list down the options(table, chair, door etc)
from its memory. The buddhi will collect the information from Manas, and it will confirm the
object using intellect.

What is the limitation of this process?

This process may look flawless, but there is a huge limitation in this process. The limitation of
buddhi is that it will use the intellect according to the ahankara(identity) ie; if you have an
identity or belief about something then your intellect will work according to your belief. For

72
example, if you believe in God then your intellect will filter out the information that is
supportive to the belief of God.

Secondly, each of these sensory organs has certain limitations. Our eyes can physically see only
up to a certain distance, ears can hear the sound with certain frequency. So the visual
confirmation is not the best source of confirmation.

Anumana pramana - confirmation by logics

There are certain things that we can confirm through logic. Say if you see lightning then you can
confirm that you will hear thunder in few secs. If you see a smoke then you can confirm there
was a fire. This logical conclusion will not give correct results in all the situation and hence this
confirmation is also not the best source of confirmation.

Who is the true seeker?

The 5 external sensory organs and 4 internal instruments we discussed so far are just instruments,
who is the real seeker of the information from the outside world? The answer is Atma or soul.

The soul gets the data from the external world through 5 sensory organs and it is processed and
confirmed through 4 internal instruments.

What if the seeker is able to seek without instruments? - Divya Drishti

We just said that the true seeker is the soul and these internal and external sensory organs are just
instruments in collecting and processing the data similar to what a computer does it for us.

Our ancient seers with the power of deep meditation were able to directly interact with the
universe without the internal and external sensory organs and that is called Divya Drishti. The
Divya Drishti don’t have any physical limitation, and hence the soul can visualize the distance
objects(planets) and its influence without any internal and external sensory organs.

The distinction of faraway objects

With the power of Divya Drishti, our ancient seers were clearly able to visualize the distant
objects including its proximity to Earth. Thus there were able to clearly identify the objects that
can influence life on Earth and the objects that have negligible influence in life on Earth. Thus
the Indian astrology ignored the distant planet Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto but they included the
north and south nodes ie; Rahu and Ketu.

The nine planets (Nava Graha) according to ancient Indian Mythology are
Surya - Sun
Chandra - Moon
Mangala - Mars
Budha - Mercury
Brihaspati/Guru - Jupiter
Shukra - Venus

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Shani - Saturn
Rahu & Ketu.

So, clearly these are not the planets that we have today, at-least not all of them. There was no
need for any Scientific technology to see any of these because they are all directly visible to
naked Eye. Though, now a days Saturn is bit tricky to find (because of light pollution), it is still
one of the brightest objects in the night sky and is clearly distinguishable from other stars. It
would be even more brighter and more clearly visible several hundred years ago.
Their definition of a Planet is different from what we have now. They just categorized
everything that's not a Star as a planet. As Sun appears different from other stars (bigger and
brighter), they thought that it qualifies to be a planet, a special entity.

Rahu and Ketu are the weird outliers in this aspect. They are not actual bodies in space, but are
simply the points of intersection of Earth and Moon's orbits. These are noticeable during Eclipses
and they decided to group them as Planets too.

So, As you can see there is not really much thought put in to this. Earth is no where to be found
in this list because they just took it for granted. They didn't realize we are another entity floating
in the space. Even Neptune, Uranus are missing from this list. They are not visible without the
aid of powerful Telescopes (which are absent then) and hence they didn't exist in the Indian
mythology.

Therefore to answer your question, there is no scientific technology involved in this. They just
grouped the 9 things that are visible in the sky and each of that is called a Graha (planet).
Indians did not find that there are 9 planets orbiting the Sun. They only knew of 6. Budha
(Mercury), Shukra (Venus), Bhumi (Earth), Mangal (Mars), Brihaspati (Jupiter), and Shani
(Saturn).

They knew that Earth orbited the Sun. This is evident from the values used for the calculation of
epicycles of the other planets and the use of the orbital period of Sun in these calculations.

They believed that the solar system extended upto and slightly beyond the orbit of Saturn.

As to how ancient man figured out about planets as distinct from stars.

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By observing the north sky it becomes evident pretty soon that there is a diurnal motion of the
dome of the sky.

Over thousands of years of observing the night sky, our ancestors must have figured out that
although everything in the sky moves around from East to West over the course of the night,
Mars, Jupiter and Saturn has a secondary motion in the opposite direction over the course of
larger periods of time.

Figuring out that Mercury and Venus are two objects rather than four (2 morning objects and 2
evening objects) must have been the next eureka moment in ancient astronomy.

This much could be achieved by meticulous observation over very many years and by reasoning.
Mathematics developed along with astronomy so some knowledge of trigonometry helped too.

In the meanwhile observation of moon was important for religious and administrative
applications. By the time of Surya Siddhanta and Bhagavata purana the phenomena of the phases
of the moon and of the eclipses was understood in their modern sense. The fact that the orbit of
moon was inclined with respect to the ecliptic was understood as well.

This knowledge of Earth casting a shadow can be extended to planets and that is how Surya
Siddhanta explains occultations.

However, we see in the Surya Siddhanta that the diameter of the orbit of the outer planets were
figured out correctly. This I believe could only be achieved by applying some form of parallax
measurements.

Navagraha are nine heavenly bodies (as well as deities) that influence human life on Earth
in Hinduism and Hindu astrology. The term is derived from nava ("nine") and Graha (planet,
seizing, laying hold of, holding).

The Navagraha are

10.Surya: the Sun

11.Chandra: the Moon
12.Mangala: Mars
13.Budha: Mercury
14.Bṛhaspati: Jupiter
15.Shukra: Venus
16.Shani: Saturn
17.Rahu: Shadow body associated with the ascending (or north) lunar node
18.Ketu: Shadow body associated with the descending (or south) lunar node
19.
Muthuswami Dikshitar, a Carnatic music composer from southern India composed
the Navagraha Kritis in praise of the nine planets. Each song is a prayer to one of the nine

75
planets. The sahitya (lyrics) of the songs reflect a profound knowledge of
the mantra and jyotisha sastras.
Navagraha temples devoted to Navagraha—the nine (nava) major celestial bodies (Grahas)
of Hindu astronomy.These temples are made of stones and are very beautiful. These celestial
bodies are
named Surya (Sun), Chandra (Moon), Mangala (Mars), Budha (Mercury), Brihaspati (Jupiter), Shukr
a (Venus), Shani (Saturn), Rahu (North Lunar Node) and Ketu (South Lunar Node). Many temples in
South India contain a shrine dedicated to the Navagrahas. However, the term Navagraha temples
refers to a cluster of nine separate temples, each an abode of one of the Navagrahas.

The Temple as a Mandala- Avittathur Mahadeva Temple

Chola Temples-The Navagraha temples in Tamil Nadu are a cluster of Navagraha Temples
dating from the Chola dynasty. During the Chola dynasty near Kumbakonam in Tamil Nadu
many temples were built. The Angkor Wat is a reflection of the Chola Religio-cultural traditions
albit on a grander scale .
As per Hindu legend, Sage Kalava was suffering from serious ailments along with leprosy. He
prayed to the Navagrahas, the nine planet deities. The planets were pleased by his devotion and
offered cure to the sage. Brahma, the Hindu god of creation, was angered as he felt that the
planets have no powers to provide boons to humans. He cursed the nine planets to suffer from
leprosy and were sent down to earth in Vellerukku Vanam, the white wild flower jungle - the
modern time Suryanar Kovil. The planets prayed to Shiva to relieve them off the curse. Shiva
appeared to them and said that the place belonged to them and they would have to grace the
devotees worshipping them from the place. Each temple is located in a different village, and is
considered an abode of one of the Navagrahas. However, eight among these temples are
dedicated to Shiva. The Surya temple is the only one dedicated to the Graham. In fact, it is
dedicated entirely to the worship of the Sun-God and the other navagrahas, the former being the
object of worship as the principal deity and the latter as attendant deities. It was built around the
11th or 12th century. The other temples were built earlier, ranging back to 7th-9th century.

11. Surya Navagrahastalam -- Sooriyanar Kovil (Thanjavur District)

76
 12. Chandra Navagrahastalam -- Thingalur (Thanjavur District)
13. Angaarakan Navagrahastalam -- Vaitheeswaran Kovil (Mayiladuthurai district)
14. Budha Navagrahastalam -- Thiruvenkadu (Mayiladuthurai district)
15. Guru Navagrahastalam -- Alangudi(Thiruvarur District)
16. Sukra Navagrahastalam -- Kanjanur (Thanjavur District)
17. Shani Navagrahastalam -- Thirunallar (Karaikal)
18. Raahu Navagrahastalam -- Thirunageswaram (Thanjavur District)
19. Ketu Navagrahastalam -- Keezhperumpallam (Mayiladuthurai district)
20. Angineeshwar temple -- Birth place of Lord Sanieeswarar and Lord Yematharmar,
Kodiyalur, Thirumeyachur, Thiruvarur District.

Legand- As per Hindu legend, Sage Kalava was suffering from serious ailments along with
leprosy. He prayed to the Navagrahas, the nine planet deities. The planets were pleased by his
devotion and offered cure to the sage. Brahma, the Hindu god of creation, was angered as he felt
that the planets have no powers to provide boons to humans. He cursed the nine planets to suffer
from leprosy and were sent down to earth in Vellurukku Vanam, the white wild flower jungle -
the modern time Suryanar Kovil. The planets prayed to Shiva to relieve them off the curse. Shiva
appeared to them and said that the place belonged to them and they would have to grace the
devotees worshipping them from the place. This is the only temple where there are separate
shrines for each of the planet deities.
Nine Grahas Temples (Navagraham temples) in Tamil Nadu is a set of nine Hindu temples,
each dedicated to one of the nine planetary deities, the Navagraham in various places around
the South Indian own of Kumbakonam in Tamil Nadu, India.[1] The presiding deity in most of the
temples is Shiva, with a shrine dedicated to the planetary deity. [2] Leaving Tirunallar Saniswaran
Temple which is located in Karaikkal, all the other temples are located in Tamil Nadu.
The present masonry structure for most of the temples were built during the reign of Medieval
Cholas between the 7th and 11th centuries with later additions from the Vijayanagar period.
Constructed in the Dravidian style of architecture, most of the temples have a five-tiered
rajagopuram, the gateway tower and a granite wall enclosing all the shrines of the temple.
The temples are a part of the popular Navagraham pilgrimage in Tamil Nadu. It is believed that
the planetary deities were cursed by Brahma to dwell in Vellurukku Vanam, the white wild
flower jungle and were blessed by Shiva to make it their abode to devotees. The temples have six
daily rituals at various times from 5:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., and two yearly festivals on its calendar.
The temples are maintained and administered by the Hindu Religious and Charitable
Endowments Department of the Government of Tamil Nadu.

Suryanar Kovil is located to the East of Kumbakonam, 2 km (1.2 mi) from Aduthurai and the
Kumbakonam - Mayiladuthurai road. The temple has direct connectivity from lower Anicut and
Thiruppanandal. Kanjanoor, the temple for Sukran, is located 3 km (1.9 mi) from Suryanar Kovil
in the Aduthurai - Kuthalam road. Thingalur is located 35 km (22 mi) to the west of
Kumbakonam in the Kumbakonam - Tiruvvayyaru Road. Vaitheeswaran Kovil is located
50.5 km (31.4 mi) away from Kumbakonam on the Kumbakonam - Sirkazhi Road and 14.5 km
(9.0 mi) away from Mayiladuthurai. Swetharanyeswarar Temple is located 24 km (15 mi) from

77
Mayiladuthurai and 13 km (8.1 mi) to the East of Vaitheeswaran Kovil. Ketu Stalam is located
close to Poompuhar, 9 km (5.6 mi) to the South of Thiruvenkadu and 23 km (14 mi) to the South
West of Vaitheeswarn Kovil. Alangudi is located 18 km (11 mi) to the South of Kumbakonam
on the Kumbakonam - Mannargudi road. Rahu Stalam is located 6 km (3.7 mi) to the West of
Kumbakonam on the Kumbakonam - Karaikal road and Saniswarar temple is located 46 km
(29 mi) further on the same road. Out of the nine temples, six are located on the northern bank of
river Kaveri, while the remaining three in the southern bank. Padal petra stalam - where the
three of the most revered Nayanars (Saivite Saints), Appar, Sundarar and Tirugnana
Sambandar have glorified the temples in Tevaram during the 7th-8th centuries.

Name of the Deit Grah Da

Location Photo
temple y a y

Hindu
Suryanar Kovil Sun Sun Aduthurai
Sun-God

Kailasanathar
Temple
Chandran Moon Mon Thingalur

Vaitheeswaran
Vaitheeswaran Koil Angaragan Mars Tue
Koil

Swetharanyeswara
r Temple
Budha Mercury Wed Tiruvenkadu

78
Name of the Deit Grah Da
Location Photo
temple y a y

Apatsahayesvarar
Temple
Guru Jupiter Thur Alangudi

Agniswarar
Temple
Sukran Venus Fr Kanjanur

Tirunallar
Saniswaran Temple
Shani Saturn Sat Karaikal

Rahu Stalam Rahu Tirunageswaram

Nagannathaswamy
Temple, Keelaperumpalla
Keezhaperumpalla
Ketu
m
m

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History- The Suryanar Kovil was built during the reign of Kulottunga Choladeva (AD 1060-
1118) and was called Kulottungachola-Marttandalaya. The current granite shrine is believed to
have been built by the Vijayanagara Empire. In modern times, all the temples are maintained and
administered by the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department of
the Government of Tamil Nadu. The Suryanar temple is mentioned in the songs of Muthuswami
Dikshitar, who has composed a song starting with "Suryamurthe" in Saurashatra ragam.
The temple of Thingalur is associated with the legend of Appar bringing back the life of the son
of Appoothi Adigal. The idol of moon is made of black granite and clad in pure white.
Vaitheeswaran Koil has five inscriptions mainly belonging to the period of Kulothunga Chola
I (1070-1120 CE. The inscription on the steps of Subramanya shrine records the shutter of the
sluice at Sattainathapuram measures 35 inches in length and 8 inches in breadth. The one on the
right of the temple tank indicates the tank, Nachiyar shrine, and its hall were completely
renovated when Kanderayar was governing the Sigali Simai, and during the management of the
temple by Muthukumaraswami Tambiran, a disciple of Sivagnanadesikar-Sambandar of the
Dharmapuram Adheenam.[8] On the wall of the second precinct, the inscriptions state that the
courtyard of Thayalnayagi shrine, the sacred steps and Tattisuri hall were built during Tamil year
4868 corresponding to 1689 CE. On the floor near accountant's seat registers a deed granted by
Sankarabaragiri Rengopanditar by Ambalavanatambiran, an agent of the temple. The Easter
gateway inscription indicates the gift of taxes from Manipallam in Tiruvalipparu.
There is no specific architecture pattern that uniquely identifies these temples. But all of the
temples have a rectangular plan with compound walls, pierced by a tiered raja gopuram (entrance
tower). Leaving the Suryanar Kovil, the central shrine is usually that of Shiva in the form
of lingam and the shrine of the planetary deity is located in the precinct around the main shrine.
All the other eight shrines of the Navagrahas are arranged facing the shrine of Suryanar.
The Navagraha or Satyanarayan (VISHNU) Puja
Bn,

A painting of Narayana (Viṣṇu) seated on lotus. A peetha

80
The Satyanarayan Puja is a religious worship of the Hindu god Vishnu.The Angkor wat is also
a temple built to reverate the God VISHNU. Satya means “truth” and narayana means, “The
highest being” so Satyanarayan means “The highest being who is an embodiment of Truth”.
Vrat or Puja means a religious vow, religious observance, or obligation. Hindus
throughout perform Sri Satyanarayan Vrat for the divine blessings of health, wealth, prosperity,
opulence, education; relief from troubles and sickness. It can also be performed because of
success in business or career growth; during social functions like marriages, house-warming
ceremonies, naming of the children and so on.

81
Legand: This puja is first mentioned in Skanda Purana, Reva Kanda by Suta Puranik to the
rishis in Naimisharanya. The details are part of the Katha (Story) that is usually read during the
ritual

Sri Satya Narayana puja is a very popular ritual in most parts of India including Gujarat,
Maharashtra, Assam, Bengal, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh,Telangana,Bihar, Odisha, Manipur.
The ritual is usually performed on the Full moon day of every month, Ekadashi (11th day after
full moon or new moon), Kārtika Pūrṇimā, Vaiśākhā Pūrṇimā, solar eclipse day or on Saṅkrānti
except during Āṣāḍha Chandra Masa. It is also performed on special occasions and during times
of achievements, as an offering of gratitude to the Lord. These occasions could include marriage,
graduation, start of a new job, purchase of a new home, to name a few. In addition, the
performance of this most auspicious puja generally confers a child to couples trying to start a
family.

The Satyanarayan puja can be performed on any day for any reason. It is not a puja confined to
any festivities, but Purnima (full moon day) is considered specifically auspicious for this puja.
Performing this puja in the evening is considered more appropriate. However, one can perform
this puja in the morning as well as puja is very simple, can be performed by anyone, and it does
not require a priest to perform it. The original concept was instructions given by rishi Narada
Muni while on tour of earth he noticed tremendous amounts of sufferings all around due to
malnutrition. He went to lord Vishnu and described the situation and was told with instructions
to perform Pooja and the other stories to be narrated. One of the key instruction was to invite as
many friends, relatives and neighbors to attend the ceremony and to feed them and to offer as
many types of fruits as possible and the sufferings will be eliminated, and this was due to being
well fed and consumption of fruits.
Holy Preparations: The previous night, think of Lord Sri Satyanarayana and mentally decide to
perform puja the next day. Invite your relatives and friends. Tradition mandates to abstain from
worldly pleasures.
On the puja day, early in the morning keeping the same thoughts of worshiping the Lord, take a
head bath. If performing the evening, again take a head-bath. This should be done by both
husband and wife. Wear a clean dress.
Observe Fast (if possible).
Keep all the things for puja ready, near the altar. The total duration of the puja - start to finish –
will be around 3 hours.
Decorate the front door with mango leaves. The place near the altar is cleaned (with cow dung,
where possible).
The Altar is placed in an East-West direction such that the devotees performing the puja will be
seated facing east. It is decorated with floral designs, usually using rice flour and other coloured
powders. A new white cloth is spread on the Altar and layered with raw rice.

82
Peeta
A Kalash (small pot made of Silver, Copper, Brass, or even earthen) is placed in the middle of
Altar. That small pot should add one betel nut, one rupee coin, some jwar or wheat and then
filled it with holy water like gangajal, if not available you can use clean water .A coconut is
placed on top and wrapped with a cloth.5 Mango or ashok leaves are placed between the coconut
and the pot. After this a red thread (kalava or moli) is tied 3 round in neck of pot . Make a
symbol of swastik in pot, it is a good and positive symbol .This too is decorated with Chandan
(Sandal paste) and kumkum. This process is called kalash sthapna .
A framed picture of Lord Satyanarayana is placed on the far side of the Altar. Flowers and
garlands can be placed on this frame.
Place all the puja items near the Altar.
The devotees performing the puja will be seated facing the Altar.
Prasad

The food is cooked as normal, usually rice, dal and vegetables; avoiding any non-vegetarian
(egg, meat, and fish dishes) and also avoid onion and garlic.
Make sure the kitchen is kept clean and devoid of impurities.
The main Prasad [offering] (is also called as Sapatha, Sheera or Sapaada Bhakshya made with
equal parts (usually one and one-forth parts) of sugar, Semolina, and Ghee. Popularly, it is

83
cooked to blanch. Cardamoms, cashews, raisins, and/or bananas may be added while cooking or
as garnishing. Some people avoid cooking and merely mix the ingredients together.
Various regional variations exist in the way it is cooked. It also has various names - Telugu
Prasadam, Marathi Sheera, Gujarati Sheera,Bengali Sinni, Punjabi Panjiri, etc.
The main Prasad is offered together with daily food, various fruits, and Panchamrutam
(uncooked mixture of Milk, Yogurt, Ghee, Honey, and Sugar).

The following is a list of items needed for the puja.

 Haldi (Turmeric powder)
 Kumkum ( Red vermillion or Sindoor )
 Navadhanya ( a mixture of nine herbs offered to navagraha ( nine planets ) )
 Incense sticks
 Camphor
 Sandal paste
 A photoframed picture of Lord Satyanarayana
 A small idol (or coin) of Lord Satyanarayana (optional)
 wheat or jwar (not rice)
 Grass
 Betel leaves (100)
 Betel nuts (50)
 Coins (40)
 Dry Dates/ Almonds (50)
 Coconuts (8)
 Flowers, tulasi leaves
 Garland and floral garlands
 Two jars (Silver, Copper, Brass, or even earthen) – one for Kalash and another for the ritual
 Two flat plates
 A bell
 A large pidha table (for use as Altar)
 A large yellow cloth (to cover the Altar) pit is the favorite color or Satnarayan he wears
pitambar or yellow clothes
 A piece of yellow or red cloth (for the kalash)
 A ghee lamp (with at least three wicks)
 An oil lamp
 Cotton wicks
 Panchamrita (Uncooked mixture of milk, yogurt, honey, sugar, and ghee)

Essentials
 Conch shell
 One thousand Tulasi (Indian Basil) leaves.
 Tulasi manjari (flower of tulasi)
 Banana tree/leaves as a canopy
 White tila two table spoons (White tila or white sesame seeds is favorite of Lord Satnarayan.
Rose is his preferred flower)

84
Procedure: The following procedure is as prescribed by and performed in Andhra Pradesh.
Several regional and traditional variations occur as mentioned in the following section.

Sri Satyanarayana Puja at home

The devotee begins by purifying oneself (achamniyam) and sankalpam (a vow that the named
devotee is performing the puja on such time and era, to attain such cause).
The puja starts with a prayer to Gaṇesha, to remove all obstacles that may occur as a result of
incorrectly performing the puja. This is done by the sixteen upacharas, chanting the names of
Lord Gaṇesha and offering prasada (offering usually consisting of banana, coconut, modak, a
sugar and coconut mixture, or laddu) and the showering of flowers. Subsequently, Varuna puja
(kalash puja) is performed.
A uniqueness of this puja is the invoking of pancha lokapalaka, navagrahas along with their
companion and co-companions, and the eight dikpalakas. This totals to 40 (5+9+(9*2)+8). Each
God has a vedic symbol of a unique metal. Since these are difficult to obtain by the common
means, and since the modern currency coins by minted with multiple metals, each Guest God is
represented by a coin. They are placed on a betel leaf. The betel nut, akshit and dry dates are the
offerings. Thus, the requirement of 40 coins, betel leaves and dry dates.
The main puja commences with the worship to Lord Satyanarayana. The idol (or coin) of Lord
Satyanarayana is bathed and cleaned with panchamritam. After placing the deity in the correct
position, 1008 names of Sri Satyanarayana are chanted.
This is followed by offering of Prasada and flowers (Mantra Pushpam).

Another requirement of the puja is that the story be heard among all those observing and
partaking in the puja.[19]
The five-part story involves the origin of the puja, benefits of the puja, the potential mishaps that
may occur with the forgetting performance of the puja, the magnitude of the Lord's benevolence
and the importance of the Prasad, and consequences of snubbing the ritual.
The puja concludes with an Aarti which consists of lighting camphor in the vicinity of an image
of the Lord.
After the puja is over, participants and observers of the puja are required to partake the prasad
that was offered and blessed by the Lord.
Regional and Traditional Variations to the ceremony:

 Many places the Varuna/ Kalash puja is done while invoking Ganesh at the start of the puja.
 The number of Athitis (divine guests) invoked varies substantially. Thus, the number of
coins and betel leaves count varies.
Srai Satyanarayan Katha or story of Satyanarayan: An essential part of this puja is listening
to the Sri Satyanarayana Swami Katha (narrative).

85
The five-part story involves the origin of the puja, benefits of the puja, the potential mishaps that
may occur with the forgetting performance of the puja, the magnitude of the Lord's benevolence
and the importance of the Prasad, and consequences of snubbing the ritual.
Chapter 1 narrates the origins of the puja. Sri Satyanarayana Katha comes from the Skanda
Puraṇa, Reva khaṇḍa. Suta Maharṣhi is the one narrating this account to Saunaka Muni, in
Naimiṣaraṇya to the ṛiṣhis who were performing a thousand-year yajna for the benefit of
humanity. The procedure itself was narrated my Sriman Narayana to Narada.
Chapter 2 narrates the benefits of the puja. A poor Brahmin was approached by Lord Himself in
disguise and He advised him of the puja. Upon successful completion of the puja, the Brahmin
could overcome his difficulties and enjoy eternal bliss. It also narrates about the good fortune of
a woodcutter who witnesses the Brahmin performing the puja and continues to gain prosperity
after performing the puja.
Chapter 3 narrates the mishaps that may occur for dishonoring the vow to perform the puja. A
merchant, with an intention to establish family, vows to perform the puja upon having a child.
He adjourns the vow to complete it during the child's marriage. Upon forgetting the vow, the
Lord puts the merchant in hardship. The merchant is falsely accused and imprisoned. His entire
business is confiscated by the king. His household goes bankrupt. He is freed when his wife
recollects the promise and performs the puja.
Chapter 4 narrates about the Lord's benevolence and the importance of the Prasad. This is a
continuation of the previous chapter. During an incident, the merchant puts off the Lord about
his merchandise, thereby losing all its value. Realizing his folly, the merchant regrets his
intemperance and seeks forgiveness. On hearing that the merchant reached the dockyard, his
wife and daughter, who were performing the puja at that time, forget to take the Prasad. Angered
with the disrespect, He makes the boats sink into the sea, only to be restored when they have the
Prasad.
Chapter 5 narrates about the importance of the puja and not that of the devotees. A group of
backwoodsmen was performing the puja. King discards and disregards the offerings, thereby
invoking the wrath of Sri Satyanarayana. The king loses his kingdom, wealth, and family, only to
be restored upon realizing his recklessness and seeking forgiveness to Sri Satyanarayana and
accepting the offerings.

Satyanarayana Puja at home

The rituals concludes with the Puja participants including the story audience
singing Invocation prayers (Aarti) to Satya Nārāyaṇa.

Margazhi dawn with 12 pieces of trivia on the Sun God.

1. The Sun is known in Hindu mythology by twelve names: Mitra, Ravi, Surya, Bhanu,
Kha, Pusha, Hiranyagarbha, Marichin, Aditya, Savitr, Arka and Bhaskara.

86
2. Suryanamaskar or the sun salutation exercise in Yoga has twelve postures dedicated to
each one of these forms.
3. Sauram or worship of the Sun is one of the ‘Shanmathams’ or six schools of Hindu
religion.
4. The Sun is the presiding deity among the Navagrahas, the set of nine celestial bodies
deified in Indian astrology.
5. The Suryanar temple in Kumbhakonam is dedicated to the Sun God. Muttuswami
Dikshitar has composed ‘Suryamurthe’ in Saurashtra ragam on this deity.
6. Several temples in North and East India, such as the ancient temple of Konark in
Orissa are dedicated to the ‘Arka’ form of the Sun.
7. Worship of a solar deity was also prevalent in the ancient civilizations of Egypt,
Greece and Mesopotamia.
8. Key festivals in India dedicated to the sun include Makara Sankranti or Pongal, Chhat
and Ratha Saptami.
9. Surya is associated with the great Indian epics. Lord Rama is said to have
descended from the Suryavansha dynasty, while the Mahabharata warrior Karna
was the sun God’s son
10. ‘Aditya’ is the name of the 12th chakra in the sampurna mela raga scheme in
Carnatic music.
11. In multiple music compositions, the resplendence of the deity is compared
with the brilliance of the sun, through phrases such as ‘bhanu koti’ and ‘dinakara
koti’ prakasham.
12. The Aditya Hridayam is a well- known hymn in praise of the Sun, while the
Gayatri mantra bears reference to the sun or ‘savitr’.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

IV
87
 ASTROLOGICAL PARAMETERS OF ANGKOR WAT

Based on-Libra and Gemini – the Temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia-Georg

Stockhorst/ Dr Udaty Dokras

Apsara
relief at Angkor Wat. Apsaras are engalic beings Photo: Dharma, ccbysa2.0

How to consult astrology for property purchase

A number of astrological scholars have given some valuable viewpoints on how to take property
related decisions based on the position of planets in the horoscope.
Property purchase is a very critical decision involving a huge financial investment. Therefore this
topic must be considered along with money yoga (financial prospects) by studying the horoscope
closely. For example, if the property has to be financed by the bank, then the role of 5th house
and 6th house are very important.
Since Mars denotes land and property, how it influences the 4th house is very important. In the
same manner, it is said the roles of Venus and Jupiter are also important as they are also benefic
planets that can help in owning property.

When are you most likely to lose your property?

The following astrological combinations shall result in property loss.

The 4th house ruler if found in the 3rd house with other favorable planetary positions shall cause
property loss.
If the ruler of the 4th house happens to be there in 6th, 8th or 12th houses affecting the ruler of
the lagna, then the candidate might lose property due to governmental action.

88
If the Lord of the 4th house sits in the 8th house in an afflicted condition, the subject shall lose
his property. If the ruler of the 4th house occurs with sun and is in a debilitated condition, the
subject shall lose his house due to the intervention of the government. When you
consult astrology for property purchase, you can gain some valuable insights on property
matters.Libra and Gemini – the Temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia ph:Charles J
Sharp,GNU/FDL

Angkor Wat is the main temple of the huge temple complex of Angkor in Cambodia. It was
constructed in the first half of the 12th Century AD during the reign of King Suryavarman II.
The central temple of Angkor Wat has five towers in the form of lotus flowers – the highest of
which is 65 m high forms the center of the Angkor Wat.

Astrogeographical position of the temple for morphogenetic field level 3 (surrounding area)
which describes the energetical topics of the whole of the temple island and the area nearby
and how they are are embedded in the land: The site of the temple is located in the
constellation of the two air signs Libra and Gemini. The principle of Libra with the central
motif of harmony can be observed here through the extensive decoration, perfect symmetry,
rectangular shape of the sanctuary and the overall aesthetic concept of the building. Librans are
extroverted, cosy, and friendly people. Librans, like the Scales that symbolise the sign, are often
concerned with attaining balance, harmony, peace, and justice in the world. With their vast stores
of charm, intelligence, frankness, persuasion, and seamless connectivity, they are well-equipped
to do so. They might be a little too easy-going and laid-back at times. Indeed, they are typically
dedicated workers and leaders in their areas. They excel in “peacekeeping” professions because
they have the rare ability to perceive all sides of an argument.
Libra is an air sign, and Libras are noted for their desire to be in the company of others. Libras
are extremely agreeable and honest people who believe strongly in the importance of social
connections. Libras are among the most fascinating and intelligent individuals on the planet, and
they have a lot to give. Libras are recognised for their charm, beauty, and well-balanced
personalities. They enjoy putting things in order and making them seem nice. They are also
looking for a sense of balance, and they may be as self-indulgent as they are kind. They carefully
select their words in order to reach out to as many individuals as possible. Libras have a strong
sense of right and wrong. They are committed to ensuring that everyone is heard and that things
are balanced, particularly when it comes to group activities.
Libras' desire for harmony might get in the way. They'll spend hours evaluating the advantages
and disadvantages of even the most minor actions. They try to satisfy everyone and find it
difficult to commit to one thing or another, even if it appears little. One of the Libra's flaws is
that they are a little self-absorbed, so when things don't go their way, they feel as if the world is
ending and everyone is conspiring against them.
Libras will get into multiple attraction and enjoy the company of romantic partners but when it
comes to committed partnerships, they are quite serious. Libras are naturally born leaders. They
succeed professionally when given the opportunity to showcase their leadership abilities and

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inventiveness. Libras thrive when they are left alone to work on initiatives. Because Libras aren't
known for their follow-through, it's essential that they're surrounded by balanced individuals who
can take direction and get things done.
As a Libra , you'll need to switch things up frequently, so channel that energy into fresh ideas to
avoid appearing unreliable.

Service orientated Libra the sign of peace in it`s role as the seventh astrological sign is to be
regarded as the principle of the angelic beings which can be found in Angkor Wat in the form
of Apsaras or dancing Devas (Angels) and Devatas (Guardian Angels). A further category of
entities presented at Angkor Wat are the Asuras (jealous beings), which would rather have to be
related to the aspect of competition of the sign of Gemini.

Both astrological principles Libra as well as Gemini indicate a meeting place and place of
openness, communication and contact. As the sign of education and learning Gemini is an
indication here that the temple might have had a function for the training of monks and priests,
sculptors and architects as well as the devotees, pilgrims and other visitors.

Tantric
stone carving at Lakshmana Temple in Khajuraho dedicated to Vaikuntha Vishnu. The
temple is located in Libra with Aries photo: Jean-Pierre Dalbéra, ccbysa2.0

Geminis are volatile beings that are inquisitive, intelligent, and great thinkers. They tend to
remain in one location. They are highly competent who can quickly persuade others to accept
their own thoughts and beliefs. The Geminins' reluctance to commit to one subject or one
individual, on the other hand, might give them the impression of crassness and a propensity to
glide over essential aspects in life.
The Gemini personality is a lot of fun, but it does have flaws, just like any other sign. Geminis
are flexible, extroverted, and clever, and there's never a boring moment while they're around.

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Their flaws include indecisiveness, impulsivity, unreliability, and nosiness, therefore don't
disclose a Gemini your innermost deepest fears. Geminis are constantly willing to try new things,
which makes them great lovers. They're highly enthusiastic and entertaining, making them great
friends. However, because of their impatience, individuals may be afraid or hesitant to engage. In
relationships, Geminis seek open and loyal communication. Geminis want a partner that is
intellectually compatible and eager to have fun. Geminis are highly loyal when they discover the
proper mate. Geminis are highly sociable people who spend a lot of time with their friends and
relatives.
Geminis seek for efficient leadership in their business connections. If there is a lack of
coordination, Geminis are prone to losing contact with long-distance companions. Family is very
important to Geminis, yet it can also be a source of stress for them. Their urge to be carefree
might be hampered by family obligations. Because of their inquiring spirit, flexibility, and
frankness, Geminis make excellent craftsmen, authors, and broadcasters. Geminis are known for
their inventive ideas and enthusiasm in the workplace. Geminis like discovering and telling
intriguing stories. All of the aforementioned Gemini characteristics also make them excellent
salesmen.
Geminis have excellent interpersonal skills and excel at clever wordplay, making it simple for
them to win others over. Geminis are excellent managers as a result of this. Their zeal motivates
their colleagues, and their intellect earns them the admiration of their co-workers. Geminis are
not good at focusing on deep tasks since they feel discouraged quickly due to their impulsive
behaviour. Geminis aren't the best financiers or economists. Geminis function best when they
can move from task to task without losing enthusiasm. Geminis might be too methodical because
to their brilliance, which can lead to inexperience.
They may also feel worried or frightened while making critical decisions, such as relocating or
changing jobs.

Statue of Vishnu at Angkor Wat ph: Marcin Konsek, ccbysa4.0

The main deity of Angkor Wat is Vishnu, the god of light and of the angelic quality (Satguna).
Satguna the quality of purity would be related to the position of the site in Libra.

Vishnu

In Hinduism every single god can be considered from two different perspectives: a god can be
seen as the all pervading essence of the universe or Para Brahman without form as in Nirguna
Philosophy. Or it can be seen as a the Para Brahman attached to a form and image in the shape
of the famous indian demi-gods as in the concept of Saguna Brahman.

Narayana is a form of Vishnu or in some versions Vishnu is a from of Narayana. Literally the
word Narayana means “eternal man”, “son of man” or “one who comes from the water”. Vishnu
means “all pervasive” or “one who is in everything”.

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Here is the list of the 9 major incarnations of Vishnu as a living being and the correspondence
with the planets in traditional astrology; Matsya (Ketu) the one-horned fish: Kurma (Saturn)
the mighty turtle; Varaha (Rahu) the fierce boar; Narasimha (Mars), the man-lion Vamana
(Jupiter), the clever dwarf Parshuram (Venus), the vengeful, priest: Rama (Sun) the dutiful
prince; Krishna (Moonn) the righteous cowherd; Buddha (Mercury) the compassionate sage.

Frst I`ll be trying to examine astrogeographical data about the older Vishnu and
Narayana temples. Of course that data has to be analyzed and differentiation made between all
kinds of factors at work. But I`m hoping to get a clearer picture about the archetype this god
actually represents.

Vishnu in Sagittarius

Sagittarius is the most frequent astrogeographical position of Vshnu Temples. This is a

clear hint that the cult is particularly related to the priest caste (Brahmins) the highest caste in the
indian caste system.

Compare: The Swaminarayana cult – an Astrogeographical Study of a modern Hindu Sect

As the ruler of Sagittarius Jupiter the greek Zeus would mark a less strict and to some extent
humourous god with more human features than for example a god in Sagittarius neighbour sign
Capricorn. For the hinduistic pantheon another god closely related to the symbolism of the
lightning and thunder provider Zeus is Indra who in later Hindiusm took over the role of the
waether god.

Vaikuntha located in Capricorn

Vishnu`s celestial dwelling place is Vaikuntha (the Place of not Hindrance), Paramapadam,
Vishnupada (Vishnu’s feet), or Param Padam (the Supreme Abode). In most of the Puranas and
Vaishnava traditions, Vaikuntha is located in the direction of the Makara (Capricorn) Rashi
(sidereal astrology), which coincides with the Capricorn star constellation. Capricorn as the
sign of governments marks the symbolic place of the ruler of society or as in the case of Vishnu
the ruler of the gods and the entrance into heaven (the spiritual plane). Capricorn marks
the exclusiveness of Vaikuntha. But the location of Vaikuntha in Capricorn is not necessarily or
not only an indication that Vishnu`s astrological indicator has got to be Capricorn`s ruler Saturn.
On the other hand Saturn should as well not be totally excluded as a plausible indicator for
Vishnu. The works of exorcism through killing or setting free of demons as practised by the
incarnations of Vishnu are clear aspects of Saturn.

In another version Vaikuntha is located on the hills of the sacred Mount Meru.

Vaikuntha located in Libra

The Lakshmana Temple in Khajuraho is dedicated to Vaikuntha Vishnu – the paradise home of
Vishnu.

Astrogeographic position for morphogenetic field level 4 which describes the atmosphere,
function and energetical quality of the temple: The temple is located in the combination of

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aristocratic female air sign Libra sign of relationship. openness, love, harmony, harems,
balance, beauty and decoration. the 2nd coordinate lies in dynamic, male fire sign Aries sign of
the phallus, erection, sports, action, ignition, warfare and speed. Libra stands for the rich
decoration, the attempt to depict a higher cultural ideal and the depiction of making love. And as
the sign of relationship, love, dancing, beauty and prostitution Libra is relates to the ideal of a
paradise for relationship and making love. Places located in Aries the first astrological indicator
for stimulation support erection and the fascination from erotic and pornographic images.

Changu Narayan Temple

Changu Narayan Temple in काठमाडौं, Bhaktapur, Nepal is one of the oldest extant hindu
temples. The deity it is dedicated to is a local form of Narayana Vishnu. Construction of the first
temple here is assumed to have begun around 325 AD.

In the foundation myth for the temple Narayana in his form as Vishnu while fighting a demon
king named Chandh happened to kill a brahmin – which in hinduism is seen as one of the gratest
possible sins. The brahmin`s guru cursed Vishnu wishing him to be killed by a brahmin in return.
Vishnu went to live in a tree on the site of today`s Changu Narayan Temple in the form of a
black boy until one day the tree was cut down and the immortal Vishnu`s head was chopped off.
Vishnu was so liberated from the spell and decided to live at the temple site for all times in the
form of Changu Narayan,

Changu Narayan Temple, entrance at the west side located in Aries with Sagittarius photo:
Maesi64, ccnysa1.0

Astrogeographical position for morphogenetic field level 4 which describes the atmosphere,
function and energetical quality of the temple: the shrine itself lies in 2 fire signs
– Sagittarius sign of style, design, ornaments, shamanism, fire sacrifice, priests, the brahmin

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caste, success, philosophy, initations and the colour black. Sagittarius as the sign of the brahmin
caste is a possible and to some extent plausible indicator for Narayana Vishnu but could also
simply be a resonance of a place dedicated to a temple run by brahmins. The black colour of the
boy is a correspondence with Sagittarius. The 2nd coordinate lies in dynamic male Aries sign of
ignition, action, speed, warfare, fighting, waking up and fresh motivation. Aries stands for the
fighting, the head being chopped off and the blood spilled in the foundation myth.

Dasavatara Temple

The Dasavatara Temple in Deogarh dedicated to the 10 (das) incarnations (avatars) of

Vishnu is one of the oldest hindu temples that still exist. It has been dated around 500 CE

Dasavatara
Temple in Deogarh located in Scorpio with Virgo/ Depiction of Nara Narayana in
Dasavatara Temple

Astrogeographic position for morphogenetic field level 4 which describes the atmosphere,
function and energetical quality of the temple: the temple is located in the combination of
solid, defensive, fixed water sign Scorpio sign of sulpting, stone-masonry, imaging, fortresses
with self.protective earth sign Virgo sign of hindu religion and yoga culture, health, self-
cleaning, celibacy, monkhood and meditation.

Budhanilkantha Temple

Budhanilkantha Temple at sacredsitesdotcom

Budhanilkantha Temple, (literal: “Old Blue Throat”) is an ancient open air temple dedicated to
Lord Vishnu situated below Shivapuri Hill at the northern end of the Kathmandu Valley in
Nepal.

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 Budhanilkantha open air shrine –
Vishnu floating in a water tank located in Aquarius with Pisces photo: जनकराजभट्ट,
ccbysa3.0

Astrogeographic position for morphogenetic field level 4 which describes the atmosphere,
function and energetical quality of the temple: located in the “extraterrestrian constellation” of
the two spiritual signs: creative, innovative, eccentric, spiritual air sign Aquarius sign of the
sky, heaven, paradise, flying, self-finding, liberation, abstraction, outcasts, the spiritual quest and
mystic spiritual water sign Pisces sign of imagination, mystification, dreaming, legends, temples.

Badrinarayana Temple at Badrinath

According to legend Shankara discovered a black stone image of Lord Badrinarayan made
of Saligram stone in the Alaknanda River. He originally enshrined it in a cave near the Tapt
Kund hot springs. In the sixteenth century, the King of Garhwal moved the murti to the present
temple.

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 Badrinath
Temple located in Sagittarius with Gemini photo: Naresh Balakrishnan, ccbysa4.0

Astrogeographical position of Bardrinath Narayana temple for morphogenetic field level 4

which describes the atmosphere, function and energetical quality of the temple: Sri
Badrinath temple is located in the combination of fire sign Sagittarius with air sign Gemini. the
sign of signpost, learning, polarity, information, roads and bridges, technology and practical
magic.

Venkateshwara Vishnu Temple

Venkateshwara Temple located

in Virgo with Sagittarius photo: Adityamadhav83, ccbysa3.0

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Venkateshwara Temple, also called “Temple of the 7 Hills”, Tirumala Hills near Tirupati,
Andhra Pradesh. Venkateshwara is a form of Vishnu, Venkata means hill.

Astrogeographic position for morphogenetic field level 4 which describes the atmosphere,
function and energetical quality of the temple: located in earth sign Virgo sign of health,
reason, yoga culture, celibacy, self-cleansing, Hindu culture. 2nd coordinate in mental fire
sign Sagittarius sign of shamanism, priest castes, brahmans, initiation, success, fire sactifice,
philosophy.

Thirunelli Mahvishnu Temple

Titunelli Mahavishnu Temple in Leo

with Capricorn

Thirunelli Temple is an ancient temple for Maha Vishnu on Brahmagiri Hill in Kerala, South
India. Mahavishnu is an aspect of Vishnu as the absolute which is beyond human
comprehension, beyond all attributes and the supreme god. The term Mahavishnu is similar
to Brahman and Almighty Absolute Supreme Personality of Godhead. “This means that the
Absolute truth is realized first as Brahman (impersonal aspect) then as Paramatma (personal
aspect) and finally as Bhagavan (incarnate perfection)” (from the wikipedia article)

Astrogeographic position for morphogenetic field level 4 which describes the atmosphere,
function and energetical quality of the temple: located in highly magnetic,self-centered, royal
fire sign Leo sign of the sun, light and the all-pervading aspect of Vishnu as the supreme
godhead and king of the gods from which all other gods emanate. The 2nd coordinate falls in
earth sign Capricorn, sign of control, government, rules, hiearchies and restrictions.

Jagannath Temple

The 12th century Jagannath Temple at Puri, Orissa dedicated to Lord Jagannath is one of the
most sacred Hindu temples particularly for worshippers of Vishnu. Jagannath is considered a
form of Vishnu or his avatar Krishna. Jagannath means Lord of the Universe, The wooden icon
worshipped at Jagannath Temple makes the deity rather appear like a tribal native entity or a god
of the place. The Templelacks a clear vedic reference and is also not a member of the

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traditional Dashavatara concept or the classical Hindu pantheon. The Jagannath Temple is
strongly related with the saints that playes an important role in the reformation and restoration of
Hinduism such as Adi Shankaracharya , Ramananda, Ramanuja & Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

Jagannath Temple
at Puri, Orissa located in Pisces with Aquarius photo: Bernard Gagnon, GNU/FDL

Jagannath Temple is located in the same constellation as the Lying Vishnu at Budhanilkantha
Temple. The two spiritual signs Aquarius and Pisces apparently stand for spirituality as the main
aspect worshipped at Vishnu temples but not so much for the mainstream hinduistic culture.

Astrogeographic position for morphogenetic field level 3 which describes the atmosphere,
function and energetical quality of the temple and ist surrounding area: located in the
“extraterrestrian constellation” of the two spiritual signs: creative, innovative, eccentric,
spiritual air sign Aquarius sign of the sky, heaven, paradise, flying, self-finding, liberation,
abstraction, outcasts, the spiritual quest and mystic spiritual water sign Pisces sign of
imagination, mystification, dreaming, legends, temples.

Thiruvallam Sree Parasurama Swami Temple

Parashurama Swami Temple at Thiruvallam, Kerala located in Libra with

Scorpio photo: Edwin549, ccbysa4.0

Thiruvallam Sree Parasurama Swami Temple is one of the most ancient temples of South India.
It is situated on the banks of Karamana River near Thiruvallam, Thiruvananthapuram

Astrogeographic position for morphogenetic field level 4 which describes the atmosphere,
function and energetical quality of the temple: located in the combunation of service-
orientated air sign Libra sign of angels, harmony, balance, beauty with highly alert, defensive

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water signb Scorpio sign of giants, hammers, sculpting, stone masory and possible inidcator for
Parasurama`s physical attributes.

Krishna Temples

Important Krishna Temples in Astrogeography. Positions for field level 4 (exact position –
energetical qualities of the shrines itself)
Copyright: Georg Stockhorst, 2019 www-astrologcalworldmap.com

architecture and astrologyart and astrologyAstrological World Mapastrology & historyFeng-

Shuigeomancylocational astrology

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Lakshmi Narayani Golden Temple of Vellore

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Fo Guang Shan Buddha in Libra

Buddhist Stupas in Astrology

ASTROGEOGRAPHY ASTROLOGY CITIES ENGLISH HISTORY INDIA MAGICAL

PLACES SCULPTURES TEMPLES TRAVELLING UNCATEGORIZED

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The Sites of the 12 Jyotirlinga in Astrology
Georg Stockhorst February 25, 2016

The Sites of the 12 Jyotirlinga in Astrology. Astrologeography & Sacred Sites: on the
astrogeographical positions of the 12 ancient Jyotirlinga
Read an introduction to the 12 Jyiotirlinga on the sacredsites page.
Related articles: The Shakti Peetha shrines in astrogeography, The Hindu Gods Vishnu and
Narayana in astrogeography, Shiva in two water signs, Pashupatinath Temple in
Kathmandu, Gemini and Aries – A Statue of Hanuman, The Rock Fortress of Sigiriya, The
source of the river Ganges in Cancer-Scorpio, A Kali Temple in Libra the Sign of the
Angels, Meenakshi Aman Temple in astrogeography,
The Sites of the 12 Jyotirlinga in Astrology
The 12 Jyotirlinga are important places of pilgrimage, mythology. prayer and reconnection with
the divine dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva. Among other functions they mark important
punctuations of the morphogenetic field in various parts of India. The 12 Jyotirlinga and their
shrines have been kept alive and their energies recharged through rituals, worship, prayer and
attention by the local priests, wandering monks and pilgrims over long periods of time.
According to the Shivapurana the gospel book of the worship of Shiva the Jyotirlinga are
supposed to represent 12 different aspects of a column of light once manifested by Shiva during
a controversy about the supremacy of creation between the three major Hindu
deities Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Shiva “pierced the 3 worlds with an infinite column of light”.
The other 2 gods decided to search for the source of the column travelling over billions of years
without finding its origin. That was the proof of the supremacy of Shiva. The twelve Jyotirlinga
shrines are temples all across the Indian peninsula where Shiva is assumed to have manifested as
a fiery column of light symbolizing the infinite nature of his potentials.

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 Map of India with the
positions of the 12 Jyiotirlinga

I have been fascinated by the idea of analyzing the astrogeographic positions of the 12
Jyotirlinga for a long time. Personally I visited only three of them but have often listened to the
ever-changing variations of oral traditions on the way along paths of pilgrimage in India.
The astrogeographical positions for morphogenetic field level 4: The Atmosphere of the
Single Sites and their Qualities

Whether the results of the astrogeographical calculations came as a big surprise I cannot say but
there is definitely a really strong tendency which could help us understand the worship of Shiva
and his place in Hindu religion and society, his role amongst the gods and/or demigods and find
out more about the energetical impact of such sacred sites and places of worship, prayer, healing
and power.

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The 12 Jyotirlinga in astrogeography

The role of water sign Cancer as the most frequent position of a Jyotirlinga

Śiva and Pārvatī seated on a terrace. Jaipur, 1800 (circa) British Museum

It is really fascinating to see that the role of water sign Cancer as the most important indicator
for Shiva is clearly reflected in the statistical analysis as the most frequent astrogeographical
position of the 12 Jyotirlinga (and of the 18 Maha Shakti Peetha Shrines as well). Lingams as
representations of the male form are thus placed at sites of a female energy, springs or
wells of water, underground rivers and sites in resonance with the stimulation of aspects of
deeper emotions, fertility and emotional individuality. This also means that these columns of
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light are not focused on aspects of outwardly, physical or mental strength, domination or power
in the first place as is sometimes assumed but rather on emotional authenticity. life itself, fertility
and the nourishment of the living beings. Through Cancer`s role as the sign of emotionality and
the Moon its stimulation does not only affect humans but animals and plants as well and in the
same way!
Kedarnath

Kedarnath Temple in Uttarkand

has both coordinates for morphogenetic field level 4 in Cancer

There are 2 of the 12 Jyotirlinga shrines that have both coordinates in water sign Cancer. One is
the Kedarnath Temple located at 3553 m altitude on the foot of Mount Kedarnath (6940 m)
and 223 km north east of Rishikesh in the Mountain State of Uttarkhand.

The five Pandava brothers (see: Mahabharata) are assumed to have founded the first temple at
Kedarnath. After the Battle of Kurukshetra they performed penance and meditation here praying
to Lord Shiva in order to seek forgiveness for their sins . But Shiva did only appear in the form
of a bull before them, hiding his true face. Bhima, one of the brothers managed to get hold of the
tail of the buffalo, Finally Shiva manifested as a column of light at the place of the ancient
Kedarnath shrine adjacent to the current site promising help for all those seeking help at this
place.

Omkareshwar
The second Jyotirlinga Shrine with both coordinates in Cancer is in the Omkareshwar Mahadev
Temple on a small island in the sacred Narmada River in the State of Madhya Pradesh. The
island is called Mandhata or Omkareshwar because it is said to have the shape of the Devnagari
Letter for the word OM – ॐ.

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 Omkareshwar
Temple has both coordinates in Cancer. photo: Bernard Gagnon, GNU/FDL

The astrogeographical position in Cancer relates the energetical topic of the site to a central place
of resonance of both the nearby river bed and the topic of an island in the river. This is
because Cancer is the sign of river banks as the natural habitat of crabs and also the natural
indicator and resonator for the topic of islands

Only 100 m away from the site of Omkareshwar Jyiotirlinga is the site of a very ancient shrine
called Mamaleshwar located in the combination of Cancer with fire sign Sagittarius.

Ujjain: Leo as the sign of light and power

Columns of light would in principle have to be astrologically categorized under the three fire
signs, but especially of course under Leo as the sign of our Sun and of light in general. In this
role Leo represents the sign of light and of the energy of life that all living beings on our planet
receive from the Sun. Sites with an astrogeographical position in Leo have a comparatively
vivid, vitalizing energy, intense magnetism and a tendency of being energetically more attractive
for living beings than sites in most other places. The fact that only 2 of the Jyiotirlinga sites are
located in Leo the sign of energetical intensity can be concluded to indicate that they are not
generally focused on the function of intensifying the energy of the sites where they stand.

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 Mahakaleshwar Temple at Ujain, Madhya Pradesh located
in Leo with Cancer, photo: LRBurdak, GNU/FDL

The Mahakaleshwar Temple in Ujjain represents one of the 2 Jyotirlinga shrines located in
highly, energetic, magnetic, royal fire sign Leo the sign of the Sun the giver of life. There are
several aspects of the Mahakaleshwar Shrine to be examined which could relate the site to the
astrological significance of fire sign Leo.

First of all: different from all other Jyiotirlinga Shrines in the Mahakaleshwar temple the
worshipped “face” of the lingam is facing south the direction of the Sun and therefore of Leo.

Secondly: the Mahakaleshwar Temple is a Jyotirlinga ( male) and Shaktipeetha (female) at the
same time. astrogeographically the combination of this duality is reflected in the position in
female sign Cancer the sign of the moon and motherhood plus in male fire sign Leo the sign of
the sun and light, power stations and the heart. Mahakaleshwar Temple combines two
consecutive signs or stages in the zodiac. The hierarchy of these two signs reflects Cancer as the
stage of concepetion, pregnancy, the uterus and Leo as the stage of birth and entering into life.
Places that combine these two topics resonate with aspects that are beyond the limitations of
duality and so support a supra-regional resonance and influence of such places.

Rameshwaram: Aries as the sign of erection, towers and the phallus

Male phallic sign fire sign Aries the sign of erection could of course be seen as the natural
astrological equivalent of a lingam at least in regard to it`s most basic element of form. But the
astrogeographical analysis reveals that this does not mean that sites in Aries attract or are
symptomatic of the really important places of worship of Lord Shiva. This means that
astrogeographical data from my field study could well be seen in relationship to the conclusion
made by Swami Sivananda who expressed that “the view that the Shiva lingam represents the
phallus is a mistake.” (Sivananda, Swami (1996). “Worship of Siva Linga”. Lord Siva and His
Worship. The Divine Life Trust Society.)

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Nevertheless Aries plays an important role for temple sites just like any of the other 11
astrological structural elements. Aries stands for sites of warfare used for prayer and worship
before going to war, worship of the aspects of a god as a protector during warfare, giver of
strength, motivation, decisiveness, clear attitudes and victory. Aries stand for the gathering place
of armies or warriors before the start of a war and important the sites of important oracles that
were consulted before beginning a war. Compare: (The oracle of Delphi in Aries with Libra,
The Bighorn Medicine Wheel in Capricorn and Aries). And interesting enough the legend of the
only Jyotirlinga in Aries the Ramanathaswamy shrine in Rameshwaram is in fact a site directly
related to a war. During the war of Rama the seventh incarnation of god Vishnu against the
demon king Ravana Rama`s army built a bridge from Rameshwaram to the island of Sri Lanka to
prepare the attack. Rameshwaram thus represented the site of the gathering of Rama`s armies
and the starting point of the attack on Sri Lanka.

Ramamantha Swami
Temple and Jyotirlinga shrine in Rameshwaram is located in Aries with Sagittarius photo:
Vinayaraj, ccbysa3.0

In the legend of the Jyiotirlinga itself it is explained that Rama, prayed to Shiva at this site to
absolve the sin of killing a brahmin (representative of the highest caste in Hindu religion). This
is beacause Ravana the demon king was also a brahmin. Rama wanted to have the
largest lingam and instructed his friend Hanuman to bring the lingam from Himalayas. Since it
took longer to bring the lingam, Sita, the wife of Rama, built a small lingam out of the sand of
the nearby sea shore, which is believed to be the lingam in the sanctum. Hanuman`s íntense
astrogeographical resonance with the sign of Aries is reflected by the astrogeographical position
of the site of the Hanuman Swami statue in Paritala, Andhra Pradesh in Aries.

No Jyotirlingams in female air sign Libra

The fact that none of the 12 Jyotirlinga are located in service orientated female air sign Libra the
sign of harmony, balance, beauty, angels, relationship, love and beauty could lead to various
different conclusions.

My first consideration here is that the missing of a Jyotirlinga in Libra can of course be
explained as an indication that Libra simply does not fully support the presence of a lingam at
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a place. This would be because Libra represents the female counterpart, momentum of
differentiation and focus on polarity of the one-dimensional aspect of Aries the sign of
unicellular structures, undividedness, mono causal thinking and male or phallic forms such
as towers of light (lingams).

Water sign Scorpio which in classical hindu astrology is the sign of intoxication, alchemy, death
and of demonic quality (tamoguna) only appears once on the list of the Jyiotirlinga.
This indicates that this classical astrological classification of Shiva which relates him
to Scorpio are not the central topic of the worship of Shiva at the sites of the Jyotirlinga shrines.

One of the implications brought up by the implications of the astrogeographical data here is: in
how far is the classification of the astrological signs through the 3 gunas a mere judgement from
the point of view of a profit orientated hierarchy or else the caste system in society which tends
to ban Shiva and the signs of Scorpio, Capricorn and Aquarius into the realms of ignorance
while relating Sagittarius the sign of darkness and Pisces the sign of hidden action to the realms
of purity. The reflexes of the logic of ignorance can be studied in the following video where the
astrology teacher himself enjoys the tamoguna perspective while explaining the tamoguna
version of definitions. Saturn the planet of the preservation of dharma is described as a natural
indicator of fear although fear from dharma is a mark of fear of one´s hidden guilt and as such
the clearest trait of ignorance.

Aundha Nagnath in the Hingoli District of Maharastra located in Scorpio with Cancer is
the eighth of the twelve Jyotirlinga photo: vijay chennupati, ccbysa2.0

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The first temple at Aundha Nagnath is said to have been constructed by King Yudhishthira the
eldest of five Pandava brothers during their 14 years of exile from Hastinapur. Aundha Nagnath
is the eighth of the twelve Jyotirlingas. In astrological numerology the classification as the eighth
shrine relates the temple to the eighth astrological sign Scorpio. The present temple is supposed
to have been built during the 13th century.

In regard to the deeper psychological understanding of the role of Scorpio important clues to it
are reflected in a legend about how the Maharashtran poet saint Namdev found his guru and
master at the Jyotirlinga shrine of Aundha Nagnath. In modern german astrology Scorpio is seen
as the sign of visual mental perception: the capacity of the human brain to visualize perception
and store the image of the perceived objects along with the memories from the other sensual
organs in order to create a multidimensional image of the moments in time that we experience.
Therefore Scorpio has a natural tendency to judge perceived things by the already
existing given standards of perceived and stored mental knowledge and patterns of habitual role
conduct and morality. Learning by watching, copying the example of one´s teachers and gurus
and adapting to a given hierarchy is therefore typical for Scorpio`s approach to learning.
Following this understanding of the reflexes active in Scorpio what Namdev was taught during
his visit to Aundha Nagnath was the perfect lesson about outwardly and superficial judgement in
relation to the deeper knowledge and understanding of the spiritual plane.

From my astrogeographical field study I have concluded that the combination of Scorpio with
Cancer seems to represent the archetypal astrological sign constellation – as the source of River
Ganga as well as the Devprayag of Alekhnanda and Baghirati, the City of Varanasi, the birth
place of Mahavatar Babaji, Lok Sabha and even the largest Shiva statue are located in that sign
combination.

Namdev at Aundha Nagnath Temple

Namdev was adviced to visit Aundha Nagnath Temple by a saint named Jñāneśvar to find a
proper guru. When he first entered the temple he found Visoba Khechara resting with his feet on
the lingam, the symbol of Shiva. In Hindu culture as in most other religions such a behavour is
seen as a severe disrespect to a holy shrine and an insult to the temple deity. Seeing this Namdev
reproached Visoba for having insulted Shiva. Visoba asked Namdev to take his feet and place
them elsewhere and wherever Namdev placed Visoba’s feet a lingam sprang up from the ground.
Thus, through his yogic powers, Visoba filled the whole temple with Shiva-lingams
giving Namdev an example (darshan) of the omnipresence of god.

Another story related to the negativity and falsity of formal judgement, morality and regulations
in regard to the Aundha Nagnath records the following incident: one day Namdev was singing
spiritual songs in front of the temple. One of the brahmins working as temple keepers came out
and told him to go away because he would be disturbing the worship at the temple. So Namdev
went away from the front of the temple to a place on the side of it where he himself felt
undisturbed and started singing his spiritual songs. But as the temple god wanted to listen to his
singing he decided to lift the whole temple and turned it around. Wether actually true or not this
story reveals the transformational powers of Scorpio which lie in the intense focus on the
perceived reality. From the wiki article: “It is testimonial to that miracle why Nandi (Shiva`s
guardian bull which is usually placed in front of the temple) is located on back side of temple.”

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Capricorn
Capricorn the sign of asceticism (tapasya), living in solitude and also the sign of mountains is a
comparatively expectable resonator for Shiva because he is supposed to spend his time in
meditation on the highest mountains. As a main factor for grounding the spiritual world on the
plane of the material, stability of social institutions and thus of religion and dharma, the
preservation of traditions and simply the state cult that accompanies the stable rule over society
Capricorn is also a natural indicator for the resonance of supra-regional matters at places.

Ghrishn
eshwar Temple near Ellora Caves, Maharashtra has both coordinates in Capricorn photo:
Rashmi.parab, ccbysa3.0

The shrine of the Grishneshwar Jyiotirlinga located near the famous Ellora cave temples has
both astrogeographical coordinates in earth sign Capricorn. And this is why the legend
about how and why the Grishneshwar Jyiotirlinga was installed in the place can serve as an
archetypal allegory of that sign. It is a story about complete trust in the laws of the eternal
manifestations of god and surrendering one`s own personal views, fears and limitations to the
plane of divine knowledge and the service to god, one´s duties, obligations and the laws of fate,
dharma, physics and higher knowledge.

The legend talks about a childless wife named Sudeha who in order to have a baby decided to
marry her younger sister named Ghushma to her husband named Sudharm, all three of them of
the Brahmin (priest) caste. Sudeha advised her sister to make 101 lingas worship them and
discharge them in a nearby lake. With the blessings of Lord Shiva, Ghushma gave birth to a

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baby boy. Ghushma developed pride about her motherhood and made her elder sister jealous.
One night out of jeaulousy Ghushma killed her sister`s son and threw him in the lake. Next
morning, Ghushmas and Sudharm got involved in their daily prayers and worship. Sudeha too
started her worship. Yet another family member Ghushma’s daughter-in-law found blood stains
on bed and found parts of the dead body. horrified she ran to Ghushma and Sudharma to infoem
them of the murder but they did not react but stayed absorbed in their meditation. Even later
when coming home and seeing the blood Ghushma wasn`t moved at all by the finding and
declared that Shiva who had created her son would protect him and so started reciting the name
of Shiva. Later when she went to discharge the Shiva lingas at the lake she saw her son
appearing again. Seeing her son Ghushma was neither happy nor sad, a trace of complete
surrender to the knowledge of the divine and the higher laws of fate. So Shiva appeared before
her highly pleased by her devotion. Ghushma asked Lord Shiva to forgive her sister Sudeh and
free her. Pleased with her purity, Lord Shiva granted her another boon. Ghushma saShiva to
reside at the lake eternally for the benefit of the multitudes in form of a Jyotirling and “may you
be known by my name”. On her request Shiva manifested himself in the form of a Jyotirlinga
assumed the name and form of Ghushmeshwar (or Grishneshwar).

Malikarjuna Swami and the combination of Capricorn with Aquarius

Srisailam Gopuram near the

Malikarjuna Swami Jyotirlinga at Srisailam. photo: Vedamurthy.j, ccbysa3.0

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The Jyiotirlinga Shrine of Malikarjuna Swami at Srisailam in Andhra Pradesh is located right
in between earth sign Capricorn and air sign Aquarius. The second coordinate here lies in
water sign Cancer.

The position in between earth sign Capricorn the sign of mountains and air sign Aquarius the
sign of the sky and heaven stands for the realms where the highest places on earth meet with the
sky above. Places within +/- 5° near the astrogeographic position of 30°Capricorn/0° Aquarius
relate to that topic and are of particular importance for fullfillment of ascetic practises in regard
to individuals and for the world government in regard to humanity.

Bhimashankar Jyotirlinga Temples in Maharashtra and Assam

I cannot solve the dispute whether the Bhimashankar temple north of Pune in Maharastra or one
of the two proposed sites in Assam should be considered as the actual “true” Jyotirlinga.

But what I can do is describe the locations:

Aquarius the sign of self-finding

Bhimashank
ar Temple in Maharashtra is located in Aquarius with Sagittarius photo:
ସୁରଥକୁମାରପାଢ଼ୀ, ccbysa3.0

Spiritual air sign Aquarius which together with Scorpio represents the most important
astrological resonator for outcasts such as Shiva at least appears 2 times on the list of the
Jyotirlinga.

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Aquarius reflects Shiva`s attitude of seeking purification, simplicity, abstraction and a holistic
view on life, leading a life without luxury, self-finding and self-liberation and leaving society
behind. Aquarius stands for the non-dualistic, spiritual or anti-materialistic point of
view. In relation to any caste system it stands for castelessness and as such for the Sannyasis and
Saddhus.

The Bhimashankar Temple is named after the asura Bheema a son of the giant
demon Kumbhakarna. Shiva is said to have destroyed the demon Bhima at the temple site
because Bhima had attacked and defeated one of Shivas devotees at the Jyotirlinga.

Sri Bhimeswar Dwadas Jyotirlinga Panchadhara Shiva Dham at Pamohi, Dakini Hills,
Guwahati, Assam
For a closer description see this article from brahmonsobha.blogspot.com : “The Shiva Purana
and the Koti Rudra Samhita refer to Bhimashankar Jyotirlingam in Dakini. Daini Bama at
Pamohi is interpreted by the devotees to be one of the Dwadas Jyotirlinga. It is said that Lord
Shiva destroyed the demon Bhima here when he was about to strike the Lingam with a sword.
The Lingam was worshipped by His devotee Kamarupeshwar {Priyadharma was the king of
Kamrupa- Shiva Puran Astam Khanda 28-31 Adyaya (Hindi & Bengali- Durga Pustak Bhandar,
Allahabad)} who was imprisoned by Bhima. Bhima, the son of Kumbhakarna and Karkati did
severe penance and became very powerful by a boon of Sri Brahma. The sweat from his body
forms the river. On the request of his devotees Sri Shiva stayed there as the Bhimashankar
Jyotirlingam.”

Bhimeswar Dwadas Jyotirlinga

Dham located in the combination of Scorpio with Sagittarius ph: Luitboy, GNU/FDL

Bhimeswar Dwadas Jyotirlinga Dham is located at Dakini hill near Pamohi in Guwahati, Assam.
It is located inside of the river bed in the combination of highly defensive, solid fixed water
sign Scorpio sign of the underworld, demons, death, trauma, pain, outcasts and dynamic fire

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sign Sagittarius sign of understanding, success, shamanism, healing, initiations, the priest caste
and fire sacrifice.

Vaidyanath Temple: Virgo and Shiva as a doctor

Vaidyanath
Temple located in Virgo sign of doctors with its opposite sign Pisces photo:
Ravishekharojha, ccbysa4.0

One of the 2 Jyiotirlinga shrines located in Virgo the sign of health, yoga culture, healing and
doctors is Vaidyanath Temple in the City of Deoghar in Jharkhand. The second coordinate of the
Vaidyanath Shrine lies in Virgo`s opposite sign spiritual water sign Pisces the sign of
imagination, fairy tales, music, mystification, the dream world, spiritualy and the subtle plain
itself, communion with the divine and the most important indicator for temples.

The legend of the origin of the Vaidiyanath Jyiotirlinga shrine claims that the demon king
Ravana offered his ten heads one after another in sacrifice here to worship Shiva forcing
him to descended and heal Ravana`s wounds. As Shiva acted as a doctor (healer) he is
referred to as Vaidhya (“doctor”) at the Vaidhyanath Shrine.

Gemini and Virgo at Kashi Vishwanath Temple

Kashi Vishvanath Temple in Varanasi is dedicated to Shiva Vishvanatha or Vishveshvara
the Ruler of The Universe.The Temple has been referred to in Hindu Scriptures for a very long
time and as a central part of worship in the Shaiva philosophy. It has been destroyed and re-
constructed a number of times in history. The last structure was destroyed by Aurangzeb, the
sixth Mughal emperor who constructed the Gyanvapi Mosque on its site in 1644. The current

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structure was built on an adjacent site by the Maratha monarch, Ahilya Bai Holkar of Indore in
1780.

Kashi
Vishwanatha located in Virgo with Gemini around 1915

Today`s temple is not located on its original position. This could explain the – for the site of an
important place of worship of Shiva – relatively unexpected and not easily explainable
astrogeographical constellation of its construction site. The combination of the two “Mercury
signs” earth sign Virgo sign of yoga culture, healing, self cleaning and air sign Gemini the sign
of sign posts, learning, road crossings,communication brings together the two major indicators
for spiritual entities of plants, often marking the topic of a place of the protection of
nature. Especially movable air sign Gemini is to be seen as an indication of the provisional,
temporary character of the position of the temple building on this site. Anyway Gemini`s

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quality as the sign of neutrality and a technical mental approach to thinking does not provide a
highly supportive energetical stimulation for temples.

The original place of Kashi Vishwanath where the Gyanvapi Mosque is located since 1644 is
located in the combination of Virgo with earth sign Taurus sign of the earth, grounding, market
places, local energetic centers and an indication for the importance of the site as a place of
resonance of feeling as the ruler of the land and territory. Comparable sites where Muslim
temples were built on the sites of former central religious sites in Taurus are the Hagia Sophia in
Istanbul and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. It has to be noted that Taurus does not stand for
spirituality itself as the purpose of a temple and is no indicator that the reconnection with the
divine is the aim of a temple built in Taurus in the first place. The reason why usurpators want to
install their temples in Taurus is to overwrite central important places of the culture of the
invaded country by occupying a place of resonance of the local landlords and of local self-
centeredness.

But of course temples in Taurus can serve an important purpose in regard to local deities, deities
of the earth like for example the earth mother, fertility rites, rites and prayer for wealth, temples
vor Venus and other important purposes.

The site of today`s Somnath Temple in Taurus with Sagittarius

Somnath
Jyotirlinga Temple is located in Taurus with Sagittarius

Todays Somnath Jyotirlinga shrine in Gujarat and the famous temple are not located on the exact
site of the original position but adjacent of it. It`s astrogeographical coordinates fall in the
combination of highly profitable earth sign Taurus sign of the earth, grounding, roots,
agriculture, food, wealth, income, possession of land, local energetical centers and market places

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together with dynamic fire sign Sagittarius the sign of expansion, victory, success, luxury,
growth, the Brahmin castes, shamanism, initiation, thinking, time-measurement and a major
indicator for knowledge about ritualism. The combination of Taurus as the sign of wealth with
Sagittarius as the stimulation for growth and expansion stands for a site particularly stimulative
for material success and growing wealth. This could be a reason why the long and rich history of
the Somnath Temple recorded since the 7th century accounts such a long series of
plundering, destruction and reconstruction of the temple.

Sanctum Sanctorum of Somnath photo:

Narendra Modi,ccbysa2.0

Here is a legend about the origin of the Somnath Jyiotirlinga from the Skanda Purana:
The Moon (Chandra) was married to the 27 daughters of Daksha Prajapati. In astrology they
are known as the 27 stations of the Moon or Nakshatras. But Chandra developed a special love
to Rohini whose position in the hindu (sidereal) zodiac ranges from 10°-23°20 Taurus. Because
Chandra started to neglect his other wifes their father Prajapati Daksha cursed Chandra that he
would lose his beauty and radiance. As the Moon lost his beauty and radiance the entire world
became lifeless. Worried about this Chandra came down from the sky with Rohini and
worshipped the Sparsa Linga of Somnath until he was blessed by Shiva to grow and shine in the

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bright half. Because the moon regained his light at this place this town came to be known as
Prabhasa. Brahma paved way for the construction of the temple and Chandra and other gods
prayed top Shiva to assumed the name and form of the Somchandra Jyotirlinga (named after the
moon god Soma) to reside there eternally. Another important role of Somnath it is considered
the place (Prabhas Kshetra) where Shri Krishna is supposed to have left his mortal body .

The controversy of the Nageshvar Jyotirlinga

The actual location of the legendary forest of Darukavana where the Nageshvara Jyotirlinga is
located is subject to a debate among scholars but also among the tourism industries. There are
two places which are commonly named as possible authentical sites of the Nageshvara
Jyotirlinga: the Yageshvara Temples at Almora, U.P. and the Nageshvara Tempel near Dwarka,
Gujarat.

Jageshvar
Jyotirlinga in Almora is located in Capricorn with Scorpio ph: Ankitkumarsaxena, ccbysa3.0

The Jageshvar temples are a large group of temples built between the 7th and 12th centuries. The
astrogeographical resonance coordinates of the site combine the two signs of long-
lastingness Capricorn and Scorpio. This sign combination is also present at the site of the
oldest known extant temples on our planet: the 12000 year old round temples of Göbekli Tepe.
Conservative earth sign Capricorn stands for the topic of a site dedicated to a state cult,
traditions, stabilization of culture, royal dynasties and social hierarchy. Scorpio stands for
the stone-masonry skills, construction and art work, sculpting, imaging and also the resonance of
places with energetical topics related to Lord Shiva.

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 Nageshwar Jyotirling near Dwarka is
located in Aquarius with Virgo.
ph: Aditya Mahar , ccbysa3.0

Nageshwar Jyotirling near Dwarka is located the combination of earth sign Virgo the sign of
reason, health, medecine, healing, yoga culture, celibacy, monk culture, brahmacharya and
indicator for a place of healing. The 2nd coordinate is in creative, innovative air
sign Aquarius sign of the sky, heaven, flying, paradise, self-finding, illumination.
https://astrologicalworldmap.com/2016/02/25/the-sites-of-the-12-jyotirlinga-in-astrogeography/

ASTROLOGICAL PARAMETERS OF ANGKOR WAT

Based on-Libra and Gemini – the Temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia-Georg

Stockhorst/ Dr Udaty Dokras

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 Apsara
relief at Angkor Wat. Apsaras are engalic beings Photo: Dharma, ccbysa2.0

How to consult astrology for property purchase

A number of astrological scholars have given some valuable viewpoints on how to take property
related decisions based on the position of planets in the horoscope.
Property purchase is a very critical decision involving a huge financial investment. Therefore this
topic must be considered along with money yoga (financial prospects) by studying the horoscope
closely. For example, if the property has to be financed by the bank, then the role of 5th house
and 6th house are very important.
Since Mars denotes land and property, how it influences the 4th house is very important. In the
same manner, it is said the roles of Venus and Jupiter are also important as they are also benefic
planets that can help in owning property.

When are you most likely to lose your property?

The following astrological combinations shall result in property loss.

The 4th house ruler if found in the 3rd house with other favorable planetary positions shall cause
property loss.
If the ruler of the 4th house happens to be there in 6th, 8th or 12th houses affecting the ruler of
the lagna, then the candidate might lose property due to governmental action.
If the Lord of the 4th house sits in the 8th house in an afflicted condition, the subject shall lose
his property. If the ruler of the 4th house occurs with sun and is in a debilitated condition, the
subject shall lose his house due to the intervention of the government. When you
consult astrology for property purchase, you can gain some valuable insights on property

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matters.Libra and Gemini – the Temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia ph:Charles J
Sharp,GNU/FDL

Angkor Wat is the main temple of the huge temple complex of Angkor in Cambodia. It was
constructed in the first half of the 12th Century AD during the reign of King Suryavarman II.
The central temple of Angkor Wat has five towers in the form of lotus flowers – the highest of
which is 65 m high forms the center of the Angkor Wat.

Astrogeographical position of the temple for morphogenetic field level 3 (surrounding area)
which describes the energetical topics of the whole of the temple island and the area nearby
and how they are are embedded in the land: The site of the temple is located in the
constellation of the two air signs Libra and Gemini. The principle of Libra with the central
motif of harmony can be observed here through the extensive decoration, perfect symmetry,
rectangular shape of the sanctuary and the overall aesthetic concept of the building. Librans are
extroverted, cosy, and friendly people. Librans, like the Scales that symbolise the sign, are often
concerned with attaining balance, harmony, peace, and justice in the world. With their vast stores
of charm, intelligence, frankness, persuasion, and seamless connectivity, they are well-equipped
to do so. They might be a little too easy-going and laid-back at times. Indeed, they are typically
dedicated workers and leaders in their areas. They excel in “peacekeeping” professions because
they have the rare ability to perceive all sides of an argument.
Libra is an air sign, and Libras are noted for their desire to be in the company of others. Libras
are extremely agreeable and honest people who believe strongly in the importance of social
connections. Libras are among the most fascinating and intelligent individuals on the planet, and
they have a lot to give. Libras are recognised for their charm, beauty, and well-balanced
personalities. They enjoy putting things in order and making them seem nice. They are also
looking for a sense of balance, and they may be as self-indulgent as they are kind. They carefully
select their words in order to reach out to as many individuals as possible. Libras have a strong
sense of right and wrong. They are committed to ensuring that everyone is heard and that things
are balanced, particularly when it comes to group activities.
Libras' desire for harmony might get in the way. They'll spend hours evaluating the advantages
and disadvantages of even the most minor actions. They try to satisfy everyone and find it
difficult to commit to one thing or another, even if it appears little. One of the Libra's flaws is
that they are a little self-absorbed, so when things don't go their way, they feel as if the world is
ending and everyone is conspiring against them.
Libras will get into multiple attraction and enjoy the company of romantic partners but when it
comes to committed partnerships, they are quite serious. Libras are naturally born leaders. They
succeed professionally when given the opportunity to showcase their leadership abilities and
inventiveness. Libras thrive when they are left alone to work on initiatives. Because Libras aren't
known for their follow-through, it's essential that they're surrounded by balanced individuals who
can take direction and get things done.

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As a Libra , you'll need to switch things up frequently, so channel that energy into fresh ideas to
avoid appearing unreliable.

Service orientated Libra the sign of peace in it`s role as the seventh astrological sign is to be
regarded as the principle of the angelic beings which can be found in Angkor Wat in the form
of Apsaras or dancing Devas (Angels) and Devatas (Guardian Angels). A further category of
entities presented at Angkor Wat are the Asuras (jealous beings), which would rather have to be
related to the aspect of competition of the sign of Gemini.

Both astrological principles Libra as well as Gemini indicate a meeting place and place of
openness, communication and contact. As the sign of education and learning Gemini is an
indication here that the temple might have had a function for the training of monks and priests,
sculptors and architects as well as the devotees, pilgrims and other visitors.

Tantric
stone carving at Lakshmana Temple in Khajuraho dedicated to Vaikuntha Vishnu. The
temple is located in Libra with Aries photo: Jean-Pierre Dalbéra, ccbysa2.0

Geminis are volatile beings that are inquisitive, intelligent, and great thinkers. They tend to
remain in one location. They are highly competent who can quickly persuade others to accept
their own thoughts and beliefs. The Geminins' reluctance to commit to one subject or one
individual, on the other hand, might give them the impression of crassness and a propensity to
glide over essential aspects in life.
The Gemini personality is a lot of fun, but it does have flaws, just like any other sign. Geminis
are flexible, extroverted, and clever, and there's never a boring moment while they're around.
Their flaws include indecisiveness, impulsivity, unreliability, and nosiness, therefore don't
disclose a Gemini your innermost deepest fears. Geminis are constantly willing to try new things,
which makes them great lovers. They're highly enthusiastic and entertaining, making them great

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friends. However, because of their impatience, individuals may be afraid or hesitant to engage. In
relationships, Geminis seek open and loyal communication. Geminis want a partner that is
intellectually compatible and eager to have fun. Geminis are highly loyal when they discover the
proper mate. Geminis are highly sociable people who spend a lot of time with their friends and
relatives.
Geminis seek for efficient leadership in their business connections. If there is a lack of
coordination, Geminis are prone to losing contact with long-distance companions. Family is very
important to Geminis, yet it can also be a source of stress for them. Their urge to be carefree
might be hampered by family obligations. Because of their inquiring spirit, flexibility, and
frankness, Geminis make excellent craftsmen, authors, and broadcasters. Geminis are known for
their inventive ideas and enthusiasm in the workplace. Geminis like discovering and telling
intriguing stories. All of the aforementioned Gemini characteristics also make them excellent
salesmen.
Geminis have excellent interpersonal skills and excel at clever wordplay, making it simple for
them to win others over. Geminis are excellent managers as a result of this. Their zeal motivates
their colleagues, and their intellect earns them the admiration of their co-workers. Geminis are
not good at focusing on deep tasks since they feel discouraged quickly due to their impulsive
behaviour. Geminis aren't the best financiers or economists. Geminis function best when they
can move from task to task without losing enthusiasm. Geminis might be too methodical because
to their brilliance, which can lead to inexperience.
They may also feel worried or frightened while making critical decisions, such as relocating or
changing jobs.

Statue of Vishnu at Angkor Wat ph: Marcin Konsek, ccbysa4.0

The main deity of Angkor Wat is Vishnu, the god of light and of the angelic quality (Satguna).
Satguna the quality of purity would be related to the position of the site in Libra.

Vishnu

In Hinduism every single god can be considered from two different perspectives: a god can be
seen as the all pervading essence of the universe or Para Brahman without form as in Nirguna
Philosophy. Or it can be seen as a the Para Brahman attached to a form and image in the shape
of the famous indian demi-gods as in the concept of Saguna Brahman.

Narayana is a form of Vishnu or in some versions Vishnu is a from of Narayana. Literally the
word Narayana means “eternal man”, “son of man” or “one who comes from the water”. Vishnu
means “all pervasive” or “one who is in everything”.

Here is the list of the 9 major incarnations of Vishnu as a living being and the correspondence
with the planets in traditional astrology; Matsya (Ketu) the one-horned fish: Kurma (Saturn)
the mighty turtle; Varaha (Rahu) the fierce boar; Narasimha (Mars), the man-lion Vamana

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(Jupiter), the clever dwarf Parshuram (Venus), the vengeful, priest: Rama (Sun) the dutiful
prince; Krishna (Moonn) the righteous cowherd; Buddha (Mercury) the compassionate sage.

Frst I`ll be trying to examine astrogeographical data about the older Vishnu and
Narayana temples. Of course that data has to be analyzed and differentiation made between all
kinds of factors at work. But I`m hoping to get a clearer picture about the archetype this god
actually represents.

Vishnu in Sagittarius

Sagittarius is the most frequent astrogeographical position of Vshnu Temples. This is a

clear hint that the cult is particularly related to the priest caste (Brahmins) the highest caste in the
indian caste system.

Compare: The Swaminarayana cult – an Astrogeographical Study of a modern Hindu Sect

As the ruler of Sagittarius Jupiter the greek Zeus would mark a less strict and to some extent
humourous god with more human features than for example a god in Sagittarius neighbour sign
Capricorn. For the hinduistic pantheon another god closely related to the symbolism of the
lightning and thunder provider Zeus is Indra who in later Hindiusm took over the role of the
waether god.

Vaikuntha located in Capricorn

Vishnu`s celestial dwelling place is Vaikuntha (the Place of not Hindrance), Paramapadam,
Vishnupada (Vishnu’s feet), or Param Padam (the Supreme Abode). In most of the Puranas and
Vaishnava traditions, Vaikuntha is located in the direction of the Makara (Capricorn) Rashi
(sidereal astrology), which coincides with the Capricorn star constellation. Capricorn as the
sign of governments marks the symbolic place of the ruler of society or as in the case of Vishnu
the ruler of the gods and the entrance into heaven (the spiritual plane). Capricorn marks
the exclusiveness of Vaikuntha. But the location of Vaikuntha in Capricorn is not necessarily or
not only an indication that Vishnu`s astrological indicator has got to be Capricorn`s ruler Saturn.
On the other hand Saturn should as well not be totally excluded as a plausible indicator for
Vishnu. The works of exorcism through killing or setting free of demons as practised by the
incarnations of Vishnu are clear aspects of Saturn.

In another version Vaikuntha is located on the hills of the sacred Mount Meru.

Vaikuntha located in Libra

The Lakshmana Temple in Khajuraho is dedicated to Vaikuntha Vishnu – the paradise home of
Vishnu.

Astrogeographic position for morphogenetic field level 4 which describes the atmosphere,
function and energetical quality of the temple: The temple is located in the combination of
aristocratic female air sign Libra sign of relationship. openness, love, harmony, harems,
balance, beauty and decoration. the 2nd coordinate lies in dynamic, male fire sign Aries sign of
the phallus, erection, sports, action, ignition, warfare and speed. Libra stands for the rich

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decoration, the attempt to depict a higher cultural ideal and the depiction of making love. And as
the sign of relationship, love, dancing, beauty and prostitution Libra is relates to the ideal of a
paradise for relationship and making love. Places located in Aries the first astrological indicator
for stimulation support erection and the fascination from erotic and pornographic images.

Changu Narayan Temple

Changu Narayan Temple in काठमाडौं, Bhaktapur, Nepal is one of the oldest extant hindu
temples. The deity it is dedicated to is a local form of Narayana Vishnu. Construction of the first
temple here is assumed to have begun around 325 AD.

In the foundation myth for the temple Narayana in his form as Vishnu while fighting a demon
king named Chandh happened to kill a brahmin – which in hinduism is seen as one of the gratest
possible sins. The brahmin`s guru cursed Vishnu wishing him to be killed by a brahmin in return.
Vishnu went to live in a tree on the site of today`s Changu Narayan Temple in the form of a
black boy until one day the tree was cut down and the immortal Vishnu`s head was chopped off.
Vishnu was so liberated from the spell and decided to live at the temple site for all times in the
form of Changu Narayan,

Changu Narayan Temple, entrance at the west side located in Aries with Sagittarius photo:
Maesi64, ccnysa1.0

Astrogeographical position for morphogenetic field level 4 which describes the atmosphere,
function and energetical quality of the temple: the shrine itself lies in 2 fire signs
– Sagittarius sign of style, design, ornaments, shamanism, fire sacrifice, priests, the brahmin
caste, success, philosophy, initations and the colour black. Sagittarius as the sign of the brahmin
caste is a possible and to some extent plausible indicator for Narayana Vishnu but could also
simply be a resonance of a place dedicated to a temple run by brahmins. The black colour of the

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boy is a correspondence with Sagittarius. The 2nd coordinate lies in dynamic male Aries sign of
ignition, action, speed, warfare, fighting, waking up and fresh motivation. Aries stands for the
fighting, the head being chopped off and the blood spilled in the foundation myth.

Dasavatara Temple

The Dasavatara Temple in Deogarh dedicated to the 10 (das) incarnations (avatars) of

Vishnu is one of the oldest hindu temples that still exist. It has been dated around 500 CE

Dasavatara
Temple in Deogarh located in Scorpio with Virgo/ Depiction of Nara Narayana in
Dasavatara Temple

Astrogeographic position for morphogenetic field level 4 which describes the atmosphere,
function and energetical quality of the temple: the temple is located in the combination of
solid, defensive, fixed water sign Scorpio sign of sulpting, stone-masonry, imaging, fortresses
with self.protective earth sign Virgo sign of hindu religion and yoga culture, health, self-
cleaning, celibacy, monkhood and meditation.

Budhanilkantha Temple

Budhanilkantha Temple at sacredsitesdotcom

Budhanilkantha Temple, (literal: “Old Blue Throat”) is an ancient open air temple dedicated to
Lord Vishnu situated below Shivapuri Hill at the northern end of the Kathmandu Valley in
Nepal.

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 Budhanilkantha open air shrine –
Vishnu floating in a water tank located in Aquarius with Pisces photo: जनकराजभट्ट,
ccbysa3.0

Astrogeographic position for morphogenetic field level 4 which describes the atmosphere,
function and energetical quality of the temple: located in the “extraterrestrian constellation” of
the two spiritual signs: creative, innovative, eccentric, spiritual air sign Aquarius sign of the
sky, heaven, paradise, flying, self-finding, liberation, abstraction, outcasts, the spiritual quest and
mystic spiritual water sign Pisces sign of imagination, mystification, dreaming, legends, temples.

Badrinarayana Temple at Badrinath

According to legend Shankara discovered a black stone image of Lord Badrinarayan made
of Saligram stone in the Alaknanda River. He originally enshrined it in a cave near the Tapt
Kund hot springs. In the sixteenth century, the King of Garhwal moved the murti to the present
temple.

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 Badrinath
Temple located in Sagittarius with Gemini photo: Naresh Balakrishnan, ccbysa4.0

Astrogeographical position of Bardrinath Narayana temple for morphogenetic field level 4

which describes the atmosphere, function and energetical quality of the temple: Sri
Badrinath temple is located in the combination of fire sign Sagittarius with air sign Gemini. the
sign of signpost, learning, polarity, information, roads and bridges, technology and practical
magic.

Venkateshwara Vishnu Temple

Venkateshwara Temple located

in Virgo with Sagittarius photo: Adityamadhav83, ccbysa3.0

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Venkateshwara Temple, also called “Temple of the 7 Hills”, Tirumala Hills near Tirupati,
Andhra Pradesh. Venkateshwara is a form of Vishnu, Venkata means hill.

Astrogeographic position for morphogenetic field level 4 which describes the atmosphere,
function and energetical quality of the temple: located in earth sign Virgo sign of health,
reason, yoga culture, celibacy, self-cleansing, Hindu culture. 2nd coordinate in mental fire
sign Sagittarius sign of shamanism, priest castes, brahmans, initiation, success, fire sactifice,
philosophy.

Thirunelli Mahvishnu Temple

Titunelli Mahavishnu Temple in Leo

with Capricorn

Thirunelli Temple is an ancient temple for Maha Vishnu on Brahmagiri Hill in Kerala, South
India. Mahavishnu is an aspect of Vishnu as the absolute which is beyond human
comprehension, beyond all attributes and the supreme god. The term Mahavishnu is similar
to Brahman and Almighty Absolute Supreme Personality of Godhead. “This means that the
Absolute truth is realized first as Brahman (impersonal aspect) then as Paramatma (personal
aspect) and finally as Bhagavan (incarnate perfection)” (from the wikipedia article)

Astrogeographic position for morphogenetic field level 4 which describes the atmosphere,
function and energetical quality of the temple: located in highly magnetic,self-centered, royal
fire sign Leo sign of the sun, light and the all-pervading aspect of Vishnu as the supreme
godhead and king of the gods from which all other gods emanate. The 2nd coordinate falls in
earth sign Capricorn, sign of control, government, rules, hiearchies and restrictions.

Jagannath Temple

The 12th century Jagannath Temple at Puri, Orissa dedicated to Lord Jagannath is one of the
most sacred Hindu temples particularly for worshippers of Vishnu. Jagannath is considered a
form of Vishnu or his avatar Krishna. Jagannath means Lord of the Universe, The wooden icon
worshipped at Jagannath Temple makes the deity rather appear like a tribal native entity or a god
of the place. The Templelacks a clear vedic reference and is also not a member of the

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traditional Dashavatara concept or the classical Hindu pantheon. The Jagannath Temple is
strongly related with the saints that playes an important role in the reformation and restoration of
Hinduism such as Adi Shankaracharya , Ramananda, Ramanuja & Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

Jagannath Temple
at Puri, Orissa located in Pisces with Aquarius photo: Bernard Gagnon, GNU/FDL

Jagannath Temple is located in the same constellation as the Lying Vishnu at Budhanilkantha
Temple. The two spiritual signs Aquarius and Pisces apparently stand for spirituality as the main
aspect worshipped at Vishnu temples but not so much for the mainstream hinduistic culture.

Astrogeographic position for morphogenetic field level 3 which describes the atmosphere,
function and energetical quality of the temple and ist surrounding area: located in the
“extraterrestrian constellation” of the two spiritual signs: creative, innovative, eccentric,
spiritual air sign Aquarius sign of the sky, heaven, paradise, flying, self-finding, liberation,
abstraction, outcasts, the spiritual quest and mystic spiritual water sign Pisces sign of
imagination, mystification, dreaming, legends, temples.

Thiruvallam Sree Parasurama Swami Temple

Parashurama Swami Temple at Thiruvallam, Kerala located in Libra with

Scorpio photo: Edwin549, ccbysa4.0

Thiruvallam Sree Parasurama Swami Temple is one of the most ancient temples of South India.
It is situated on the banks of Karamana River near Thiruvallam, Thiruvananthapuram

Astrogeographic position for morphogenetic field level 4 which describes the atmosphere,
function and energetical quality of the temple: located in the combunation of service-
orientated air sign Libra sign of angels, harmony, balance, beauty with highly alert, defensive

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water signb Scorpio sign of giants, hammers, sculpting, stone masory and possible inidcator for
Parasurama`s physical attributes.

Krishna Temples

Important Krishna Temples in Astrogeography. Positions for field level 4 (exact position –
energetical qualities of the shrines itself)
Copyright: Georg Stockhorst, 2019 www-astrologcalworldmap.com

architecture and astrologyart and astrologyAstrological World Mapastrology & historyFeng-

Shuigeomancylocational astrology

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Lakshmi Narayani Golden Temple of Vellore

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Fo Guang Shan Buddha in Libra

Buddhist Stupas in Astrology

ASTROGEOGRAPHY ASTROLOGY CITIES ENGLISH HISTORY INDIA MAGICAL

PLACES SCULPTURES TEMPLES TRAVELLING UNCATEGORIZED

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The Sites of the 12 Jyotirlinga in Astrology
Georg Stockhorst February 25, 2016

The Sites of the 12 Jyotirlinga in Astrology. Astrologeography & Sacred Sites: on the
astrogeographical positions of the 12 ancient Jyotirlinga
Read an introduction to the 12 Jyiotirlinga on the sacredsites page.
Related articles: The Shakti Peetha shrines in astrogeography, The Hindu Gods Vishnu and
Narayana in astrogeography, Shiva in two water signs, Pashupatinath Temple in
Kathmandu, Gemini and Aries – A Statue of Hanuman, The Rock Fortress of Sigiriya, The
source of the river Ganges in Cancer-Scorpio, A Kali Temple in Libra the Sign of the
Angels, Meenakshi Aman Temple in astrogeography,
The Sites of the 12 Jyotirlinga in Astrology
The 12 Jyotirlinga are important places of pilgrimage, mythology. prayer and reconnection with
the divine dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva. Among other functions they mark important
punctuations of the morphogenetic field in various parts of India. The 12 Jyotirlinga and their
shrines have been kept alive and their energies recharged through rituals, worship, prayer and
attention by the local priests, wandering monks and pilgrims over long periods of time.
According to the Shivapurana the gospel book of the worship of Shiva the Jyotirlinga are
supposed to represent 12 different aspects of a column of light once manifested by Shiva during
a controversy about the supremacy of creation between the three major Hindu
deities Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Shiva “pierced the 3 worlds with an infinite column of light”.
The other 2 gods decided to search for the source of the column travelling over billions of years
without finding its origin. That was the proof of the supremacy of Shiva. The twelve Jyotirlinga
shrines are temples all across the Indian peninsula where Shiva is assumed to have manifested as
a fiery column of light symbolizing the infinite nature of his potentials.

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 Map of India with the
positions of the 12 Jyiotirlinga

I have been fascinated by the idea of analyzing the astrogeographic positions of the 12
Jyotirlinga for a long time. Personally I visited only three of them but have often listened to the
ever-changing variations of oral traditions on the way along paths of pilgrimage in India.
The astrogeographical positions for morphogenetic field level 4: The Atmosphere of the
Single Sites and their Qualities

Whether the results of the astrogeographical calculations came as a big surprise I cannot say but
there is definitely a really strong tendency which could help us understand the worship of Shiva
and his place in Hindu religion and society, his role amongst the gods and/or demigods and find
out more about the energetical impact of such sacred sites and places of worship, prayer, healing
and power.

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The 12 Jyotirlinga in astrogeography

The role of water sign Cancer as the most frequent position of a Jyotirlinga

Śiva and Pārvatī seated on a terrace. Jaipur, 1800 (circa) British Museum

It is really fascinating to see that the role of water sign Cancer as the most important indicator
for Shiva is clearly reflected in the statistical analysis as the most frequent astrogeographical
position of the 12 Jyotirlinga (and of the 18 Maha Shakti Peetha Shrines as well). Lingams as
representations of the male form are thus placed at sites of a female energy, springs or
wells of water, underground rivers and sites in resonance with the stimulation of aspects of
deeper emotions, fertility and emotional individuality. This also means that these columns of
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light are not focused on aspects of outwardly, physical or mental strength, domination or power
in the first place as is sometimes assumed but rather on emotional authenticity. life itself, fertility
and the nourishment of the living beings. Through Cancer`s role as the sign of emotionality and
the Moon its stimulation does not only affect humans but animals and plants as well and in the
same way!
Kedarnath

Kedarnath Temple in Uttarkand

has both coordinates for morphogenetic field level 4 in Cancer

There are 2 of the 12 Jyotirlinga shrines that have both coordinates in water sign Cancer. One is
the Kedarnath Temple located at 3553 m altitude on the foot of Mount Kedarnath (6940 m)
and 223 km north east of Rishikesh in the Mountain State of Uttarkhand.

The five Pandava brothers (see: Mahabharata) are assumed to have founded the first temple at
Kedarnath. After the Battle of Kurukshetra they performed penance and meditation here praying
to Lord Shiva in order to seek forgiveness for their sins . But Shiva did only appear in the form
of a bull before them, hiding his true face. Bhima, one of the brothers managed to get hold of the
tail of the buffalo, Finally Shiva manifested as a column of light at the place of the ancient
Kedarnath shrine adjacent to the current site promising help for all those seeking help at this
place.

Omkareshwar
The second Jyotirlinga Shrine with both coordinates in Cancer is in the Omkareshwar Mahadev
Temple on a small island in the sacred Narmada River in the State of Madhya Pradesh. The
island is called Mandhata or Omkareshwar because it is said to have the shape of the Devnagari
Letter for the word OM – ॐ.

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 Omkareshwar
Temple has both coordinates in Cancer. photo: Bernard Gagnon, GNU/FDL

The astrogeographical position in Cancer relates the energetical topic of the site to a central place
of resonance of both the nearby river bed and the topic of an island in the river. This is
because Cancer is the sign of river banks as the natural habitat of crabs and also the natural
indicator and resonator for the topic of islands

Only 100 m away from the site of Omkareshwar Jyiotirlinga is the site of a very ancient shrine
called Mamaleshwar located in the combination of Cancer with fire sign Sagittarius.

Ujjain: Leo as the sign of light and power

Columns of light would in principle have to be astrologically categorized under the three fire
signs, but especially of course under Leo as the sign of our Sun and of light in general. In this
role Leo represents the sign of light and of the energy of life that all living beings on our planet
receive from the Sun. Sites with an astrogeographical position in Leo have a comparatively
vivid, vitalizing energy, intense magnetism and a tendency of being energetically more attractive
for living beings than sites in most other places. The fact that only 2 of the Jyiotirlinga sites are
located in Leo the sign of energetical intensity can be concluded to indicate that they are not
generally focused on the function of intensifying the energy of the sites where they stand.

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 Mahakaleshwar Temple at Ujain, Madhya Pradesh located
in Leo with Cancer, photo: LRBurdak, GNU/FDL

The Mahakaleshwar Temple in Ujjain represents one of the 2 Jyotirlinga shrines located in
highly, energetic, magnetic, royal fire sign Leo the sign of the Sun the giver of life. There are
several aspects of the Mahakaleshwar Shrine to be examined which could relate the site to the
astrological significance of fire sign Leo.

First of all: different from all other Jyiotirlinga Shrines in the Mahakaleshwar temple the
worshipped “face” of the lingam is facing south the direction of the Sun and therefore of Leo.

Secondly: the Mahakaleshwar Temple is a Jyotirlinga ( male) and Shaktipeetha (female) at the
same time. astrogeographically the combination of this duality is reflected in the position in
female sign Cancer the sign of the moon and motherhood plus in male fire sign Leo the sign of
the sun and light, power stations and the heart. Mahakaleshwar Temple combines two
consecutive signs or stages in the zodiac. The hierarchy of these two signs reflects Cancer as the
stage of concepetion, pregnancy, the uterus and Leo as the stage of birth and entering into life.
Places that combine these two topics resonate with aspects that are beyond the limitations of
duality and so support a supra-regional resonance and influence of such places.

Rameshwaram: Aries as the sign of erection, towers and the phallus

Male phallic sign fire sign Aries the sign of erection could of course be seen as the natural
astrological equivalent of a lingam at least in regard to it`s most basic element of form. But the
astrogeographical analysis reveals that this does not mean that sites in Aries attract or are
symptomatic of the really important places of worship of Lord Shiva. This means that
astrogeographical data from my field study could well be seen in relationship to the conclusion
made by Swami Sivananda who expressed that “the view that the Shiva lingam represents the
phallus is a mistake.” (Sivananda, Swami (1996). “Worship of Siva Linga”. Lord Siva and His
Worship. The Divine Life Trust Society.)

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Nevertheless Aries plays an important role for temple sites just like any of the other 11
astrological structural elements. Aries stands for sites of warfare used for prayer and worship
before going to war, worship of the aspects of a god as a protector during warfare, giver of
strength, motivation, decisiveness, clear attitudes and victory. Aries stand for the gathering place
of armies or warriors before the start of a war and important the sites of important oracles that
were consulted before beginning a war. Compare: (The oracle of Delphi in Aries with Libra,
The Bighorn Medicine Wheel in Capricorn and Aries). And interesting enough the legend of the
only Jyotirlinga in Aries the Ramanathaswamy shrine in Rameshwaram is in fact a site directly
related to a war. During the war of Rama the seventh incarnation of god Vishnu against the
demon king Ravana Rama`s army built a bridge from Rameshwaram to the island of Sri Lanka to
prepare the attack. Rameshwaram thus represented the site of the gathering of Rama`s armies
and the starting point of the attack on Sri Lanka.

Ramamantha Swami
Temple and Jyotirlinga shrine in Rameshwaram is located in Aries with Sagittarius photo:
Vinayaraj, ccbysa3.0

In the legend of the Jyiotirlinga itself it is explained that Rama, prayed to Shiva at this site to
absolve the sin of killing a brahmin (representative of the highest caste in Hindu religion). This
is beacause Ravana the demon king was also a brahmin. Rama wanted to have the
largest lingam and instructed his friend Hanuman to bring the lingam from Himalayas. Since it
took longer to bring the lingam, Sita, the wife of Rama, built a small lingam out of the sand of
the nearby sea shore, which is believed to be the lingam in the sanctum. Hanuman`s íntense
astrogeographical resonance with the sign of Aries is reflected by the astrogeographical position
of the site of the Hanuman Swami statue in Paritala, Andhra Pradesh in Aries.

No Jyotirlingams in female air sign Libra

The fact that none of the 12 Jyotirlinga are located in service orientated female air sign Libra the
sign of harmony, balance, beauty, angels, relationship, love and beauty could lead to various
different conclusions.

My first consideration here is that the missing of a Jyotirlinga in Libra can of course be
explained as an indication that Libra simply does not fully support the presence of a lingam at
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a place. This would be because Libra represents the female counterpart, momentum of
differentiation and focus on polarity of the one-dimensional aspect of Aries the sign of
unicellular structures, undividedness, mono causal thinking and male or phallic forms such
as towers of light (lingams).

Water sign Scorpio which in classical hindu astrology is the sign of intoxication, alchemy, death
and of demonic quality (tamoguna) only appears once on the list of the Jyiotirlinga.
This indicates that this classical astrological classification of Shiva which relates him
to Scorpio are not the central topic of the worship of Shiva at the sites of the Jyotirlinga shrines.

One of the implications brought up by the implications of the astrogeographical data here is: in
how far is the classification of the astrological signs through the 3 gunas a mere judgement from
the point of view of a profit orientated hierarchy or else the caste system in society which tends
to ban Shiva and the signs of Scorpio, Capricorn and Aquarius into the realms of ignorance
while relating Sagittarius the sign of darkness and Pisces the sign of hidden action to the realms
of purity. The reflexes of the logic of ignorance can be studied in the following video where the
astrology teacher himself enjoys the tamoguna perspective while explaining the tamoguna
version of definitions. Saturn the planet of the preservation of dharma is described as a natural
indicator of fear although fear from dharma is a mark of fear of one´s hidden guilt and as such
the clearest trait of ignorance.

Aundha Nagnath in the Hingoli District of Maharastra located in Scorpio with Cancer is
the eighth of the twelve Jyotirlinga photo: vijay chennupati, ccbysa2.0

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The first temple at Aundha Nagnath is said to have been constructed by King Yudhishthira the
eldest of five Pandava brothers during their 14 years of exile from Hastinapur. Aundha Nagnath
is the eighth of the twelve Jyotirlingas. In astrological numerology the classification as the eighth
shrine relates the temple to the eighth astrological sign Scorpio. The present temple is supposed
to have been built during the 13th century.

In regard to the deeper psychological understanding of the role of Scorpio important clues to it
are reflected in a legend about how the Maharashtran poet saint Namdev found his guru and
master at the Jyotirlinga shrine of Aundha Nagnath. In modern german astrology Scorpio is seen
as the sign of visual mental perception: the capacity of the human brain to visualize perception
and store the image of the perceived objects along with the memories from the other sensual
organs in order to create a multidimensional image of the moments in time that we experience.
Therefore Scorpio has a natural tendency to judge perceived things by the already
existing given standards of perceived and stored mental knowledge and patterns of habitual role
conduct and morality. Learning by watching, copying the example of one´s teachers and gurus
and adapting to a given hierarchy is therefore typical for Scorpio`s approach to learning.
Following this understanding of the reflexes active in Scorpio what Namdev was taught during
his visit to Aundha Nagnath was the perfect lesson about outwardly and superficial judgement in
relation to the deeper knowledge and understanding of the spiritual plane.

From my astrogeographical field study I have concluded that the combination of Scorpio with
Cancer seems to represent the archetypal astrological sign constellation – as the source of River
Ganga as well as the Devprayag of Alekhnanda and Baghirati, the City of Varanasi, the birth
place of Mahavatar Babaji, Lok Sabha and even the largest Shiva statue are located in that sign
combination.

Namdev at Aundha Nagnath Temple

Namdev was adviced to visit Aundha Nagnath Temple by a saint named Jñāneśvar to find a
proper guru. When he first entered the temple he found Visoba Khechara resting with his feet on
the lingam, the symbol of Shiva. In Hindu culture as in most other religions such a behavour is
seen as a severe disrespect to a holy shrine and an insult to the temple deity. Seeing this Namdev
reproached Visoba for having insulted Shiva. Visoba asked Namdev to take his feet and place
them elsewhere and wherever Namdev placed Visoba’s feet a lingam sprang up from the ground.
Thus, through his yogic powers, Visoba filled the whole temple with Shiva-lingams
giving Namdev an example (darshan) of the omnipresence of god.

Another story related to the negativity and falsity of formal judgement, morality and regulations
in regard to the Aundha Nagnath records the following incident: one day Namdev was singing
spiritual songs in front of the temple. One of the brahmins working as temple keepers came out
and told him to go away because he would be disturbing the worship at the temple. So Namdev
went away from the front of the temple to a place on the side of it where he himself felt
undisturbed and started singing his spiritual songs. But as the temple god wanted to listen to his
singing he decided to lift the whole temple and turned it around. Wether actually true or not this
story reveals the transformational powers of Scorpio which lie in the intense focus on the
perceived reality. From the wiki article: “It is testimonial to that miracle why Nandi (Shiva`s
guardian bull which is usually placed in front of the temple) is located on back side of temple.”

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Capricorn
Capricorn the sign of asceticism (tapasya), living in solitude and also the sign of mountains is a
comparatively expectable resonator for Shiva because he is supposed to spend his time in
meditation on the highest mountains. As a main factor for grounding the spiritual world on the
plane of the material, stability of social institutions and thus of religion and dharma, the
preservation of traditions and simply the state cult that accompanies the stable rule over society
Capricorn is also a natural indicator for the resonance of supra-regional matters at places.

Ghrishn
eshwar Temple near Ellora Caves, Maharashtra has both coordinates in Capricorn photo:
Rashmi.parab, ccbysa3.0

The shrine of the Grishneshwar Jyiotirlinga located near the famous Ellora cave temples has
both astrogeographical coordinates in earth sign Capricorn. And this is why the legend
about how and why the Grishneshwar Jyiotirlinga was installed in the place can serve as an
archetypal allegory of that sign. It is a story about complete trust in the laws of the eternal
manifestations of god and surrendering one`s own personal views, fears and limitations to the
plane of divine knowledge and the service to god, one´s duties, obligations and the laws of fate,
dharma, physics and higher knowledge.

The legend talks about a childless wife named Sudeha who in order to have a baby decided to
marry her younger sister named Ghushma to her husband named Sudharm, all three of them of
the Brahmin (priest) caste. Sudeha advised her sister to make 101 lingas worship them and
discharge them in a nearby lake. With the blessings of Lord Shiva, Ghushma gave birth to a

144
baby boy. Ghushma developed pride about her motherhood and made her elder sister jealous.
One night out of jeaulousy Ghushma killed her sister`s son and threw him in the lake. Next
morning, Ghushmas and Sudharm got involved in their daily prayers and worship. Sudeha too
started her worship. Yet another family member Ghushma’s daughter-in-law found blood stains
on bed and found parts of the dead body. horrified she ran to Ghushma and Sudharma to infoem
them of the murder but they did not react but stayed absorbed in their meditation. Even later
when coming home and seeing the blood Ghushma wasn`t moved at all by the finding and
declared that Shiva who had created her son would protect him and so started reciting the name
of Shiva. Later when she went to discharge the Shiva lingas at the lake she saw her son
appearing again. Seeing her son Ghushma was neither happy nor sad, a trace of complete
surrender to the knowledge of the divine and the higher laws of fate. So Shiva appeared before
her highly pleased by her devotion. Ghushma asked Lord Shiva to forgive her sister Sudeh and
free her. Pleased with her purity, Lord Shiva granted her another boon. Ghushma saShiva to
reside at the lake eternally for the benefit of the multitudes in form of a Jyotirling and “may you
be known by my name”. On her request Shiva manifested himself in the form of a Jyotirlinga
assumed the name and form of Ghushmeshwar (or Grishneshwar).

Malikarjuna Swami and the combination of Capricorn with Aquarius

Srisailam Gopuram near the

Malikarjuna Swami Jyotirlinga at Srisailam. photo: Vedamurthy.j, ccbysa3.0

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The Jyiotirlinga Shrine of Malikarjuna Swami at Srisailam in Andhra Pradesh is located right
in between earth sign Capricorn and air sign Aquarius. The second coordinate here lies in
water sign Cancer.

The position in between earth sign Capricorn the sign of mountains and air sign Aquarius the
sign of the sky and heaven stands for the realms where the highest places on earth meet with the
sky above. Places within +/- 5° near the astrogeographic position of 30°Capricorn/0° Aquarius
relate to that topic and are of particular importance for fullfillment of ascetic practises in regard
to individuals and for the world government in regard to humanity.

Bhimashankar Jyotirlinga Temples in Maharashtra and Assam

I cannot solve the dispute whether the Bhimashankar temple north of Pune in Maharastra or one
of the two proposed sites in Assam should be considered as the actual “true” Jyotirlinga.

But what I can do is describe the locations:

Aquarius the sign of self-finding

Bhimashank
ar Temple in Maharashtra is located in Aquarius with Sagittarius photo:
ସୁରଥକୁମାରପାଢ଼ୀ, ccbysa3.0

Spiritual air sign Aquarius which together with Scorpio represents the most important
astrological resonator for outcasts such as Shiva at least appears 2 times on the list of the
Jyotirlinga.

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Aquarius reflects Shiva`s attitude of seeking purification, simplicity, abstraction and a holistic
view on life, leading a life without luxury, self-finding and self-liberation and leaving society
behind. Aquarius stands for the non-dualistic, spiritual or anti-materialistic point of
view. In relation to any caste system it stands for castelessness and as such for the Sannyasis and
Saddhus.

The Bhimashankar Temple is named after the asura Bheema a son of the giant
demon Kumbhakarna. Shiva is said to have destroyed the demon Bhima at the temple site
because Bhima had attacked and defeated one of Shivas devotees at the Jyotirlinga.

Sri Bhimeswar Dwadas Jyotirlinga Panchadhara Shiva Dham at Pamohi, Dakini Hills,
Guwahati, Assam
For a closer description see this article from brahmonsobha.blogspot.com : “The Shiva Purana
and the Koti Rudra Samhita refer to Bhimashankar Jyotirlingam in Dakini. Daini Bama at
Pamohi is interpreted by the devotees to be one of the Dwadas Jyotirlinga. It is said that Lord
Shiva destroyed the demon Bhima here when he was about to strike the Lingam with a sword.
The Lingam was worshipped by His devotee Kamarupeshwar {Priyadharma was the king of
Kamrupa- Shiva Puran Astam Khanda 28-31 Adyaya (Hindi & Bengali- Durga Pustak Bhandar,
Allahabad)} who was imprisoned by Bhima. Bhima, the son of Kumbhakarna and Karkati did
severe penance and became very powerful by a boon of Sri Brahma. The sweat from his body
forms the river. On the request of his devotees Sri Shiva stayed there as the Bhimashankar
Jyotirlingam.”

Bhimeswar Dwadas Jyotirlinga

Dham located in the combination of Scorpio with Sagittarius ph: Luitboy, GNU/FDL

Bhimeswar Dwadas Jyotirlinga Dham is located at Dakini hill near Pamohi in Guwahati, Assam.
It is located inside of the river bed in the combination of highly defensive, solid fixed water
sign Scorpio sign of the underworld, demons, death, trauma, pain, outcasts and dynamic fire

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sign Sagittarius sign of understanding, success, shamanism, healing, initiations, the priest caste
and fire sacrifice.

Vaidyanath Temple: Virgo and Shiva as a doctor

Vaidyanath
Temple located in Virgo sign of doctors with its opposite sign Pisces photo:
Ravishekharojha, ccbysa4.0

One of the 2 Jyiotirlinga shrines located in Virgo the sign of health, yoga culture, healing and
doctors is Vaidyanath Temple in the City of Deoghar in Jharkhand. The second coordinate of the
Vaidyanath Shrine lies in Virgo`s opposite sign spiritual water sign Pisces the sign of
imagination, fairy tales, music, mystification, the dream world, spiritualy and the subtle plain
itself, communion with the divine and the most important indicator for temples.

The legend of the origin of the Vaidiyanath Jyiotirlinga shrine claims that the demon king
Ravana offered his ten heads one after another in sacrifice here to worship Shiva forcing
him to descended and heal Ravana`s wounds. As Shiva acted as a doctor (healer) he is
referred to as Vaidhya (“doctor”) at the Vaidhyanath Shrine.

Gemini and Virgo at Kashi Vishwanath Temple

Kashi Vishvanath Temple in Varanasi is dedicated to Shiva Vishvanatha or Vishveshvara
the Ruler of The Universe.The Temple has been referred to in Hindu Scriptures for a very long
time and as a central part of worship in the Shaiva philosophy. It has been destroyed and re-
constructed a number of times in history. The last structure was destroyed by Aurangzeb, the
sixth Mughal emperor who constructed the Gyanvapi Mosque on its site in 1644. The current

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structure was built on an adjacent site by the Maratha monarch, Ahilya Bai Holkar of Indore in
1780.

Kashi
Vishwanatha located in Virgo with Gemini around 1915

Today`s temple is not located on its original position. This could explain the – for the site of an
important place of worship of Shiva – relatively unexpected and not easily explainable
astrogeographical constellation of its construction site. The combination of the two “Mercury
signs” earth sign Virgo sign of yoga culture, healing, self cleaning and air sign Gemini the sign
of sign posts, learning, road crossings,communication brings together the two major indicators
for spiritual entities of plants, often marking the topic of a place of the protection of
nature. Especially movable air sign Gemini is to be seen as an indication of the provisional,
temporary character of the position of the temple building on this site. Anyway Gemini`s

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quality as the sign of neutrality and a technical mental approach to thinking does not provide a
highly supportive energetical stimulation for temples.

The original place of Kashi Vishwanath where the Gyanvapi Mosque is located since 1644 is
located in the combination of Virgo with earth sign Taurus sign of the earth, grounding, market
places, local energetic centers and an indication for the importance of the site as a place of
resonance of feeling as the ruler of the land and territory. Comparable sites where Muslim
temples were built on the sites of former central religious sites in Taurus are the Hagia Sophia in
Istanbul and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. It has to be noted that Taurus does not stand for
spirituality itself as the purpose of a temple and is no indicator that the reconnection with the
divine is the aim of a temple built in Taurus in the first place. The reason why usurpators want to
install their temples in Taurus is to overwrite central important places of the culture of the
invaded country by occupying a place of resonance of the local landlords and of local self-
centeredness.

But of course temples in Taurus can serve an important purpose in regard to local deities, deities
of the earth like for example the earth mother, fertility rites, rites and prayer for wealth, temples
vor Venus and other important purposes.

The site of today`s Somnath Temple in Taurus with Sagittarius

Somnath
Jyotirlinga Temple is located in Taurus with Sagittarius

Todays Somnath Jyotirlinga shrine in Gujarat and the famous temple are not located on the exact
site of the original position but adjacent of it. It`s astrogeographical coordinates fall in the
combination of highly profitable earth sign Taurus sign of the earth, grounding, roots,
agriculture, food, wealth, income, possession of land, local energetical centers and market places

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together with dynamic fire sign Sagittarius the sign of expansion, victory, success, luxury,
growth, the Brahmin castes, shamanism, initiation, thinking, time-measurement and a major
indicator for knowledge about ritualism. The combination of Taurus as the sign of wealth with
Sagittarius as the stimulation for growth and expansion stands for a site particularly stimulative
for material success and growing wealth. This could be a reason why the long and rich history of
the Somnath Temple recorded since the 7th century accounts such a long series of
plundering, destruction and reconstruction of the temple.

Sanctum Sanctorum of Somnath photo:

Narendra Modi,ccbysa2.0

Here is a legend about the origin of the Somnath Jyiotirlinga from the Skanda Purana:
The Moon (Chandra) was married to the 27 daughters of Daksha Prajapati. In astrology they
are known as the 27 stations of the Moon or Nakshatras. But Chandra developed a special love
to Rohini whose position in the hindu (sidereal) zodiac ranges from 10°-23°20 Taurus. Because
Chandra started to neglect his other wifes their father Prajapati Daksha cursed Chandra that he
would lose his beauty and radiance. As the Moon lost his beauty and radiance the entire world
became lifeless. Worried about this Chandra came down from the sky with Rohini and
worshipped the Sparsa Linga of Somnath until he was blessed by Shiva to grow and shine in the

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bright half. Because the moon regained his light at this place this town came to be known as
Prabhasa. Brahma paved way for the construction of the temple and Chandra and other gods
prayed top Shiva to assumed the name and form of the Somchandra Jyotirlinga (named after the
moon god Soma) to reside there eternally. Another important role of Somnath it is considered
the place (Prabhas Kshetra) where Shri Krishna is supposed to have left his mortal body .

The controversy of the Nageshvar Jyotirlinga

The actual location of the legendary forest of Darukavana where the Nageshvara Jyotirlinga is
located is subject to a debate among scholars but also among the tourism industries. There are
two places which are commonly named as possible authentical sites of the Nageshvara
Jyotirlinga: the Yageshvara Temples at Almora, U.P. and the Nageshvara Tempel near Dwarka,
Gujarat.

Jageshvar
Jyotirlinga in Almora is located in Capricorn with Scorpio ph: Ankitkumarsaxena, ccbysa3.0

The Jageshvar temples are a large group of temples built between the 7th and 12th centuries. The
astrogeographical resonance coordinates of the site combine the two signs of long-
lastingness Capricorn and Scorpio. This sign combination is also present at the site of the
oldest known extant temples on our planet: the 12000 year old round temples of Göbekli Tepe.
Conservative earth sign Capricorn stands for the topic of a site dedicated to a state cult,
traditions, stabilization of culture, royal dynasties and social hierarchy. Scorpio stands for
the stone-masonry skills, construction and art work, sculpting, imaging and also the resonance of
places with energetical topics related to Lord Shiva.

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 Nageshwar Jyotirling near Dwarka is
located in Aquarius with Virgo.
ph: Aditya Mahar , ccbysa3.0

Nageshwar Jyotirling near Dwarka is located the combination of earth sign Virgo the sign of
reason, health, medecine, healing, yoga culture, celibacy, monk culture, brahmacharya and
indicator for a place of healing. The 2nd coordinate is in creative, innovative air
sign Aquarius sign of the sky, heaven, flying, paradise, self-finding, illumination.
https://astrologicalworldmap.com/2016/02/25/the-sites-of-the-12-jyotirlinga-in-astrogeography/

V
Angkor Moat & the Role of Water

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‘To boldly go where most sane Khmer’s don’t.’ Ancient Khemer saying

The river over which the bridge head exists is also known as Stung Kbal Spean, a tributary of the Siem
Reap River that rises in the Kulein mountains north of Banteay Srei. The Siem Reap River (Steung Siem
Reap; flows through Siem Reap Province, in north-west Cambodia where the Angkor region and its
tempoles are located.The river bed cuts through sandstone formations, and the many architectural
sculptures of Hindu mythology have been carved within the sandstone. The archaeological site occurs in a
stretch of the river starting from 150 metres (490 ft) upstream north of the bridge head to the falls
downstream. The river, being sanctified by flowing over the religious sculptures, flows downstream,
bifurcating into the Siem Reap River and Puok River, which eventually flows into the Tonlé Sap
Lake after passing through the plains and the Angkor temple complex.

The archaeological site is in the western part of the Kulein mountains within the Phnom Kulen National
Park. Approach is from the Banteay Srei temple by a road which is about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) from an
army camp. Thereafter, it is a 40-minute walk through the forest for about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) uphill
along a path before reaching the first site, a water fall, where the carved sculptures start appearing in the
river bed.

It is not difficult to estimate that the Khmer culture and the empire alike were built around a single critical
resource: water. No doubt that the temple complex at Angkor Wat is famous for its intricatecarvedm
towers, its enigmatic smiling Buddha images and lovely dancing girls (apsaras), and its geometrically
perfect moats and reservoirs. An architectural jewel, it is the largest religious structure in the world. It is
the crowning achievement of the classical Khmer Empire, which once ruled most of Southeast Asia.

The Lotus Temple on a Pond

The connection with water is immediately apparent at Angkor today. Angkor Wat (meaning "Capital
Temple") and the larger Angkor Thom ("Capital City") are both surrounded by perfectly square moats.
Two five-mile-long rectangular reservoirs glitter nearby, the West Baray and the East Baray. Within the
immediate neighborhood, there are also three other major barays and numerous small ones.
Some twenty miles to the south of Siem Reap, a seemingly inexhaustible supply of freshwater stretches
across 16,000 square kilometers of Cambodia. This is the Tonle Sap, Southeast Asia's largest freshwater
lake.
It may seem odd that a civilization built on the edge of Southeast Asia's "great lake" should need to rely
on a complicated irrigation system, but the lake is extremely seasonal. During the monsoon season, the
vast amount of water pouring through the watershed causes the Mekong River to actually back up behind
its delta, and begin to flow backward. The water flows out over the 16,000 square kilometer lake-bed,
remaining for about 4 months. However, once the dry season returns, the lake shrinks down to 2,700
square kilometers, leaving the Angkor Wat area high and dry. The other problem with Tonle Sap, from an
Angkorian point of view, is that it is at a lower elevation than the ancient city. Kings and engineers knew
better than to site their wonderful buildings too close to the erratic lake/river, but they did not have the
technology to make water run uphill.

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 Blue color for the two
rivers The Mekong to the left and the Puok to the right

Engineering Marvel
In order to provide a year-round supply of water for irrigating rice crops, the engineers of the Khmer
Empire connected a region the size of modern-day New York City with an elaborate system of reservoirs,
canals, and dams. Rather than using the water of Tonle Sap, the reservoirs collect monsoon rainwater and
store it for the dry months. NASA photographs reveal the traces of these ancient waterworks, hidden at
ground level by the thick tropical rainforest. A steady water supply allowed for three or even four
plantings of the notoriously thirsty rice crop per year and also left enough water for ritual use.

According to Hindu mythology, which the Khmer people absorbed from Indian traders, the gods live on
the five-peaked Mount Meru, surrounded by an ocean. To replicate this geography, the Khmer king
Suryavarman II designed a five-towered temple surrounded by an enormous moat. Construction on his
lovely design began in 1140; the temple later came to be known as Angkor Wat.

In keeping with the aquatic nature of the site, each of Angkor Wat's five towers is shaped like an
unopened lotus blossom. The temple at Tah Prohm alone was served by more than 12,000 courtiers,
priests, dancing girls and engineers at its height — to say nothing of the empire's great armies, or the
legions of farmers who fed all the others. Throughout its history, the Khmer Empire was constantly at
battle with the Chams (from southern Vietnam) as well as different Thai peoples. Greater Angkor
probably encompassed between 600,000 and 1 million inhabitants — at a time when London had perhaps
30,000 people. All of these soldiers, bureaucrats, and citizens relied upon rice and fish — thus, they relied
upon the waterworks. nature and even the existence of water management at Angkor has been the subject
of considerable debate since the 1970s. Recent work at Angkor by the EFEO and the Greater Angkor
Project has mapped a vast water management network extending across approximately 1000 sq km. From
the new map an outline can be provide of the development of the network between the 8th-9th and the
14th centuries. Each large extension of the network tapped water from a succession of natural rivers
flowing from NE to SW. Each river was further north and was tapped further to the west. The network
had five major components - E-W embankments that trapped water flowing from the north and northeast;
N-S channels that eventually delivered water to large reservoirs (baray); the baray and the large temple
moats; embankments and channels oriented from NW to SE that could distribute water back from west to
east across the slope of the land; and channels oriented towards the southwest which could dispose of
water rapidly to the lake, the Tonle Sap. Significantly the later major channels, such as the Angkor Wat

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canal and the canal that pre-dated the current Siem Reap river, were drains that served to dispose of water
into the lake. A water management network with three distinct interconnected operational zones for
control, storage and distribution has been identified. The old debate about whether or not there was a
functional water management network in Angkor that could have assisted flood control and irrigation is at
an end, replaced, fortunately, by further developing issues about the role of system, its development and
its relationship to the demise of Angkor. The magnitude of the features that make up the network relates
to the use of sand with a small admixture of clay as a means to control water – a remarkable feat of
engineering. The vast scale and extreme stability of the infrastructure is an intriguing corollary of its
technology and might itself help to explain how the continuity and order of Khmer society endured
despite the inherent instability of the medieval Khmer state prior to the 13th century. How the network
was managed and the degree to which the state ever participated directly in its day-to-day operation is a
key issue and may itself be central to what eventually happened to Angkor.
There are indications that the network had developed into an involuted system but one that was
both generating stresses due to its inertia and may also have been facing external changes as well. If
this was the case then Angkor faced a serious conundrum because the massive stability of its
infrastructure was somehow both implicated in the changes and cumulatively unable to deal with
them. The last additions to the network from the 12th century onwards increasingly served to
dispose of water rather than to hold and distribute it. The potentially serious implication is that
from the 12th century onwards Angkor was, perhaps, having to cope with and try to manage
increased water flow from the northern catchments.1
The region had an extensive hydraulic network stretching across more than a thousand square
kilometres. The network can still be seen in radar and satellite images, and the main features are
still evident from the ground. One is a channel which runs through Angkor to the Tonle Sap Lake.
Now known as the Siem Reap River, it starts in Phnom Kulen and flows through the modern
provincial capital before reaching the lake. In pre-Angkorian times, however, this watercourse
didn't exist.

Collapse
The system that allowed the Khmer to support such a large population may have been their undoing,
however. The water system of the region may have played a key role in the city operation but is not
clearly understood how it worked and how and when it collapsed. The Tonle Sap Lake is not filling up
with sediment contrary to the earlier belief. Angkor was related very closely to the lake. It was an
important source of nourishment and one of the key features of the transportation system. The annual
flood creates an optimum condition to cultivate floating and recession rice. The Angkor area was
perfectly situated from hydrological point of view: the lake was close but the city was safe from the flood,
the high ground water table offered a secured water supply also during the dry season, and the shallow
slope of the terrain offered good possibilities of manage the water. Even thought the situation was optimal
Khmers had problems with sedimentation and erosion in their hydraulic network. 2

1. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE WATER MANAGEMENT SYSTEM OF ANGKOR: A

PROVISIONAL MODEL Roland Fletcher, Christophe Pottier, Damian Evans, Matti Kummu-
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03026457/document

2. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/
228974042_The_natural_environment_and_historical_water_management_of_Angkor_Cambodi
a?enrichId=rgreq-0f70e3e0ead0f8fef22523e8ff9c9a5e-
XXX&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIyODk3NDA0MjtBUzozNDU1NjEyMzc2MDY0MD
BAMTQ1OTM5OTYyNzM0Ng%3D%3D&el=1_x_3&_esc=publicationCoverPdf-

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Is the Siem Reap River a river? Greater Angkor Project 2005, Matti Kummu andTerry Lustig

Recent archaeological work shows that as early as the 13th century, the water system was coming under
severe strain. A flood evidently destroyed part of the earthworks at West Baray in the mid-1200s; rather
than repairing the breach, the Angkorian engineers apparently removed the stone rubble and used it in
other projects, idling that section of the irrigation system.

A century later, during the early phase of what is known as the "Little Ice Age" in Europe, Asia's
monsoons became very unpredictable. According to the rings of long-lived po mu cypress trees, Angkor
suffered from two-decades-long drought cycles, from 1362 to 1392, and 1415 to 1440. Angkor had
already lost control of much of its empire by this time. The extreme drought crippled what remained of
the once-glorious Khmer Empire, leaving it vulnerable to repeated attacks and sackings by the Thais.
By 1431, the Khmer people had abandoned the urban center at Angkor. Power shifted south, to the area
around the present-day capital at Phnom Penh. Some scholars suggest that the capital was moved to better
take advantage of coastal trading opportunities. Perhaps the upkeep on Angkor's waterworks was simply
too burdensome.

In any case, monks continued to worship at the temple of Angkor Wat itself, but the rest of the 100+
temples and other buildings of the Angkor complex were abandoned. Gradually, the sites were reclaimed
by the forest. Although the Khmer people knew that these marvelous ruins stood there, amidst the jungle
trees, the outside world did not know about the temples of Angkor until French explorers began to write
about the place in the mid-nineteenth century.

Over the past 150 years, scholars and scientists from Cambodia and around the world have worked to
restore the Khmer buildings and unravel the mysteries of the Khmer Empire. Their work has revealed that
Angkor Wat truly is like a lotus blossom — floating atop a watery realm.

The moats surrounding the temples of Angkor were envisioned as earthly models of the ocean
that surrounds the world. A Sanskrit inscription compares the moats and reservoirs at Angkor with
tributaries of the sacred Ganges River in India. The ruler who oversaw the building of Angkor Wat was
Suryavarman II a devout Hindu and a Vaisnavite. According to Hindu mythology, which the Khmer

157
people absorbed from Indian traders, the gods live on the five-peaked Mount Meru, surrounded by an
ocean. To replicate this geography, the Khmer king Suryavarman II designed a five-towered
temple surrounded by an enormous moat.

Although Angkor’s connection to the river network was made in the early 20th century, the
compartmentalized studies that have been carried out so far on the subject of Angkor’s relationship to its
watery environment have resulted in interpretations that do not reflect the complexity of the subject. It wil
l be argued here that archaeologists who do not integrate maritime approaches in studies of cultures like A
ngkor, where waterways play an important role in their environment, are likely to miss important aspects
of fluvial cultures. By applying concepts such as the Maritime Cultural Landscape, it will be possible to p
ush beyond the boundaries of terrestrial approaches and discover how the environmental conditions of cul
tures like Angkor with river networks as the main means of communication resulted in the development
of specific cognitive and functional traits that gave form to fluvial cultural landscapes. An example of suc
h an approach is offered as a conclusion in an analysis of masonry bridges in Angkor’s transport network.

Analysing the problem in the context of water transport, we see that the environment and the resources
available made temporary structures more suitable, not only because they could accommodate river
transport and therefore retain river navigability and road access, but also because they could be safely
removed during the rainy season, at which point pontoons, boats, and rafts would be used to movepeople
across rivers far more safely. Therefore, when the kings of Angkor chose to block waterways with
masonry bridges, they did so knowing what it was at stake, the proof of which is found in the choice of
rivers that were blocked and the ones that were left open for navigation (see discussion in Walker Vadillo
2016: 66-119).

This choice should therefore be seen as a conscious decision to block rivers either to control access by
water, and/or because the river was expendable (i.e. did not have great economic or political value), and
land transport therefore took precedence over water transport. The logical question that follows is why
now, what changes could have prompted sacrificing rivers in the 12th or 13th c. in a region where rivers
are known to be extremely important for communications and connectivity? Following Bruguier’s idea
that masonry bridges were part of important economic zones (2000: 535-536), it could be argued that
bridges were used to force a stop, but the services provided in these areas and the economic opportunities
they offered would have been appealing enough to traders to stop on their own accord when bridges were
made of wood, as pointed out above. Fast troop deployment has also been considered but it should be
noted that the iconography clearly shows some troops being deployed by water in the bas-reliefs of Bayon
and Banteay Chmar, while armies on foot crossed rivers using pontoon structures even when the
deployment included elephants.

The change from wooden to masonry bridges therefore suggest alterations to the way the people of
Angkor managed their landscape, which leads us to raise questions as to what prompted the change at this
time. While improvements in road transport technology could be proposed, the iconography and the
ethnography does not indicate great changes to pulled carts, which have remained roughly the same until
the present. However, the climatic variation documented in the 13th c., which brought about long periods
of low rainfall, does provide grounds to suspect that changes in landscape management could have been
due to a diminished capacity of waterborne transport. As explained above, navigability of rivers depends
on water levels, so a reduction of rainfall in monsoonal rivers would have resulted in considerable
restrictions to navigation and waterborne transport, especially in small and medium-size rivers. If we
consider the knock-on effect that prolonged low-rainfall would have had in Angkor’s transport network, it
seems logical to propose that during the 13th c. small and medium-sized rivers lost their strategic value in
Angkor’s transport network, at the same time that road transport gained importance around the core of the
capital. In this context, it would make sense for the kings of Angkor to choose to seal off economically-
irrelevant rivers by using masonry bridges that would enhance road transport. If this analysis is correct,

158
the majority of the bridges should date to around the mid-13th c. So by taking a maritime approach and
envisioning how masonry bridges relate to navigation, new avenues of research can be suggested in the
discussion of Angkorian masonry bridges.

A moat could be defined as a deep, wide ditch, normally filled with water, surrounding a fortified
habitation such as a castle, fort or even town. It was originally intended as a defense against attacks. But
as years went by and attacks became more and more rare and castles have also lost their original use, the
moats have become mostly ornamental.

Some of the earliest evidence of moats has been uncovered around ancient Egyptian castles. One example
is at Buhen, a castle excavated in Nubia. Other evidence of ancient moats is found in the ruins of
Babylon, and in reliefs from ancient Egypt, Assyria, and other cultures in the region.
Evidence of early moats around settlements has been discovered in many archaeological sites throughout
Southeast Asia, including Noen U-Loke, Ban Non Khrua Chut, Ban Makham Thae and Ban Non Wat.
The use of the moats could have been either for defensive or agriculture purposes.

Medieval

Moats were excavated around castles and other fortifications as part of the defensive system as an
obstacle immediately outside the walls. In suitable locations they might be filled with water. A moat
made access to the walls difficult for siege weapons, such as siege towers and battering rams, which
needed to be brought up against a wall to be effective. A water-filled moat made the practice of mining,
digging tunnels under the castles in order to effect a collapse of the defences, very difficult as
well. Segmented moats have one dry section and one section filled with water. Dry moats cut across the
narrow part of a spur or peninsula are called neck ditches. Moats separating different elements of a castle,
such as the inner and outer wards are cross ditches.
The word adapted in Middle English from the Old French motte "mound, hillock" and was first applied to
the central mound on which a castle was erected (see Motte and bailey), and then came to be applied to
the excavated ring, a "dry moat". The shared derivation implies that the two features were closely related
and possibly constructed at the same time. [4] The term moat is also applied to natural formations
reminiscent of the artificial structure, and to similar modern architectural features.

Japanese castles often have very elaborate moats, sometimes with many moats laid out in concentric
circles around the castle and a host of different patterns engineered around the landscape. Japanese castles
will have up to three of these concentric moats. The outer moat of Japanese castles typically protects
other support buildings in addition to the castle.
As many Japanese castles have historically been a very central part of their respective city, the moats
have provided a vital waterway to the city. Even in modern times, the moat system of the Tokyo Imperial
Palace comprises a very active body of water, hosting everything from rental boats and fishing ponds to
restaurants.

Most modern Japanese castles have moats filled with water, but castles in the feudal period more
commonly had 'dry moats' karabori. "empty moat", a trench. A tatebori lit. "vertical moat" is a dry moat
dug into a slope. A unejo tatebori, lit. "furrowed shape empty moat" is a series of parallel trenches
running up the sides of the excavated mountain, and the earthen wall, which was also called doi , lit.
"earth mount"), was an outer wall made of earth dug out from a moat. Even today, it is common for
mountain Japanese castles to have dry moats. A mizubori , lit. "water moat") is a moat filled with water.

Moats were also used in the Forbidden City and Xi'an in China; in Vellore in India; Hsinchu in Taiwan;
and in Southeast Asia, such as at Angkor Wat in Cambodia and Chiang Mai in Thailand.

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moat, towers, spiral structure and hidden paintings
Angkor Wat itself is surrounded by a 650-foot-wide (200 m) moat that encompasses a perimeter of more
than 3 miles (5 km). This moat is 13 feet deep (4 m) and would have helped stabilize the temple's
foundation, preventing groundwater from rising too high or falling too low.
Angkor Wat's main entrance was to the west (a direction associated with Vishnu) across a stone
causeway, with guardian lions marking the way. Recently, archaeologists found the remains of eight
towers made of sandstone and laterite by the western gateway. These towers may be the remains of
shrines that were in use before Angkor Wat was fully constructed. To the east of the temple was a second,
more modest, entrance.
The heart of the temple was the central tower, entered by way of a steep staircase, a statue of Vishnu at
top. This tower "was at once the symbolic center of the nation and the actual center where secular and
sacred power joined forces," writes researcher Eleanor Mannikka in the book "Angkor: Celestial Temples
of the Khmer Empire" (Abbeville Press, 2002). "From that unparalleled space, Vishnu and the king ruled
over the Khmer people."

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A carved stone lion statue stands on guard near a causeway over the huge water reservoir and moat
surrounding Angkor Wat, the largest temple complex at the ancient city of Angkor.
Angkor Wat, like many Hindu and Buddhist Southeast Asian temples, was designed as a "mandala," a
geometric design of a perfected world usually with square nested walls and passages leading past deity
images towards a high central tower.

Water, with its life-giving and purifying qualities, is central to Khmer cosmology and all varieties of
Hindu religion. The moats surrounding the temples of Angkor were envisioned as earthly models of the
ocean that surrounds the world. A Sanskrit inscription compares the moats and reservoirs at Angkor with
tributaries of the sacred Ganges River in India. Angkor was the royal capital of the Khmer empire from
802-1431 A.D. Angkor's long-lasting prosperity was based on the local abundance of three resources:
water, fish, and the rice crops grown on soil nourished by annual rains, rivers, and controlled water
reservoirs. The area's unique source of water is the "Great Lake," Tonlé Sap, which connects to the
Mekong River and multiplies in size after the annual monsoon rains.

These natural resources allowed the Khmer population at Angkor to reach an estimated one million
inhabitants. The "footprint" of Angkor's stone monuments spans about eighteen by eight miles. During its
peak, Angkor's influence extended far, into what are now Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Burma, and Malaysia.
The ruler who oversaw the building of Angkor Wat was Suryavarman II. He ruled the Khmer empire by
1113 A.D. and began an ambitious building and imperial expansion project. Angkor Wat's stone
buildings, built within nested square walls, took over thirty years to complete.

The sandstone for Angkor's temples was quarried from a mountain range some twenty miles northeast of
the royal city. The task of transporting the stones would have been enormous, involving weights
comparable to the construction of the larger pyramids in Egypt. The stones used were carefully "dressed"
so that they would fit together perfectly without the use of mortar.

Despite their brilliance as stone carvers, the Khmer never mastered the engineering principles of
staggered block joints and vaulted arches, as used by the Egyptians and Romans. Instead, the Khmer often
piled stones directly on top of each other so the joints lined up, and later split apart easily. They also built
"corbel" or "false" arches above walls, which did not distribute the stones' weight well. Such building
practices led to a more rapid crumbling of Khmer stone structures over time. The Angkor Wat complex
was designed as an earthly model of Mount Meru, home of the Hindu god Vishnu. Mount Meru's five
peaks are conceived as surrounded by mountain ranges and oceans, represented architecturally by the
outer walls and moats. At Angkor Wat, the sacred monuments rise in tiers toward the center tower, with
higher towers at every corner of the concentric squares.

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The fact that the main central tower of Angkor Wat faces west, symbolizing death in Southeast Asia,
when virtually all other Khmer temples face east to the rising sun, has suggested the idea that
Suryavarman II intended the monument to be his tomb as well as a temple. Other scholars have suggested
that the western orientation is connected with the temple's dedication to Vishnu, or with astronomical
measurements designed into the temple complex.
Classical Khmer kings promoted the idea (known as "devaraja") that there was an intersection of the
ruling king and a validating god. Usually the Hindu god chosen for this personal identification was Siva,
but sometimes it was Vishnu, or even a godly image of Buddha or Buddhist saints. Khmer temples often
portray the ruling king incarnated as the favored god, whose shrines are within a monument on earth that
models the design of the cosmos and heavens.

Bas-relief carvings on the central temple walls at Angkor Wat illustrate scenes from the Mahabharata and
Ramayana, two epic tales from India that were important to classical kingdoms, philosophy, and art
throughout Southeast Asia. Both epics include heroes, such as Rama and Krishna, who are earthly
incarnations of the Hindu god Vishnu, as well as animal deities such as Garuda (a bird) and Hanuman (a
monkey).

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Angkor Wat is also famous for its bas-relief sculptures of dancing female divinities (each called an
apsaras) created for the entertainment of the Hindu gods. These female deities, who wear pointed crowns,
are often depicted in dance poses.

In contrast to the intricately carved outer wall, the interiors of the stone temples are usually bare. Small
holes on some walls along with inscriptions describing the grandeur of Angkor, suggest the idea that there
originally were interior murals, possibly of bronze, which long ago were removed and re-forged. When
the French assumed rule over the Angkor area in the late 1800s, they marvelled at the ruins and debated
their origins. Many of the puzzles were solved by translating inscriptions on stone slabs at Angkor, and
other stones resting as far away as Laos.
The stone inscriptions, written either in the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit or in an old form of
Khmer transcribed with a Sanskritic form of writing, describe the accomplishments of Khmer kings
during their reigns, royal accounting practices, rice production, and even the amount of medicines used in
imperial hospitals. Apparently the human dwellings at Angkor, even those of the kings, were made of
wood and they perished long before the remaining stone temples.
Ultimately, it was the ascending Siamese kingdom, based in what is now Thailand, that sacked Angkor in
1431 and ended the kingdom's regional power.

Although the Angkor Wat site originally was dedicated to the Hindu God Vishnu and most of its images
are from Hindu scriptures, the temple later became used as a shrine for Theravada Buddhists. Theravada
Buddhism is the dominant religion among the contemporary Khmer people of Cambodia (as well as
majorities in Thailand and Burma) although it is influenced by earlier local ideas and practices, as well as
the Hindu antecedents of Buddhism.

preliminary map of archaeological features visible in the LiDAR data (LiDAR courtesy of KALC).

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Detail of the area immediately to the east of Angkor Wat showing hydraulic features.

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Moat around Angkor Wat Cambodia

View of the moat that surrounds the temple from the Ta Kou entrance (east side) to the Angkor
Wat.

Angkor Wat ("Capital Temple") is a temple complex in Cambodia and the largest religious monument in
the world measuring 162.6 hectares. It was originally constructed in early 12th century by King
Suryavarman II as a Hindu temple dedicated to the god Vishnu for the Khmer Empire and gradually
transforming into a Buddhist temple towards the end of the 12th century. As the best-preserved temple at
the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious center since its foundation. The temple
is at the top of the high classical style of Khmer architecture. It has become a symbol of Cambodia
(national flag) and it is the country's prime attraction for visitors.
Angkor Wat combines two basic plans of Khmer temple architecture: the temple-mountain and the later
galleried temple. It is designed to represent Mount Meru. Within the moat is the outer wall 3.6 kilometers
long and there are three rectangular galleries, each raised above the next. At the center of the temple
stands a quincunx of towers. Unlike most Angkorian temples, Angkor Wat is oriented to the west;
scholars are divided as to the significance of this. The temple is admired for the grandeur and harmony of
the architecture, its extensive bas-reliefs, and for the numerous devatas (deity) adorning its walls.

Angkor Wat moat drying ‘could affect foundations’(Voun Dara 2019)

The Angkor Wat moat has so far lost more than 10,000 cubic metres of water in the drought, says Phoeun
Sokhim, the deputy director of the Department of Water Management at the Apsara Authority. A historian
has raised fears that the drought currently gripping Cambodia could affect the foundations of the
Kingdom's globally renowned Angkor Wat, while the temple complex's Apsara Authority management
has said that, while it was prepared, it was not expecting such a problem.
Diep Sophal, a professor of history at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, said if the water in Angkor
Wat's iconic moat was to dry out to such a degree that the temple's foundations were exposed, the
resulting natural degradation could lead to the building's structural integrity being compromised.

He also expressed concern that the loss of the moat would discourage tourists from visiting the Unesco
World Heritage Site.

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“Scientists have discovered that Angkor Wat stands solidly due to its sandstone construction and the
sandstone in its foundations beneath the moat. According to scientists, if the moat dries out, the
foundations being exposed must surely be problematic,” Sophal said.
However, he said he expected the Apsara Authority would monitor the situation to avoid such an issue.

Phoeun Sokhim, the deputy director of the Department of Water Management at the Apsara Authority, on
Friday said the Angkor Wat moat had so far lost more than 10,000 cubic metres of water in the drought.

“The dry season this year is compounded by the El Nino phenomenon, making the weather so hot that lots
of water has been lost to evaporation."
“Although the water evaporation is on a large scale, it has not affected the amount of water in the Angkor
Wat moat because it is able to store more than one million cubic metres,” Sokhim said.
The Apsara Authority restored the ancient water system from the Tonle Om river in the archaeological
park to Angkor Thom and then the 4km to Angkor Wat, he said.
“This means water in the moat of the Angkor Wat temple remains balanced without drying out,
maintaining the beauty of the site.”

Apsara Authority spokesman Long Kosal on Sunday said that even though water evaporation was
currently high, it would not create problems for Angkor Wat as its moat could store millions of cubic
metres of water.

“The Apsara Authority is also regularly cooperating with the Siem Reap Water Supply Authority to
manage water. We are not worried about this because we have solutions to fully address any challenges.
We have not ignored the issue,” Kosal said.

The sheer size of only the water body of Angkor Wat one square kilometre, containing about 4 million
cubic metres water. Because of its moat that is wider in size and in proportion than at any other
Khmer temple (except those Mebons in Barays), Angkor Wat can be called an island temple,
too.Angkor island temples (Mebons)

1. Devata at Lolei in Roluos

2. East Mebon quincunx

3. West Mebon landing place

4. Neak Pean

BARAYS
West Baray:The largest structure built by the ancient Khmer was not Angkor Wat, but the West Baray.
Even huger than Angkor’s impressive temple monuments were reservoir dams encircling vast artificial
lakes. The reservoirs called Barays are charateristics of all major cities of the Angkorean era, not known
before or after this classic age of Khmer history. Barays were characteristic elements of Koh Ker, Beng
Mealea, Phimai and Sukothai in Thailand, Preah Khan Kampong Svay and Banteay Chhmar. (Jacques
Durmaçay claims that there was one earlier Baray from the late eigth century at Wat Phu in today’s
southern Laos, but Wat Phu during this early period was dominated by Cham more than by Khmer.) The
largest man-made water body of the Khmer civilization, in the Angkorean era as well as today, is the
West Baray. It covers 16 square kilometres and contained almost 50 million cubic metres water. Today

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the eastern part of it is swamp area. The West Baray is rarely visited by tourists, but it is quite popular
with locals for its picnicking spots and waterfront sheds. It’s small island tempel West Mebon has been
under renovation during recent years, but the island can be reached by motorboat.

Indratataka at Roluos ; The first imposing artificial lake of the Khmer was the Indratataka at Roluos,
also called the Baray of Lolei. This Baray, now dry, covered an area of 2.5 square kilometres and stored
7,500,000 cubic metres water. It is sometimes ascribed to the half-legendary founder of the Khmer empire
Jayavarman II, but more probably it is the work of the ingenious historical king Indravarman I, who
shaped Roluos as the first imperial Khmer city. Angkor founder Yashovarman I, who was Indravarman’s
son, finalized his father’s reservoir and built a temple, the Lolei, on an artificial island in the centre of this
reservoir. According to this example, later major reservoirs had their respective island temples, too. They
are usually called Mebons. Many Mebons are not situated in the very centre of the lake, but shifted
slightly northwards.

There are four major reservoirs in the core area of Angkor, the first one was Yashovarman’s East
Baray, covering 12.5 square kilometres, with a capacity of 37 million cubic metres. The East Baray dried
up and is farmland with paddy cultivation now. So it’s erstwhile island temple East Mebon is not
surrounded by water any more.

Srah Srang, a much smaller reservoir built under Rajendravarman II in the middle of the tenth century, is
still an impressive artificial lake, but it lost its island temple, of which only foundations under the water
level remain. It covers 0.3 square kilometres and has a capacity of about 1 million cubic metres.

Moat of Angkor Wat: The largest temple building of the entire world is only half of the construction
work done for the Angkor Wat. The other half is its moat. It is even huger than the Srah Srang reservoir.
The sheer size of only the water body of Angkor Wat one square kilometre, containing about 4 million
cubic metres water. Because of its moat that is wider in size and in proportion than at any other Khmer
temple (except those Mebons in Barays), Angkor Wat can be called an island temple, too.

However, the highlight of ancient Khmer water architecture is not big in size, but impresses by its
charming beauty. Neak Pean is Angkor’s island tempel par excellence. It is situated in the centre of
Angkor’s last reservoir. This northern Baray was built by Jayavarman VII. The area is almost 3 square
kilometres large, the capacity was almost 9 million cubic metres.

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Neak Pean or the entwined serpents is one of the ancient sites that has gained a lot of attention due to its
astonishing architecture. It is an artificial island with a Buddhist temple on a circular island in Jayatataka
Baray. Base one its architecture this temple is thought to be associated with Preah Khan temple; It is the
“Mebon” of the Preah Khan Baray. This temple was completely constructed in the 12 th century, during the
reign of King Jayavarman VII.

As the study has shown that during King Jayavarman VII reign, he had built many hospitals. Neak Pean is
also one of those, which means it was constructed for medical purposes. Neak Pean is also believed to
present Anavatapta, a mythical lake in the Himalayas. Water contained in this mythical lake is thought to
have the ability to cure all illnesses. Neak Pean is one of several sites described by Zhou Daguan. In the
13th century, he was a Chinese emissary who visited Angkor in its heyday. However, what we see today
does not correspond to Zhou’s description of the site does not fully correspond. Hence, it suggests that
either Neak Pean was remodeled or Zhou misremembered.
Historical significance

Barays were not the only elements of Angkor’s water management system. Actually, it also consisted of a
whole network of numerous smaller reservoirs and moats and canals, distributing and storing the water of
the the streams from Phnom Kulen. Bernard-Philippe Groslier (not to be confused with the even more
important Angkor researcher George Groslier, who was his brother) called Angkor a “hydraulic city”. He
assumed a huge population of almost 2 million people depended on paddy cultivation irrigated by a water
system, of which the Barays were the core elements. His hypothesis was in compliance with Marxist
theories about “hydraulic civilizations” requiring enourmous bureaucratic control for developping and
maintaining huge irrigation systems. “hydraulic civilizations” were believed to be marking ancient Asian
cultures as despotic in contrast to Western ones.

Reason for the Barays: Jacques Dumarçay supposed, the reason for the existence of many Barays in
Angkor was, that new ones were required after earlier ones had begun to silt up and because of siltation
the dams were raised several times. Roland Fletcher critized the siltation model, because Yashovarman I

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had started the construction of the East Baray immediately after finalizing his father’s Baray Indratataka
and water levels depend on the height of intake points, not that of dams. However, archaeological
evidence indicates, that indeed changing water ressources led to construction modifications at Angkor’s
Barays. On the other hand, some critics of the “hydraulic city” model suggested, that Barays were no
functional buildings at all, but only sacred architecture with cosmic symbolism, this means, a special kind
of temples, with only enourmously enlarged moats. Reasons for this assumption of religious funtions only
were missing evidence, how the outlet of water should have worked, or even topographic calculations,
that water supply by the Barays would have been technically impossible or at least effectless. So the
answer to the question, what was the purpose the vast Barays served for, is crucial for an understanding of
the economic basis of the Angkor civilization.

Role of the Barays: It seems that both parties are partially right, after recent studies by Christophe Pottier
of the École française d’Extrême-Orient indeed found outlets of the Eastern and Western Baray,
surprisingly at their eastern dams, instead of the longer southern dams where the water should be
expected to leave according to natural inclination. But there were dispersion canals, too.

However, the Barays seem to have played a much less important role in contributing to water supplies for
wet rice cultivation than those plenty of smaller reservoirs of villagers that served for regulating seasonal
changes of water supply, too. So the dimensions of the Barays remain to be a mystery. Fletcher and
Pottier came to the conclusion, that Barays served not so much for wet rice cultivation in the areas in their
immediate neighbourhood below their dams, but for transporting water seasonally along long canals in
order to support paddy cultivation in the area of the Tonle Sap, where seasonal water levels change more
dramatically. So the Barays could have served more for supporting flood-retreat paddy farming than for
wet rice cultivation. But the full understanding of the Khmer water management system – and its changes
in the course of time – will remain to be the major field of research in southeastasien history, for future
anthropologists and scientists, and may be a clue to solve the other famous puzzle: What were the reasons
for the decline of the Angkorian empire?

Beyond doubt, Barays were not mere functional buildings, but religious monuments at the same time.
Maybe they served for royal water and fertility ceremonies and festivals. So be aware, the Mebon island
temples you are visiting today are only a small interior part of those ancient gigantic sacred monuments.
__________

Indratataka: 3.8 km long and 800 m wide Baray at the Lolei temple in Roluos

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Lolei, sometimes spelt Loley, is the youngest and smallest of the three most important Roluos temples,
less photogenic than the similar Preah Ko. But the historical background of the Lolei temple is
remarkable in many respects. It was consecrated in 893, its promoter was Yashovarman I (889-910), who
shifted the capital from Hariharalaya, the present-day Roluos, to a new 16 square kilometres large
fortified city called Yashodharapura. It encompassed the area of the later Angkor Wat and was the first
city and capital in the area we call Angkor. Thus, Yashovarman, who erected the Lolei temple in
commemoration of his father, Roluos-king Indravarman I, can be titled the founder or initial king of the
most famous ancient Khmer capital Angkor, where the Bakheng became his state temple. Yashovarman
also constructed the East Baray, the main source of Angkor's water supply and economical wealth during
four centuries to come. But Yashovarman also completed the 3.8 km long and 800 m wide Baray of his
father's capital Roluos. This tank once called Indratataka, "sea of Indra", like the East Baray, is dry now.
The Lolei was built on an artificial island slightly north to the centre of this reservoir, which therefore is
also called the Baray of Lolei. As the Bakong in Rolous was a kind of model for Angkor's Khmer temple-
pyramids, so the Lolei became the prototype for the Khmer lake-temples, particularly the East- and West-
Mebon in the East- and West-Barays of Angkor. The embankments of the elongated rectangular Baray of
Lolei run strictly east-west and north-south, slightly divergent from the natural inclination. Similarly the
later Angkor Barays extended in east-west-direction.

The ancestor temple Lolei consists of four brick towers, dedicated not only to the parents, but also to
the maternal grandparents of Yashovarman I. The southwest tower is half broken, the southeast Prasat
collapsed in 1968. There is some speculation that two more Prasats were planned at the northern side,
making the Lolei even more alike Preah Ko, which was built by Yashovarman's father and predecessor
Indravarman. However, the northern towers were never erected. The four Prasats were covered with
stucco, some parts of excellent quality are still visible. Sandstone lintels and colonettes bear exquisite
stone carvings. The false doors are monolithic. The eastern towers are protected by male guardian
sculptures called Dvarapalas, they show with characteristics of Shiva, whereas the western towers
dedicated to female ancestors show female devatas instead. A small cruciform sandstone channel in
between the four towers is an unusual feature. A square pedestal, supposedly for a Linga, is placed at the
intersection of these channels.

Trapeang Srangae moat

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Island Temples; In a certain sense almost all majr Angkor temples can be called „island temples“ insofar
as they are surrounded by moats. On the other hand, island temples in Barays can be interprted as normal
temples with an extraordinarily wide moat.

A Southeastasian temple, in compliance with Indian examples, was an ample Mandala, a geometric
pattern representing the the cosmic structure spiritually, with an arrangement of symbols of minor deities
surrounding the main idol in the centre. The exterorior enclosure waals formed a square or at least a
rectangle according to the four cardinal directions. It is typical for Khmer temples that the borderline
between sacred and profane areas was additionally emphasized by rectangular moats. Water, because of
its life-giving and purifying qualities, played a core role in the imperial ideology of the agrarian Khmer
culture. An inscription compares moats and reservoirs of Angkor with tributaries of India’s sacred river
Ganges. Furthermore, moats symbolized the exterior ocean of the world.

There are some temples of which the moats are better preserved than the stone structures themselves. An
Example for this is Trapeang Srangae, situated to the east of Preah Ko and to the north-east of Bakong in
Roluos. The wide rmoat in the jungle is in a sound condition, solely from the east it allows access to a
temple compound, in which otherwise only foundation walls and some lintels ares scattered on the
ground.

Trapeangs

Trapeang Phong marshland

Apart from moats there was another form of Khmer water architecture, viz. Trapeangs. Trapeang temples
have no continuous expanses of water, but smalöler separate ponds around them or in front of them. Such
a single pond is called a Trapeang.

A Trapeang was discovered at the temple Trapeang Phing in Roluos, too, but it is hardly recognizable for
today’s visitors.

However, Trapeang Phong is an “island temple” in another respect. It is situated in the swamp zone of the
Great Lake Tonle Sap, thus, during the summer and autumn months it can be visited only by boat, you
have to ask the locals for hiring one. Then you really enjoy the atmosphere of travelling to an island.

Originally Trapeang Phong was an ensemble of füur Prasat towers in irregular order. But three of them
are hardly recognizable. The fourth one is a brick tower in a fair condition. The tall superstructure has

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four tiers.

Trapeang Phong is from the middle of the ninth century, this mean, besides Prei Monti, located 1 km
further north, it is one of the erliest temples of the dawning Angkorian era.

Well worth seeing are the Devata sculptures and lintels. Its female Devatas, sometimes erroneously called
“Apsaras”, though they are no celestial dancers, but guardians, are the first known examples of such
sculptures in niches. Some of the colonnettes at doors and false doors are round, others octagonal.
__________

2 nd Large East Mebon Island temple

Apart from the Angkor Wat, the East Mebon was the largest Khmer island temple, but it is not situated on
an island any more since the East Baray dried up during the first half of the scond millennium.
Inscriptions state that Kavindrarimathana was charged by the king to build edifices in the middle of Lake
Yashodhara, the East Baray.

The East Mebon is an imperial symbol of continuity of the dynasty as well as the capital. The builder
Rajendravarman II was a cousin of his predecessor Harshavarman II. Harshavarman had not been the
designated heir to the trone, but was supported by Rajendravarman in seizing power. Those days Koh
Ker, not Angkor, was the Khmer capital. After Harshavarman’s death his powerful supporter became
king, but could have been regarded as a usurper. Building the East Mebon was a means to the end to
legitimize his rule. It did so by insinuating a continuity of a higher order: The East Mebon was not only
Rajendravarman’s ancestor atemple, it meant a shift back from Koh Ker to Angkor, the city of
Rajendravarman’s uncle Yashovarman, who had been a fully legitimate heir to the throne. Like
Yashovarman had honoured his predecessor Indravarman by building the island temple Lolei in King
Indravarman’s reservoir Indratataka, now Rajendravarman built a similar, but much bigger ancestor
temple on an island of King Yashovarman’s reservoir Yashodharatataka, the East Baray. Obviously, this
analogy serves to emphasize the continuity of Angkorian rule.

However, there is something special and mysterious: Why is the East Mebon not simply an island temple
on ground level, but a kind of elevated temple pyramid at the same time? And why is it not only an
ancestor temple, but a state temple, too? It contained the state Lingam bearing the king’s name, the Linga
Rajendreshvara. This is exactly in the tradions of royal state temples. And this is all the more surprising
as Rajendravarman built the largest temple mountain of the tenth century, too. Pre Rup’s architect was the

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same who constructed the East Mebon. So did Rajendravarman build two state temples, in contrast to all
other Khmer kings before and after him? But in case he had only one, it must have been the East Mebon
and not Pre Rup, because the name of the Lingam of the East Mebon symbolizing the king’s power is that
of the king, the name of the Pre Rup Lingam refers not to the living, but to a deseased king. Many
believe, that Pre Rup was not Rajendravarman’s state temple, but his funerary temple. The ambiguity of
the East Mebon’s function – ancestor and state temple at the same time – could be the reason for its
hybrid type of architecture, partly flat temple on an island like Lolei, partly temple mountain like
Indravarman’s Bakong and Yashovarman’s Bakheng.

The East Mebon was a three-tiered temple pyramid with a low inclination angle, neither a temple
mountain nor a flat temple. Today it seems to be taller than it really was, because the visitor will view it
from the bottom of the former lake. What seems to be a first tier of the pyramid now, was indeed just
above the water surface. To judge by the laterite steps that surround the East Mebon platform, the original
depth of water was approximately three metres.

The lower tiers were of laterite. The upper tier, measuring 30 m by 30 m, was built in sandstone and has
five brick Prasats in quincunx order. The towers were similar in style to the Roluos period of King
Indravarman I. For a more detailed description of the architecture of the East Mebon please visit our page
“Angkor pyramids”.
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Srah Srang reservoir

Real Barays retained water above ground level behind elevated dams. In contrast to Barays, Srahs were
artificial swales dug into the ground. Srah Srang, also spelt Sras Srang, is a combination, both dug and
embanked. In size it is midway, too, namely between Baray lake and Trapeang pool. Unlike to the nearby
East Baray the Srah Srang reservoir dug out below the natural water level, is filled with water. Now it is
not a place for ritual baths any more, but a quite scenic rectangular lake.

Nothing remains of the Mebon island temple of Srah Srang, though it had one, its basement is now under
the water level, but can be recognized at the end of dry season even without diving for it. It is not placed
in the centre.

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French archeologists found a necropolis close to the rexervoir. Srah Srang, the “Royal Bath”, is ascribed
to the reign of Rajendravarman II, but sometimes supposed to be from a much later date, namely from the
Buddhist Bayon style period of King Jayavarman VII at the end of the 12th century. Certainly a first Srah
was constructed already in the 10th century, but it got a new laterit and sandstone cladding in the 12th
century. The platform with Naga balustrades and lion guardians is definitely in the style of Bayon and
was connected to the nearby first major flat temple of Jayavarman VII, Banteay Kdei.

The platform was under renovation and the sculptures removed for restauration in 2013. The platform is a
popular sunrise point of Angkor. Its immediate surrounding offers the best restaurant area inside the
Archaeological Park.
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West Mebon island temple

The West Mebon is located on an artificial island of almost 200 m diameter in the centre of the West
Baray, which was the largest artificial lake of the Khmer empire, 8 km long and 2 km wide, like the East
Baray elongated on an East-West-axis. Baray and Mebon are from the middle of the 10th century, most
probably begun under Suryavarman I and finalized by Udayadityavarman II.

Unlike the East Mebon, the West Mebon island temple was flat, on ground level. Only the eastern
enclosure wall of the temple copound of 70 metres square is preserved. Originally it had three Gopuram
gates with small towers on each side, only two towers are preserved. They are covered with bas-reliefs
depicting animals in the style of Baphuon. The wall was rounded on top, with little niches. Inside the
compound was a basin filled with water. A causeway from the east ended in a cross in the centre of this
basin with foundations of a sanctuary.

No inscription has been found here, but an inscription of Preah Khan mentions that the island temple was
dedicated to Vishnu. In 1936 parts of a gigantic bronze sculpture of the reclining Vishnu were excavated
on the island, modern local legend has it, that it was discovered after a villager’s dream that a Buddha
statue asked to be unburied.

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In 2013 dykes were built to protect the West Mebon island. Restauration work at the temple was ongoing
2914. The island can be reached by hiring a boat at the southern dam of the Baray, where the modern
outlet is located and the paved road from Siem Reap ends at the lake. The West Baray is popular with
locals as a weekend picnic spot.
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Angkor Wat Moat

Major Khmer temples have moats, the vastest Khmer temple has the largest moat, the outside perimeter
extends more than five kilometres, the width is almost 200 metres. That’s the size of an impressive
reservoir. And it really served for irrigation, too, disperson canals habe been discovered.

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The Moat that is a Lake:Angkor moats are actually Lakes and not like the European Moats. Due to its
dimensions and its proportions, water, that charakteristic element of Khmer architecture, is more
dominant at the Angkor Wat than at any other temple in the world. Digging and cladding it required as
much work force as the construction of the gigantic temple proper. The jungle had to be removed,
depending on the original ground level at least 1,5 million or even 4 million cubic metres earth had to be
removed. Much of the soil was transported to the core of the new artificial island and has been contained
inside the outer walls of the temple enclosures, with laterite structures and sandstone cladding, making
Angkor Wat an artificial mountain.

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The moat of Angkor Wat played and continues to play a crucial role for the stability and the state of
preservation of this extraordinary monument. The underground is silt and sand and swamp. In this day
and age construction of high buildings is not permitted in the Siem Reap area because of the inapplicable
condition of the soil. But ancient engineers used several technical tricks, not all of them fully understood
till the present day, to stabilize the enourmous temple stucture that was created as a ship of stone in a
swamp, Angkor Wat is not supported by underground constructions like Venice or the Taj Mahal, indeed,
Angkor Wat swims. But changing water quantities in the underground due to seasonal changes of water
levels, if not equally distributed below the monument, could fracture it. The ingenious giant moat
contributes to keep the underground density relatively stable all year round. It does so by collecting the
run-off of the temple compound during the rainy season, for reducing the water quantity below the temple
builing, in order to reduce upwards surge. On the other hand, during the dry season, the soil below the
temple compound can absorb water from the moat. Thus the moat prevented groundwater from both
rising too high or falling too low. By the way, one reason why the Baphuon, Angkor’s second largest
temple, collapsed after only a few centuries, was the lack of a moat.

Furthermore, the moat is one main reason why Angkor Wat has never been reconquered by the jungle.
The forest did not spread as much across this wide moat as in the case of temples with narrow moats.
Angkor Wat’s moat also served as a defensive bulwark for the city on the temple island.

The moat surrounded the external (counted fourth from the centre) enclosure of the temple compound, its
laterite walls are bordered by sandstone steps. The moat is crossed only on two axes, from the east by a
simple earth dam, that could erstwhile have served to transport construction materials and sustainment
supply to the island, and from the west by a prestigious sandstone causeway, 200 metres long and 12
metres wide. Pillars along its sides that support its corbelled edge, of which only a few are still visible. A
slightly elevated cruciform terrace, guarded by lion sculptures, precedes the causeway. Both sides are
flanked by Naga-balustrades.

The Naga-serpents, of course, indicate the mythic symbolism of the moat’s water. It reprensents the
cosmic ocean, in contrast to the temple mountain that symbolizes the cosmic mountain called Meru.

Neak Pean island temple

A major task of Buddhist kings, particularly for an emperor, a “Chakravartin”, was the construction of
reservoirs. So Angkor’s king introducing Mahayana-Buddhism as state cult, Jayavarman VII, built a new
reservoir, the Jayatataka, this means “Victory Lake”. Today this reservoir is a swamp and usually called
called "Veal Reach Dak" by locals, meaning "plain of the royal reservoir". On maps and in guidebooks
you will also find the names “Northern Baray” or “Baray of Preah Khan”, since it is situated in the very
same east-west axis of the Preah Khan temple, in front of it to the east. The Jayatataka measures 3,500 m
by 900 m. The island of 350 m diameter with a temple in the centre of this North Baray is called Neak

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Pean.

Jayavarman VII. is famous for building hospitals in accordance with the Mahayana-Buddhist teaching of
care as means of salvation or highest end in itself. Neak Pean was not one of those famous hospitals, but
most probably a kind of spa for pilgrims, who could bath in sacred pools fed with holy water. Neak Pean
seems to have been dedicated to the Buddha originally, but later on was changed to the Bodhisattva
Avalokiteshvara, who is called Lokeshvara in Cambodia. Lokeshvara is the healer of the sick and lame.
Lokeshvara did not play a significant role in the Khmer religion and iconography before Jayavarman VII.
Even in the early phase of his Jayavarman’s reign Lokeshvara was less venerated than the Buddha. But
this changed in the second half of his reign, when Angkor Thom and the Bayon temple became the major
projects of this king.

The inscription of Preah Khan claims the water that the water of the Jayatataka was holier than that of
Prayag. Prayag is the modern Allahabad in India, where Ganges and Jamuna and the mythical Saraswati

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meet, the junction of three rivers is called a Triveni Sangam. Accordingly, the inscription of Preah Khan
mentions as Angkor’s three holy waters the East Baray for Shiva, the West Baray for Vishnu and
Jayavarman’s new North Baray for Buddha.

The original name of the island temple was Rajashri, “king’s shining”. The modern name “Neak Pean”
means “coiled serpents” and alludes to the imposing Naga balustrades around the basis of the circular
central Prasat, raising their heads to the east and tails to the west. Neak Pean’s design is unique in Khmer
architecture, though it is not the only round Prasat, that of the Bayon has a circular layout, too. But the
circular platform surrounded by the bodies of the two Nagas (Neak) mentioned above is unprecedented.

Neak Pean’s exceptional beauty emanates from another unparalleled feature, Neak Pean is first and
foremost an ensemble of ponds in a Mandala layout, it’s circular central shrine is an island within the
island. The central platform of 14 m diameter is situated in the middle of a square basin of 70 metres. Its
sandstone foundation has eight steps running around the platform. The upper step has the layout of a
lotus. Thus the core sanctuary springs up from a lotus bud on a pond.

This central Prasat is faced by a statue of the horse Balaha placed in the pond, partly under water. It is
depicted saving drowning sailors clinging to his flanks and tail. Horse-king Balaha (Valaha) was an
incarnation of Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara. It was identified with a flying white horse with five heads
rescuing devotees from a sinking ship threatened by a female sea demon trying to devour them.

The larger pond sits at the axis of a cross of four more square ponds in the cardinal directions, each of
them 24 m by 24 m. Originally the five ponds were surrounded by eight more square pools in a lotus
pattern.

There are four sandstone structures at the cardinal points of the central pond, connecting it to the
neigbouring smaller ponds. During the rainy season, only the roofs can be seen. Inside those four
structures, there are gargoyles of four different forms: a lion to the south pool, a horse to the west, an
elephant to the north, and a man's face to the east. It seems that water would only emerge from the
gargoyles' mouthes when priests or pilgrims poured water from the main pond into the small receptacle
above the backside of the gargoyles.

An inscription stated that Neak Pean was "a sacred island, drawing its charm from its ponds and clearing
away the sins of those who approach it". This is why Neak Pean is supposed to have served an absolution
function and medical purposes. The water of the ponds was thought to have sacred healing power. The
water was consecrated by flowing through the mouth of one of the sacred animals mentioned above.
Maybe, they symbolized the four elements, lion for fire, horse for air, elephant for water, and man for
earth. It is assumed, each sick person was sent to the pool of that element believed to be of specific
healing power for his desease or according to his astrological character.

There is another interpretation of Neak Pean, namely that its central pond symbolizes the mythical lake
Anavatapta. The location of the real lake associated with Anavatapta is in the Himalayas, near Mt.
Kailash. In this area there are springs of the most important and sacred rivers of India, leaving into four
different directions (approximately). The rivers are Ganga, Jamuna, Indus and Brahmaputra. The four
springs at Anavatapta are said to be spewed from the mouths of a lion, an elephant, a horse, and a bull. In
Buddhist traditions those four animals became common symbols of the four directions, representing this
world. For example, they are well-known from the Ashoka capital in Sarnath. They are a common motif
at Budhist temples in Sri Lanka, too. The bull is replaced by a man at Neak Pean. This is strange and a
reason to doubt Neak Pean's association with the Anavatapta myth. However, the bull is also removed

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from 12th century moonstones in Sri Lanka. Already at the capitals of the four cardinal direction gates
(Toranas) of the great stupa in Sanchi in India bull and horse are missing and replaced by a second kind
of elephant and by dwarfs with human faces. By the way, both interpretations of Neak Pean, medical
pilgrimage site and Anavatapta symbol, do not at all contradict each other, as Lake Anavatapta was
believed to be of healing power, too.

The Balaha sculpture and the animal and human gargoyles should be seen during the dry season. But
visitors are not allowed to enter the area of the pools any more. They only can view the arrangement of
pools from the northern edge. This is why the wet season, when the pools are full of water, is now more
recommendable for a visit.

There are figures of Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara on the wall of the central Prasat, which is built of
sandstone. Above the one to the north, whose head was stolen in 1982, there is a pediment carving
depicting prince Siddharta's "Great Departure" from his life in a palace to a search for salvation. The east
pediment shows the cutting of his hair, symbol for the begin of his life as a hermit, the west pediment
depicts him meditating under a tree. Each corner has statues depicting Airavata, the three-headed elephant
being the mount of Indra.

Neak Pean had lion statues, which were made of bronze. They possibly symbolized Kubera, the god of
wealth. In the 14th century, Siamese invaders conquered Angkor. The bronze lions from Neak Pean were
looted and brought to the Siam capital Ayyuthaya. But when the Burmese seized Ayyuthaya, they took
the Neak Pean bronze lions to Mandalay, where those statues remained to be till the present day.

Though dedicated to Buddha and Lokeshvara, Neak Pean contained several Hindu images, too. A stone
sculpture of Vishnu was found on the west side of the island, and Lingas at the north side. Maybe, Neak
Pean was even a former royal Hindu site.

There is a wooden footbridge from the car park at the Grand Circuit route crossing the Northern Baray
swamp and leading to the observation platform of Neak Pean. As already mentioned, access to the pond
area is not permitted any more.
The West Baray reservoir in the Angkor Archaeological Park can store some 56 million cubic metres of
water and the North Baray some five million, he said, while there were millions more cubic metres in the
Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom moats.

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the moat surrounding Angkor Wat, 2 football field wide, 50 feet deep (JamesTanSL, Jul 2009)

Investigating the use of land during the medieval period at the celebrated ceremonial area of Angkor, the
authors took a soil column over 2.5m deep from the inner moat of the Bakong temple. The dated pollen
sequence showed that the temple moat was dug in the eighth century AD and that the agriculture of the
immediate area subsequently flourished. In the tenth century AD agriculture declined and the moat
became choked with water-plants. It was at this time, according to historical documents, that a new centre
at Phnom Bakeng was founded by Yasovarman I. 1

Stage 1: Moat as Cosmic Sea

The outermost boundary of a Khmer temple was often surrounded by a moat, a body of water symbolic of
the Cosmic Sea (blue highlights above). For Hindus, the Cosmic Sea is the source of creative energy and
life, the starting point for the journey toward salvation.The temple visitor begins his journey by crossing
the sea on causeways lined with serpents, beasts similarly intimately associated with both Hindu and
Khmer myths of creation (we explore the serpent in detail in our guidebook to Angkor).

Stage 2: Enclosure Walls as Sacred Mountain Ranges

Continuing on his way to the center of the temple, the visitor passes through a series of massive enclosure
walls; these walls recreate sacred mountain ranges, symbolic of obstacles that must be overcome on the
path to enlightenment (green highlights in Fig. 1). Monumental tower
gateways, called gopurams, grant the visitor passage through the walls, each successive one revealing a
more sacred area, farther removed from the outside world.

The combination of concentric enclosure walls with large gateways was derived directly from South
Indian Hindu architectural precedent. Enclosure walls make their first appearance very early in the
Khmer building tradition — at the late 9th century pre-Angkor site of Roluos in the temples of Preah Ko,
Bakong and Lolei — and are a constant feature in all subsequent temples.
Stage 3: Five Sanctuary Towers as Mount Meru

At the center of the temple stand sanctuaries with tower superstructures

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  The mountain residence of the gods. Under Hindu cosmology, the gods have always been
associated with mountains. The sanctuary’s form, dominated by its large tower, recreates the
appearance of the gods’ mountaintop residence, Mount Meru. The mountaintop residence of the gods
carried particular symbolic resonance for the Khmer people.
 God’s cave. The sanctuary proper, located directly under the tower, is where an image of the
deity resides (see exhibit at right). Its dark interior is designed to represent the cave into which god
descends from his mountain home and becomes accessible to human beings.

 The sacred intersection. At the Hindu temple’s sanctuary, the worlds of the divine and living
connect: the god’s vertical axis (mountaintop to cave) intersects with the visitor’s horizontal axis
(temple entrance to cave). The entire universe emanates from this intersection, as unity with god is
the goal of earthly existence. In Hinduism, god is believed to temporarily physically inhabit his
representation in the sanctuary; the Hindu temple is arranged to enable the direct devotee-to-deity
interaction that necessarily follows. Unlike other faiths, there is no religious intermediary and no
abstraction; god is manifest before the devotee’s eyes, a profound encounter.

It is here, among the peaks of Mount Meru, that the visitor’s symbolic journey ends in nirvana: the pairs
of opposites characteristic of worldly existence (e.g., good versus bad, right versus wrong) fuse into a
single infinite everythingness beyond space and time.1

1. Vegetation and land-use at Angkor, Cambodia: A dated pollen sequence from the Bakong temple
moat,Dan Penny,Christophe Pottier,Roland Fletcher
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236597655_Vegetation_and_land-
use_at_Angkor_Cambodia_A_dated_pollen_sequence_from_the_Bakong_temple_moat

Comparison between Angkor Wat, Borobudur

and Paharpur

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Comparison between Angkor Wat and Paharpur-Understanding Paharpur
and Angkor Vat

Introduction: Though just one of hundreds of surviving temples and structures, the
massive Angkor Wat is the most famed of all Cambodia's temples—it appears on
the nation's flag—and it is revered for good reason. The 12th century “temple-
mountain” was built as a spiritual home for the Hindu god Vishnu.Sompura
monastery(STUPA) and Borobodur are however both built as Buddhist “Temples”
from scratch and not converted later on as Angkor wat was. Here we have tried to
compare all three but in this fashion:
1. We compare Paharpur(Sompura) with Angkor
2. We compare Paharpur with Borobudur
3. Angkor and Borobudur are compared briefly here and in details in another
paper:
Comparative analysis of the architecture of the 2 ancient giant monuments of
Indonesia by the authors
Angkor a Hindu temple later converted to Buddhist Temple by addition of a few
statutes but basically remaining as a Hindu temple in toto. In the 12th century, King
Suryavarman II of the Khmer Empire began work on a 500-acre (200 hectare)
temple in the capital city of Angkor, in what is now Cambodia. The complex

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was built to honor the Hindu god Vishnu, but 14th-century leaders converted the
site into a Buddhist temple.
Borobudur is the largest Buddhist temple in the world, and ranks with Bagan
in Myanmar and Angkor Wat in Cambodia as one of the great archeological sites of
Southeast Asia. Borobudur remains popular for pilgrimage, with Buddhists in
Indonesia celebrating Vesak Day at the monument.

It was constructed about 778–850 ce under the Shailendra dynasty and has three
major levels representing individual stages toward perfection.The first written
records concerning Java are from 732 CE. In that year, a Hindu noble, Sanjaya,
established a kingdom called Mataram (or Medang) on the Kedu Plain. In 775 CE his
kingdom began construction on a monument to commemorate the introduction of
Hinduism to Java. A plateau created by the confluence of the Progo River and its
tributaries provided the temple’s site.

Ten years later this Hindu kingdom was replaced by the Buddhist Sailendra dynasty,
vassals to the Srivijaya Empire. Accordingly, they shifted the religious focus of the
temple from Hinduism to Buddhism. It took 50 more years to complete this
architectural monument – called Borobudur.

The Pala Empire was an imperial power during the post-classical period in
the Indian subcontinent, which originated in the Varendra region of Bengal (modern
day northern Bangladesh). It is named after its ruling dynasty, whose rulers bore
names ending with the suffix Pala ("protector" in Sanskrit). They were followers of
the Mahayana and Tantric schools of Buddhism. The empire was founded with the
election of Gopala as the emperor of Gauda in 750 CE. The Pala stronghold was
located in Bengal and Bihar, which included the
cities Vikrampura, Pataliputra, Monghyr, Somapura,
Ramvati ,Tamralipta and Jaggadala.
The Palas were astute diplomats and military conquerors. Their army was
noted for its vast war elephant corps. Their navy performed both mercantile and
defensive roles in the Bay of Bengal. They built grand temples and monasteries,
including the Somapura Mahavihara, and patronised the great universities
of Nalanda and Vikramashila.The Proto-Bengali language developed under Pala rule.
The empire enjoyed relations with the Srivijaya Empire, the Tibetan Empire and
the Arab Abbasid Caliphate. Abbasid coinage found in Pala archaeological sites, as
well as records of Arab historians, point to flourishing mercantile and intellectual
contacts. The House of Wisdom in Baghdad absorbed the mathematical and
astronomical achievements of Indian civilisation during this period.

At its height in the early 9th century, the Pala Empire was the dominant power in
the northern Indian subcontinent, with its territory stretching across the Gangetic
plain to include parts of modern-day eastern Pakistan, northern and
northeastern India, Nepal and Bangladesh. The empire reached its peak under
Emperors Dharmapala and Devapala.
The Palas also exerted a strong cultural influence under Atisa in Tibet, as well as in
Southeast Asia. Pala control of North India was ultimately ephemeral, as they
struggled with the Gurjara-Pratiharas and the Rashtrakutas for the control
of Kannauj and were defeated. After a short lived decline, Emperor Mahipala
I defended imperial bastions in Bengal and Bihar against South

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Indian Chola invasions. Emperor Ramapala was the last strong Pala ruler, who
gained control of Kamarupa and Kalinga. The empire was considerably weakened by
the 11th century, with many areas engulfed in rebellion.
The resurgent Hindu Sena dynasty dethroned the Pala Empire in the 12th century,
ending the reign of the last major Buddhist imperial power in the Indian
subcontinent. The Pala period is considered one of the golden eras of Bengali
history. The Palas brought stability and prosperity to Bengal after centuries of civil
war between warring divisions. They advanced the achievements of previous
Bengali civilisations and created outstanding works of arts and architecture. They
laid the basis for the Bengali language, including its first literary work,
the Charyapada. The Pala legacy is still reflected in Tibetan Buddhism.
A number of monasteries grew up during the Pāla period in ancient Bengal
and Magadha. According to Tibetan sources, five great Mahaviharas stood out:
Vikramashila, the premier university of the era; Nalanda, past its prime but still
illustrious; Somapura Mahavihara; Odantapurā; and Jaggadala.

Name of Scholars

AM D. K.
Name of the RC BP Sinha DC Sircar
Chowdhur Ganguly
Regent Majumdar (1977) (1975–76)
y (1967) (1994)
(1971)
Gopala I 750–770 756–781 755–783 750–775 750–774
Dharmapala 770–810 781–821 783–820 775–812 774–806
Devapala 810–c. 850 821–861 820–860 812–850 806–845

The monasteries formed a network; "all of them were under state supervision" and
there existed "a system of co-ordination among them ... it seems from the evidence
that the different seats of Buddhist learning that functioned in eastern India under
the Pāla were regarded together as forming a network, an interlinked group of
institutions," and it was common for great scholars to move easily from position to
position among them.

Repute: As the rulers of Gautama Buddha's land, the Palas acquired great
reputation in the Buddhist world. Balaputradeva, the Sailendra king of Java, sent an
ambassador to him, asking for a grant of five villages for the construction of a
monastery at Nalanda.

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Monastery of Paharpur is described below:

Background: During the lifetime of Buddha, it was relatively simple for followers of
his teachings to find answer to their questions. They would just ask him.
Even in the centuries after Buddha's death, there was only a small number of
people who were listened to as thought-leaders in the religion. The great Indian
emperor Ashoka, for instance, took on a guiding role of shaping the messages of
Buddhism as he spread it across the region.

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 Aerial view
But as Buddhism expanded across Asia to many countries and many cultures to
egoist despots and emperors who looked upom themselves as “shinning lights”
building gigantic temples and complexes in veneration to Buddha but in fact as an
advertisement o themselves and their dynasty; Buddhist ideas fractured quite
dramatically. There were different ways of interpreting the Buddhist texts – and
there were also new texts being written. Followe rs in different countries adapted
the faith to their own circumstances. Even within the same region, the methods for
practicing the faith evolved in a variety of ways.

ED Model of Paharpur to right Borobodur cross section to left

It was against this backdrop that the great monastery of Paharpur was
established in the 8th century in modern-day Bangladesh. Here, the brightest minds
of the era gathered to try to answer the questions that arose from this fractured
Buddhist landscape. Paharpur served as one of the most important intellectual
centres in the world until the 12th century, and the philosophies that emerged were
a synthesis of generations of different ideas.
With such a concentration of scholars, Paharpur played a vital role in the rise of a
new branch of Buddhism called Vajrayana, that would spread through Asia and is
still the dominant form practiced in Tibet. In particular, the philosophies being
discussed at Paharpur were easily taken to Southeast Asia along a new maritime
trade route. You can still see the influences in some of the region's monuments,

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such as Borobudur (Indonesia), Bagan (Myanmar), and Angkor Wat (Cambodia), that
are all based on Paharpur's main temple.
The vast monastery at Paharpur was only possible because of the support of the
wealthy Pala Dynasty that for 400 years ruled Bengal, the historic region that is now
mainly Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. It was built at the end of
the 8th century under King Dharma Pala Deva, the most important of the Pala kings.
It was his sponsorship of Buddhism in Bengal that began a revival of the faith in the
region.
Similarly it was a dynasty that supported the construction of Angkor as we all know.

The name Angkor is a corruption of the Sanskrit “Nagara”, meaning city or

capital while “Vat” is a relatively modern Siamese name, so the name means “City
Temple.” Angkor Wat The temple was dedicated to the Hindu God Vishnu, by the
fall of the empire in 15th century, the site had become a Buddhist shrine. Angkor
Wat is partly protected from its most lethal destroyer, water, by a network of hidden
drains emplaced in the 1960’s by the French scholar and former conservator
Bernard Philippe Groslier and his staff of 1000.

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191
Angkor Wat ( Plan above left) is considered to be the largest and most
impressive stone temple in existence. This magnificent architectural composition
was the conception of King Suryavarman II. Howvever it completed during the reign
of King Dharanindravarman II.

The epic symmetries of Angkor Vat begin with the outer gallery that runs in a
circumference of half a mile. Within the gallery sculptures in bas-relief unfold
narratives from the myths of Vishnu, Krishna and Rama. One section of gallery top
left that sheltered the depiction of a Hindu creation myth was removed for
restoration. The stones were catalogued and neatly laid out in the grassy area
beyond.

Paharpur

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Borobudur

Although the plan, form and symbols differ, Angkor Vat is cathedral-like in its
harmonious mix of small details and massive architecture. Plan consists concentric
rectangles. Orderly and balanced. Logically symmetrical.

Principal approach is from the west. Why the main gateway, flanked by libraries at
right, faces west is unclear. The other temples face east, away from the direction of
the dead. Partly to bring it into alignment with the royal city.

Façade consists of elaborate storied structure breaking the long lines of arcaded
enclosure. Gateway interiors of the portico resolves itself into a square plan of
pillared halls with two diametrical corridors.

193
194
Angkor(Left) Paharput (Right)

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Entire scheme was laid out in 650 ft water moat. Broad square in plan. Total
length of 24 miles. Communication across the water barrier was by a bridge on
western side and approached by a pave of 36/1500 ft. Stone platform on which it
stands is square in plan. Water Moat Stairway continuing the axial line of the portico
ascends to the second terrace. At each angle of the terrace, the inner space of
which is a square of 130 ft side is a Sikhara.

Comparative Analysis of Paharpur Temple and Angkor Wat

According to the Bengali Vocabulatory, the name Paharpur (Pahar = hill, pur =
locality) means a locality of hill. World-famous Angkor Wat temple of Cambodia was
inspired by this Somapura Mahavihara Paharpur

Somapura Mahavihara in Paharpur, is among the best known Buddhist Viharas in

the Indian Subcontinent and is one of the most important archeological sites in the
country. Somapura Mahavihara, an ancient Buddhist monastry was built between
700-800 A.D during the reign of a Buddhist empire

Entrance in Paharpur is from north and east whereas in Angkor Wat it is from the
west.
Sikhara of Angkor Wat ws terraced where as in Paharpur it could have been
terraced but it is still unknown.

Materials:Paharpur was of brick and Angkor Wat was of stone.

Age: Paharpur monastery is much older than those and more importantly Buddhism
spread to south-east asia via bengal, so is the architecture and its not the whole
monastery, only it's ruins.

Size: The 3d image of assumed Paharpur compared with Angkor Wat could have
been like this- Paharpur complex is similar but much smaller in scale to Angkor
Wat.The basic idea is the same, massive central stupa surrounded by smaller and
more and more numerous stupas.

BasReliefs: Some other diffrences we get are –Bas reliefs speak of Hindu God
Vishnu in Angkor Wat and in Paharpur it speaks of more or less Buddhist culture.
Comparative Analysis.

Moat: Angkor wat has a huge water moat for protection whereas Paharpur does not
have it. Lake: During rain, the excavated place becomes a lake, completely placing
the lower areas of the underground room wall together with their unique rock and
clay relieves, resulting in damage by the activity of salt and dangerous plants
growth, while water increasing by capillary activity impacts the higher areas.

Paharpur Courtyard: Within the walls is a courtyard containing the remains of a

traditional Buddhist stupa. Each side of the monastery measures some 900 feet
(270 metres) in length and is composed of monks' cells. The courtyard around the
central shrine is dotted with several units of straggling structural ruins. Of them,
Panchavede , a group of five votive stupas. Each worshipping point, excepting the

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southern one, has a staircase connection with the monastery courtyard in front. The
monastery is square in plan, being 281m on each side. The structure holds more
than 170 such cells and 92 altars of worship. Two entrance provisions on the north
and one in the east.

Built by King Dharma Pāla Deva (770-800 AD), second king of the Pāla
Dynasty, in the late 8th century AD, the monastery follows a layout
perfectly adapted to its religious function. – © Matyas Rehak /
Shutterstock

Temple plan of Paharpur

The central shrine of the main temple of Paharpur rises up from the centre of the
site as a physical manifestation of the new Buddhist ideas developed here. It was
the first time a cross shape was used for the design of a Buddhist temple and it's
still an impressive sight for visitors. Around the edges of the central quadrangle are
the four long walls that make up the monastery, each with dozens of rooms that
monks would have lived in. With simple harmonious lines and a profusion of carved
terracotta plaque decoration, the monastery represents one of the greatest artistic
achievements of its time. It is a terraced structure springing from a cruciform
ground plan and expanding from a mid-pile of square configuration. The unflustered
wall surfaces of the lower two terraces are decorated with friezes containing
terracotta plaques showing different scenes.

Evidence of other sacred objects and shrines is found throughout. Through the
17th century it was an important intellectual centre that was occupied alternately
by Buddhists, Jains, and Hindus. Clues to its various inhabitants are found on
artwork contained within the Somapura Mahavira’s thick outer walls; including the
Jaina chaturmukhar structure, which displays the artistic and religious influences of
the monastery's three main residential groups: images of Jaina deities abound on its
main walls, and Buddhist terra-cotta artwork and sacred Hindu sculptures are found
on its base walls.

At the time, the monastery was known as Somapura Mahavihara. It was connected
academically with other major monasteries that thrived with the support of the Pala

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Dynasty, including Vikramashila and Nalanda (another World Heritage Site) in the
Bihar of India. Scholars were able to move between the institutions, amplifying the
intellectual pursuits of the monks.
An intellectual life
In the long walls that make up the central quadrangle at Paharpur are the rooms
where the monks would have lived. There are 177 of them and historians assume
that there would be multiple people in each one.
Life in the monastery was very formal and structured. The monks would wake up at
sunrise and walk around the main temple two or three times on all three tiers,
before beginning their academic day by studying the scriptures. After lunch, they
would usually spend the afternoon in meditation. At sunset, the monks would walk
around the temple again.

Some of the 177 rooms where the monks would have lived around the
courtyard of the monastery of Somapura Mahavihara at Paharpur. – ©
Julfiker Ahmed

Even though Paharpur was a centre of learning, it did not have classrooms in the
way we might think of them today. Instead, there was an emphasis on self-learning
and the monks would use the space in their rooms to read texts or think about
issues.
Many of the monks and academics who would stay at the monastery were not
permanent residents. Some would come for just a few days or weeks. It was a
chance for them to be alone in their thoughts in a spiritual environment or seek
guidance from other scholars. For this reason, the monastery was intentionally
separated from local communities to prevent distractions.
The rise of Vajrayana
By the time Paharpur was established, there were two main branches of Buddhism –
Mahayana and Theravada. However, a third branch was beginning to develop
around Bengal. It was called Vajrayana and it was at monasteries like Paharpur that
monks meditated on this new form of Buddhism and it evolved into a philosophy
that was then spread through Asia.
Vajrayana is based on Mahayana principles that all beings are suffering and an
individual should try to reach enlightenment to help everyone, not just themselves.
However, the main difference is that Vajrayana says people can reach
enlightenment much faster and begin to make a difference almost immediately.
Followers of Vajrayana believe that by doing certain rituals and looking at the world
in a more complex way, they can achieve in one lifetime what other Buddhists may
take hundreds or thousands of lifetimes to do.

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Although the philosophies of Vajrayana did reach many parts of Asia, there are not
many countries where it is still practiced in large numbers. A form of it is still found
in Shingon Buddhism in Japan and in Tendai Buddhism in China. However, Vajrayana
is still the dominant Buddhist philosophy in Tibet, Mongolia, northern India, and
parts of Nepal.
Architectural influence
Aside from the spread of Vajrayana, the biggest influence of Paharpur can be seen
in the architecture of some of the greatest monuments in Southeast Asia.
The main temple of Paharpur was among the first temples with a cross-shaped main
design. This cruciform is believed to be a representation of the five 'Eternal
Buddhas' that are a part of some Buddhist philosophies, particularly in the
Vajrayana branch. The temple is built as a series of three terraces, with the lower
two and middle terrace including a path that you can use to walk around the
structure. The upper level is a massive rectangular central block.

Ruins of north entry gate of Somapura Mahavihara - © Julfiker Ahmed

It's these design elements that were then exported to Southeast Asia along a new
trade route that the Pala Dynasty had established, reaching all the way down to
Java. When Buddhists in Southeast Asia went to construct their most important
temples, they took their inspiration from the great learning centre of Paharpur.
Today, you can see the terraced cruciform design at Borobudur in Indonesia, Angkor
Wat in Cambodia, and Bagan in Myanmar.
Layout: Each side of the monastery measures some 900 feet (270 metres) in
length and is composed of monks’ cells; the structure holds more than 170 such
cells and 92 altars of worship. Within the walls is a courtyard containing the remains
of a traditional Buddhist stupa. Evidence of other sacred objects and shrines is
found throughout, including the Jain chaturmukhar structure, which displays the
artistic and religious influences of the monastery’s three main residential groups:
images of Jain deities abound on its main walls, and Buddhist terra-cotta artwork
and sacred Hindu sculptures are found on its base walls.
UNESCO LIST ON PAHARPUR( edited to suit text)
In https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/322/ UNESCO Write Up on architecture as
far away as Cambodia.

Brief synthesis

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The first builder of the monastery was Dharmapala Vikramshila (770-810AD), the
king of Varendri-Magadha, as inscribed on a clay seal discovered in the monastery
compound. The plan of the monastery can be described as a large square
quadrangle measuring approximately 920 feet, with the main entrance, an
elaborate structure, on the northern side. The outer walls of the monastery are
formed by rows of cells that face inwards toward the main shrine in the centre of
the courtyard. In the last building phases of the Monastery these cells, which
formed the outer wall, totalled 177.

The main central shrine has a cruciform ground plan and a terraced superstructure
that rises in three terraces above ground level to a height of about 70 feet. The
upper level is a massive rectangular central block which forms the central brick
shaft. The intermediate terrace is a wide circumambulatory path which passes four
main chapels or mandapas architectural plan, it is in fact a simple cruciform that
has been elaborated with a series of projections at the re-entrants, a form that is
copied at all levels on the main shrine. At the intermediate level there were
originally two bands of terracotta plaques running around the full perimeter of the
shrine, out of which half are still preserved in situ.

The ground level today is 3 feet above the original pradakshinapatha or main
circumambulatory path, below the base of the lowest band of terracotta plaques.
Archaeological excavations have revealed a 15 feet pathway that follows an
elaborated cruciform shape, a feature that can be discerned from the foundations of
the outer wall that enclose the pathway and that still exist. At the base of the
shrine, there are over 60 stone sculptures which depict a variety of Hindu divinities.
The main entrance to the monastery was through a fortified gate on the northern
access to the central temple. The majority of the ancillary buildings, such as the
kitchen and the refectory, are located in the south-east corner, but there were also
a few structures to be found in the north-east corner.

Epigraphic records testify that the cultural and religious life of this great Vihara,
were closely linked with the contemporary Buddhist centres of fame and history at
Bohdgaya and Nalanda, many Buddhist treatises were completed at Paharpur, a
centre where the Vajrayana trend of Mahayana Buddhism was practiced.
Today, Paharpur is the most spectacular and magnificent monument in Bangladesh
and the second largest single Buddhist monastery on south of the Himalayas.

Criterion (i) : This monastery-city represents a unique artistic achievement. The

symmetrical layout and massively built single unit of the monastery was perfectly
adapted to its religious function. Its simple, harmonious lines and its profusion of
carved decoration, in stone and terracotta, are important artistic masterpieces.
Criterion (ii) : The striking architectural form introduced at Paharpur on a grand
scale for the first time in Asia, profoundly influenced the subsequent construction of
temples of Pagan in Myanmar and Loro-Jongrang and Chandi Sewer temples in
central Java. It also continued to influence Buddhist architecture as far away as
Cambodia. The craftsmanship of Paharpur terracotta still endures since the
8 th century A.D. in the whole of deltaic lands around.
Criterion (vi) : Somapura Mahavihara, the Great Monastery evidences the rise of
Maharaja Buddhism in Bengal from the 7 th century onwards. It became a

200
renowned centre of Buddhist religion and culture during the royal Patronage of Pala
Dynasty and was a renowned intellectual centre until the 17 th century.

Integrity
At present, only the archaeological boundaries have been established at the site,
which could be regarded as the boundaries of the property. These boundaries
include all required attributes to express its Outstanding Universal Value. However,
the potential of mining activities in the vicinity of the property, as noted by the
Committee at the time of inscription, highlights the urgency of establishing the
boundaries of buffer zone for the property, which would need to take into account
the natural environment surrounding the monument to maintain visual relationships
between the architecture and the setting. Provisions for the management of the
buffer zone need to be identified and implemented.

Concerning to the material integrity of the property, the still uncovered part of the
central shrine, as well as some terracotta plaques, are gradually deteriorating due
to environmental element such as salinity and vegetal germination. This constitutes
a threat to the physical integrity of the fabric and needs to be attended to.

Materials:
Built with facial brickwork of the walls, which have prioritised presentation. In
addition, the introduction of slat laden bricks and mortar as far back as in the
conservation works of the 1930’s has further aggravated the situation
Protection and management requirements
The whole complex, perimeter along with lofty central shrine, lies within an area
protected by the government and supervised regularly by the local office. National
legislation includes the Antiquities Act (1968, amended ordinance in 1976),
Immovable Antiquities Preservation Rules, the Conservation Manual (1922) and the
Archaeological Works Code (1938).

Apart from Bali, Borobudur is the most well-known cultural site of Indonesia, its
iconic image is widely used to represent Buddhism or exotic of Southeast Asia which
turned Borobudur to be a must see place in this country besides another interesting
place in Central Java. Borobudur was built in 9th century under the reign of dynasty
Sailendra and located in Magelang, Central Java. It has nine platform, the lower part
contains with six square and the upper three are circular. It has approximately 72
small stupas and one large in the central of the stupa. It also has the statue of
Buddha sits inside the big stupa. Borobudur has 2.672 relief that carved into its
wall. The architecture of Borobudur mostly tells aboutthe story of human being
which tell about the symbol of the Buddhist universe as well known as Kamadhatu,
Rupadhatu, and Arupadhatu.
The relief of Kamadhatu represents the human’s life, it describes the behaviour that
still get along with the lust. It can clearly be seen right on the low wall of the
temple.
The relief of Rupadhatu represents the willingness to leave behind everything about
life, and the last relief was named as Arupadhatu, it’s only surrounded by the
statues, it also represents that human are no longer attach with anything in life,
they are free from lust and ready to reach Nirvana. Built with about 2,000,000 cubic
feet (56,600 cubic metres) of gray volcanic stone. Borobudur is a unique
temple located in an elevated area between two twin volcanoes and two rivers.

201
Enormous amount of stones, used in the construction of Borobudur were taken from
neighboring rivers. The stone was cut to size, transported to the site and laid
without mortar. Borobudur encloses a small hill and is shaped like a stepped
pyramid with three major levels—a square base, a middle level of five square
terraces, and an upper level of three circular terraces—totaling, in effect, nine
lesser sections . Instead of being built on a flat surface it is built on a natural hill.
However, construction technique is similar to other temples in Java.
Literature Review:
Ruins of the Buddhist Vihara at Paharpur – Bangladesh point to the e vidence of the
rise of Mahayana Buddhism in Bengal from the 7th century onwards, Somapura
Mahavira, or the Great Monastery, was a renowned intellectual centre until the 12th
century. Its layout perfectly adapted to its religious function, this monastery-city
represents a unique artistic achievement. With its simple, harmonious lines and its
profusion of carved decoration, it influenced Buddhist architecture as far away as
Cambodia.

In his paper” The Making and Symbolism of Paharpur Mahavihara,Faruque Hasan, states that
the guru of the Shylendra king, who built Borobudur, was a Bengali monk. The
Buddhist Shylendra Dynastyof East Asia was of South Indian origin. The Shylendra
kings had close relationship with the Buddhist Pāla rulers of Bengal and Magadha.
So here comes the parallel between the Borobudur and its Indian Counterpart at
Paharpur. In spite of all this it is possible that Paharpur was so famous that its
repute reached the kings who built Borbodur and was a source of spiritaual as well
as dimensional

202
inspiration.http://paharpurmahavihara.blogspot.com/2010/02/making-and-
symbolism-of-paharpur.html.

Tanzila Samad Choudhury Dept. of Architecture, Ahsanullah University of Science

and Technology, Bangladesh holds that reclaiming the Lost Architectural Heritage
Sompur Mahavihara: Through Conjectural Restoration is important in the
archaeological history of Bengal, and the central shrine and the monastery looked
carries the morphological evaluation from the previous temples mirroring
development from previous examples of the Buddhist monasteries.
http://www.aj.arch.chul

a.ac.th/nakhara/
files/article/191-419-1-PB.pdf

203
Paharpur

Borobudur

Fish eye lens at Paharpur shows the main vihara. Compare it with pic
above of Borobudur also showing main Vihara

204
Left Angkor Wat and Right Borobudur in comparative pics

205
Central stupa at the top of Borobudur in 1907-1931 On RIGHT (TODAY)
Sompura or Paharpur Below

Borobudur Paharpur Angkor wat

Nature Monastry only a Hostel and Hindu temple
part of the Stupa House of later named
Wisdom buddhist
Built by Royal Decree Royal Decree Royal Decree
Scale Gigantic Moderately big Gigantic
Moat No No Yes
Lake No Yes No
Outer walls Yes No Yes
Materials Stone- Andesite Mud bricks Latrice(stone)
Stone statutes
found
Rooms No but Halls of 177 Halls
Worship
Storeis Yes 4 3 Yes 4
Monastery No Yes Temple
Outside Yes-complex Yes definite Temple city
structures
Bathing ghat Not found yes No info
Area 2500 Sq Mt. measures 900 163 Hectares
feet (270 (24 km) east to west
metres) length (8.0 km) north to
south
SATUPA Yes Yes No
Jain & Hindu No yes Yes
statutes
Rectangle Round mandala Square Yes-concentric

206
 mandala
Architecture mix of Javanese Pala Dynasty Hindu&
style and Gupta Buddhist
dynasty architectur Cosmology
e ANGKORIAN
Location Indonesia Bangladesh Cambodia
National symbol No No Yes
Lake Within a now No plains Plains
extinct lake
Abandonment No Not really Yes
Rediscovery Yes No YES
Restoration Yes No Yes
Contemporary Yes No Yes
events
Design Single Stupa comples Temple city
Reliefs Yes No Yes
The law of Yes No No
karma
(Karmavibhangg
a)

Sudhana's Yes No No
search for the
ultimate truth
(Gandavyuha)
Buddha Statutes Yes Yes Yes-Placed later
on
The birth of Yes No statues of
Buddha Buddhas and
(Lalitavistara) Devas
(Jataka & Yes no statues of
Avadana) tales Buddhas and
Devas
Legacy Yes Yes Yes
Gallary Yes No Yes
Tourism Yes Yes Yes
Construction t 2,000,000 cubic 5 to 10 million
techniques feet (56,600 cubic sandstone block
metres) of gray
volcanic stone
Form cruciform ground Cruciform Square with
plan ground plan. circle within
Rectangular
central block
Terrace Yes 3 Yes 3 Yes 4
unique artistic yes yes yes
achievement.
City Yes yes yes
Amazing Yes Yes Yes

207
 Carvings The walls and all surfaces,
balustrades decorat columns, lintels,
ed with fine surface even roofs carved
area of 2,500 m2.
Stupas 72 openwork 177 rooms No Stupa -72
stupas, each major temples
containing a statue
of the Buddha.
Pedestals 504 buddha ornamental 1400 temples
statutes pedestals built surrounding
in as many as Angkor all
92 rooms. contain
pedestals

The Mysteries of the Khmer Moat in architectural design

Dr Uday Dokras

One thousand years ago the Khmer empire was one of the widest in the
world, occupying what today goes from Burma to Thailand and also part of
Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. It lasted for 600 years and Prasat hin
Phimai was one of the main sites on which the Khmer empire was based on,
prior to the erection of the Angkor city.

Water, with its life-giving and purifying qualities, is central to Khmer

cosmology and all varieties of Hindu religion. A moat is a deep, broad ditch,
either dry or filled with water, that is dug and surrounds a castle,
fortification, building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line
of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive water
defences, including natural or artificial lakes, dams and sluices. In older

208
fortifications, such as hillforts, they are usually referred to simply as ditches,
although the function is similar. In later periods, moats or water defences
may be largely ornamental. They could also act as a sewer. Some of the
earliest evidence of moats has been uncovered around ancient
Egyptian castles. One example is at Buhen, a castle excavated in Nubia.
Other evidence of ancient moats is found in the ruins of Babylon, and in
reliefs from ancient Egypt, Assyria, and other cultures in the region.
Evidence of early moats around settlements has been discovered in many
archaeological sites throughout Southeast Asia, including Noen U-Loke, Ban
Non Khrua Chut, Ban Makham Thae and Ban Non Wat. The use of the moats
could have been either for defensive or agriculture purposes. 1

Franck Monnier, Les forteresses égyptiennes. Du Prédynastique au Nouvel Empire, collection Connaissance
de l'Égypte ancienne , Safran (éditions), Bruxelles, 2010, 978-2-87457-033-
9, http://www.safran.be/proddetail.php?prod=CEA11

1. WHAT DOES THE MOAT SURROUNDING THE HINDU TEMPLE ANGKOR WAT
REPRESENT?,edwardlordera,www.yumpu.com

HINDU.COSMOLOGY:According to Stuart-Fox, Martin ,

and Paul Reeve,“Symbolism in City Planning in Cambodia from Angkor to
Phnom Penh.” (Journal of the Siam Society 99: 105–38. . 2011)Khmer Kings never
decided arbitrarily or at their whim the location of cities, their orientation and
their layout. The plan of the ideal Khmer city was inspired by the model of
the Khmer temples, which were based on Hindu cosmology. It should have a
perfect quadrangular shape, walls with four gates in the middle of each side
and an organised internal layout resembling a mandala, with the city temple
in the centre and its main sanctuary inside it, with a tower shape which
represents the mythological Mount Meru, the sacred axis mundi, separated
by successive concentric walls.

At the same time, this concrete representation of cosmology in city planning

was based on the religious and political idea of the “god-king” (devaraja),
which considers monarchs as incarnations on the Earth (avatars) of Shiva,

209
Vishnu or Buddha.’(“Hindu-Buddhist Architecture in Southeast
Asia.” Chihara, Daigoro . 1996. Studies in Asian Art and
Archaeology 19. Leiden: Brill.)

Cosmos: At a paper presented at Vaastu Kaushal: International Symposium

on Science and Technology in Ancient Indian Monuments, New Delhi,
November 16-17, 2002. Subhash Kak presenting the paper- Space and
Cosmology in the Hindu Temple pointed out that according to the Sthapatya
Veda (the Indian tradition of architecture), the temple and the town should
mirror the cosmos. The temple architecture and the city plan are, therefore,
related in their conception.
“ Angkor Wat is the supreme masterpiece of Khmer art. The descriptions of
the temple fall far short of communicating the great size, the perfect
proportions, and the astoundingly beautiful sculpture that everywhere
presents itself to the viewer. Its architecture is majestic and its
representation of form and movement from Indian mythology has
astonishing grace and power.”
The moats surrounding the temples of Angkor were envisioned as earthly
models of the ocean that surrounds the world. Resembling Universe:
Khmer temples in general, as well as one of the earlier khmer architectural
examples in Thailand - Phimai were intended to resemble the universe. The
main building would be considered in design to look like what is the artist’s
conception of resembling the peak of Mount Meru at the center of the
universe. The surrounding walls resemble the water and encircling
mountains. The Khmer did not develop the technique of true vault
architecture during their time, they instead developed the use of multiple
chapels separated by open-air spaces.
The site
The appropriate site for a Mandir, suggest ancient Sanskrit texts, is near
water and gardens, where lotus and flowers bloom, where swans, ducks and
other birds are heard, where animals rest without fear of injury or harm.
These harmonious places were recommended in these texts with the
explanation that such are the places where gods play, and thus the best site
for Hindu temples.
While major Hindu mandirs are recommended at sangams (confluence of
rivers), river banks, lakes and seashore, the Brhat
Samhita and Puranas suggest temples may also be built where a natural
source of water is not present. Here too, they recommend that a pond be
built preferably in front or to the left of the temple with water gardens. If
water is neither present naturally nor by design, water is symbolically
present at the consecration of temple or the deity. Temples may also be
built, suggests Visnudharmottara in Part III of Chapter 93,[30] inside caves and
carved stones, on hill tops affording peaceful views, mountain slopes

210
overlooking beautiful valleys, inside forests and hermitages, next to gardens,
or at the head of a town street.
Some sites such as the capitals of kingdoms and those considered
particularly favourable in terms of sacred geography had numerous temples.
But in practice most temples are built as part of a village or town. Many
ancient capitals vanished and the surviving temples are now found in a rural
landscape; often these are the best-preserved examples of older
styles. Aihole, Badami, Pattadakal and Gangaikonda.Cholapuram are
examples.

As the northeastern part of Thailand was part of the Khmer Empire

(once ruled by the Khmer), Phimai's architecture and cultural decorations
were built in Khmer architecture. Art and architecture shown on the temple
itself shows great evidence of the ancient Khmer civilization. Similar in its
look and design to Angkor, it also has the same function for worshiping the
gods in the Hindu religion.To understand this we need to look at tge earlier
Khmer architecture at Phimai.

In the heart of Phimai, a small town in Thailand's northeastern Isan region,

one of the most remarkable Angkorean cultural heritages outside Angkor
itself is situated: Prasat Phimai. In 1936 it was set under protection by the
Thai government and became step by step restored from the 1950s on.
'Phimai Historical Park' was opened in 1989.

211
 The main tower (prang) of the inner sanctuary of
Phimai.
Phimai town is a medieval Khmer foundation, became the first time
fortificated in the 11th century and advanced to a spiritual center of the
classical empire of Angkor. In the reign of king Jayavarman VII (1181-
1206/1220 CE) the city walls and gates so far they remain now were
constructed. The town's name is derivated fro 'Vimayapura' or 'Vimai'. The
contemporary official name of the site is 'Prasat Hin Phi Mai'.

Historical Phimai has a considerable size. The inner temple district is a

rectangular of 83m to 74m, the middle district measures 272m to 220m
and the surrounding town, which was formerly completely enclosed by the
city wall, stretches over 665m to 1033m. Phimai must have been one of
the most important cities in the Angkorean empire.
The central temple complex is not exactly aligned onto the north-south
axis, but by 20 degree turned to southeast. It's probably done to give it
the direction facing to Angkor.
At the northern end of Phimai is a national museum placed, which displays
a number of the site's artefacts as lintels, Buddha images, nagas, pottery
and jewellery.
Prasat Phimai is considered to be the most important Khmer monument
in Thailand.

212
 Map of Phimai

Phimai is a particularly inviting Thai town for it's marvellous combination

of a lively place in combination with a great historical site. Few tourists or
travellers take their time to study the place for a few days, although it
offers a friendly atmosphere in a spot where is much to do. Besides the
main site various Thai temples are to visit in Phimai, three markets offer
opportunities to buy food and other supplies, there is the Mun River to
have walks along it's banks and a 350 years old huge Banyan tree not far
east of town. The surrounding is coined by rice paddies showing traditional
Thai life style and there are other archeological sites not far around.
Accommodation and individual transport (bicycles and motorbikes) are
easy to organize.

History
Erection of the site started in the reign of king Suriyavarman I (1002-
1049), but most of the buildings were built between the late 11th and the
late 12th century. They clearly represent Angkor Wat style,
partially Bayon and Baphuon style. There was an older sanctuary at the
spot already; as a Khmer place it's a century younger than the
neighbouring site of Phanom Rung.800 years ago this park used to be the
start of the ancient Khmer Highway which ended in Angkor Wat.

213
The king's 'dressing house', called 'Phlab Phla' in Khmer language

The central temple complex of Phimai

Although Hinduism was the main religion of Angkor at this time, also
Buddhism and Animism were practised in Wat Phimai. Though, Hinduism is
clearly the paradigmatic religion praised in Phimai's architecture. Having
much in common with Angkor Wat, it reflects the Hindu cosmos with the
sacred Mount Meru in the center. There is also a greater barray (artificial
Khmer pool) east of the place, traditionally symbolizing the sea. The Mun
River and two canals then complete the enclosement of the place by
waterways.

Though, Phimai paid tribute to the religion of Mahayana Buddhism. It's

also due to the influence of king Jayavarman VII, who was Angkor's first
Buddhist king (very much represented in Angkor
Thom's Bayon monument), that Phimai became a sanctuary focussed on
the new state religion.
The building materials are the same as the Khmer always used, provided
by the surrounding quarrels in the region: different kinds of sandstone and
laterite, supplemented by the usage of bricks.
In two old stone inscriptions Phimai is mentioned in connection with king
Jayavarman VI and described at situated at an endpoint of a 225km road
which led (via Phanom Rung) to the empires capital Angkor and it's state
temple Angkor Wat. The route was used by travellers and pilgrims as well
as by military troops. It was equipped with seventeen resthouses, and
some hospitals. The remains of these resthouses and hospitals still mark a
150km part of the old road. This imperial road to Angkor starts at the
southern gate of Phimai, which is therefore the main gate and still the
main entrance for the site nowadays.

Zhou Daguan (Chou Ta-Kuan), the Chinese envoy who spent a year in
Angkor in 1296/97, mentioned Phimai in his famous report.

214
In the second district of the site, facing the gallery with the main prang behind

Phimai had previously been an important town at the time of the Khmer
Empire. The temple Prasat Hin Phimai, located in the center of the town, was
one of the major Khmer temples in ancient Thailand, connected
with Angkor by an ancient Khmer Highway, and oriented to face Angkor as
its cardinal direction.

The temple marks one end of the Ancient Khmer Highway from Angkor. As
the enclosed area of 1020x580m is comparable with that of Angkor Wat, it is
suggested to have been an important city in the Khmer Empire. Most
buildings are from the late 11th to the late 12th century, built in
the Baphuon, Bayon and Khmer temple style. However, even though the
Khmer at that time were Hindu, the temple was built as
a Buddhist temple, since the inhabitants of the Khorat area had been
Buddhists as far back as the 7th century. Inscriptions name the
site Vimayapura (which means city of Vimaya), which developed into the
Thai name Phimai.

In the aftermath of the fall of the Ayutthaya Kingdom in 1767, attempts were
made to set up five separate states, with Prince Teppipit, a son of
King Borommakot, attempting to establish Phimai as one, ruling over eastern
provinces including Nakhon Ratchasima. As the weakest of the five, Prince
Teppipit was the first to be defeated and was executed in 1768.
The first inventory of the ruins was done in 1901 by the French
geographer Etienne Aymonier.
Khmer architecture.

As the northeastern part of Thailand was part of the Khmer Empire (once
ruled by the Khmer), Phimai's architecture and cultural decorations were
built in Khmer architecture. Art and architecture shown on the temple itself
shows great evidence of the ancient Khmer civilization. Similar in its look and

215
design to Angkor, it also has the same function for worshiping the gods in the
Hindu religion.
Despite the fact that Phimai was built in a similar fashion to Angkor and
other Khmer Buddhist temples, the religious origin of some structures within
Phimai's walls are still debated. Evidence of Dvaravati influence, such as the
sculpture of "the Wheel of Law" or the statue of Buddha, shows that Phimai
was an important Buddhist spiritual location. Although a large quantity of
Buddhist artwork has been uncovered in Phimai, evidence including the large
pots that were embedded in some corners of the structure suggest that
spiritual practices other than Buddhism were also practiced in Phimai. Phimai
thus has been an important religious landmark for Animists, Buddhists, and
Hindus.
The earliest engraved records of the Khmer is dated from the 6th century AD
in the northeast of Thailand. For example, stone Sanskrit inscriptions were
found along with statues and engraved images of Hindu deities, such as the
image of Shiva's bull Nandin. The king during that time, Mahendravarman,
ordered his men to obliterate the engraved inscription. Modern scholars
debate about the possibility that evidence may have been lost.
Phimai, along with other Khmer temples in Thailand, were built mainly under
the cause of the "Deveraja cult," or "the King that resembles a god."
Jayavarman II was the most mentioned "devaraja." The Devaraja cult
developed the belief of worshiping Shiva and the principle that the king was
an avatar of Shiva. Under this principle, Khmer rulers built temples to glorify
the reign of the king along with the spread of Hinduism.
The 10th century was the time of the reign of king Rajendravarman II (944-
968 AD), which was also a time when Khmer control was spreading into what
is now northeastern Thailand. Consequently, temples in Thailand with the
Kleang and Baphuon styles remain as evidence of this Khmer heritage. These
structures shared the same signature of having three brick towers on a
single platform, for instance the Prasat Prang Ku in Si Saket province and
Ban Phuluang in Surin province.
Each individual building has its own special features or functions. For
example, Prang Brahmadat was built of laterite blocks that form a square. Or
Prang Hin Daeng which translates to "Red Stone Tower" which is also a
square but was made of red sandstone. Or the main sanctuary built of white
sandstone that is almost 32 meters long. The southern lintel has a statue of
Buddha meditating with "seven hoods of naga Muchalinda." Adjacent to this
is a collection of statues of devils and animals depicted from the Tantric
Mahayana Buddhist scripture.

Today Phimai is a well-known tourist attraction, especially among people

interested in history and archaeology. Located in the middle of Phimai is a

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small rectangular gallery surrounding the courtyard, which has been newly
rebuilt.
When tourists enter the area of Phimai from the old town on the south, they
have to cross a river about one kilometer to the south and enter an ancient
laterite landing stage which archaeologists believe stood for the bathing
place for the heroine in local myths. The north gate is the city main gate,
also known as the "Pratu Chai," which has recently been reconstructed by
the Royal Fine Arts Department. Its size is enormous; it is said that the size is
big enough for a royal elephant to enter. The Royal Fine Arts Department
also built an inner gallery which shows ancient Buddhist inscriptions and
small sculptures as well as pieces of wrecked architecture. The rest of Phimai
remains the same only with a little restoration by the Royal Arts Department.
Architecture Style
Within the gallery there is a pre-Angkorian Buddhist inscription that tells the
story of prince Siddhartha Gautama and his journey to becoming Buddha,
along with other classic Buddhist stories. The prang symbolize that the area
is a sacred space.
Angkor Wat and Phimai have several architectural similarities and are
examples of classical Khmer architecture. Ancient Khmer architects were
best known for their superior use of sandstone over the traditional bricks and
laterite architectures. Sandstone is used on the visible outer layer. Laterite
on the other hand was used for the inner wall and other hidden parts. All the
structures are huge sandstone blocks. There are many lotus-shaped roofs
representing Mount Meru (Hinduism's holy mountain).
Resembling Universe:Khmer temples in general, as well as Phimai in this
case, were intended to resemble the universe. The main building resembles
the peak of Mount Meru at the center of the universe. The surrounding walls
resemble the water and encircling mountains. The Khmer did not develop the
technique of true vault architecture during their time, results in large areas
at Phimai that could not be roofed over. They instead developed the use of
multiple chapels separated by open-air spaces.
Construction Materials
The Khmer learned how to use bricks, sandstone, and laterite effectively.
They were the three principal structural materials. Builders generally cut the
lintel at 45 degrees to produce a triangular wedge.In 1998, the Origins of
Angkor Project (OAP), a joint project of the Royal Thai Fine Arts Department,
Anthropology Department, and the University of Otago, New Zealand, began
excavations to investigate the underlying sequence. Temple construction
during the Angkorian period involved the deliberate deposition of layers of
fill, which can clearly be seen in the stratigraphy of the site.
Angkor Wat itself is surrounded by a 650-foot-wide (200 m)
moat that encompasses a perimeter of more than 3 miles (5 km). This moat

217
is 13 feet deep (4 m) and would have helped stabilize the temple's
foundation, preventing groundwater from rising too high or falling too
low.What was the main function of the moat around Angkor Wat?

The moat served an important purpose from the architectural standpoint. It

helped to stabilize the massive Angkor Wat structures by keeping the
groundwater at a steady level, i.e., it acts as a reservoir that does not let the
groundwater go down too low or high.

What does the moat surrounding the Hindu temple Angkor Wat represent?
The moats surrounding the temples of Angkor were envisioned as earthly
models of the ocean that surrounds the world. .

LiDAR-image-of-formal-grid-system-across-Angkor-Wat-enclosure-top-merged-
digital(Pic Below)

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219
Why is Angkor Wat surrounded by water?

Hindu Temple tanks are wells or reservoirs built as part of the temple
complex near Indian temples. They are called pushkarini, kalyani, kunda,
sarovara, tirtha, talab, pukhuri, ambalakkuḷam, etc. in different languages
and regions of India. Some tanks are said to cure various diseases and
maladies when bathed in. According to Hindu mythology, which the Khmer
people absorbed from Indian traders, the gods live on the five-peaked Mount
Meru, surrounded by an ocean. To replicate this geography, the Khmer king
Suryavarman II designed a five-towered temple surrounded by an enormous
moat. Angkor Wat, like many Hindu and Buddhist Southeast Asian temples,
was designed as a "mandala," a geometric design of a perfected world
usually with square nested walls and passages leading past deity images
towards a high central tower.

Water, with its life-giving and purifying qualities, is central to

Khmer cosmology and all varieties of Hindu religion. The moats
surrounding the temples of Angkor were envisioned as earthly models of the
ocean that surrounds the world. A Sanskrit inscription compares the moats
and reservoirs at Angkor with tributaries of the sacred Ganges River in India.
Angkor was the royal capital of the Khmer empire from 802-1431 A.D.
Angkor's long-lasting prosperity was based on the local abundance of three

220
resources: water, fish, and the rice crops grown on soil nourished by annual
rains, rivers, and controlled water reservoirs. The area's unique source of
water is the "Great Lake," Tonlé Sap, which connects to the Mekong River
and multiplies in size after the annual monsoon rains.

These natural resources allowed the Khmer population at Angkor to reach an

estimated one million inhabitants. The "footprint" of Angkor's stone
monuments spans about eighteen by eight miles. During its peak, Angkor's
influence extended far, into what are now Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Burma,
and Malaysia. The ruler who oversaw the building of Angkor Wat was
Suryavarman II. He ruled the Khmer empire by 1113 A.D. and began an
ambitious building and imperial expansion project. Angkor Wat's stone
buildings, built within nested square walls, took over thirty years to
complete.

In contrast to the intricately carved outer wall, the interiors of the stone
temples are usually bare. Small holes on some walls along with inscriptions
describing the grandeur of Angkor, suggest the idea that there originally
were interior murals, possibly of bronze, which long ago were removed and
re-forged. When the French assumed rule over the Angkor area in the late
1800s, they marvelled at the ruins and debated their origins. Many of the
puzzles were solved by translating inscriptions on stone slabs at Angkor, and
other stones resting as far away as Laos.

The stone inscriptions, written either in the ancient Indian language of

Sanskrit or in an old form of Khmer transcribed with a Sanskritic form of
writing, describe the accomplishments of Khmer kings during their reigns,
royal accounting practices, rice production, and even the amount of
medicines used in imperial hospitals. Apparently the human dwellings at
Angkor, even those of the kings, were made of wood and they perished long
before the remaining stone temples.

Ultimately, it was the ascending Siamese kingdom, based in what is now

Thailand, that sacked Angkor in 1431 and ended the kingdom's regional
power.

Although the Angkor Wat site originally was dedicated to the Hindu God
Vishnu and most of its images are from Hindu scriptures, the temple later
became used as a shrine for Theravada Buddhists. Theravada Buddhism is
the dominant religion among the contemporary Khmer people of Cambodia
(as well as majorities in Thailand and Burma) although it is influenced by
earlier local ideas and practices, as well as the Hindu antecedents of
Buddhism.

Airborne laser technology has uncovered a network of roadways and

canals, illustrating a bustling ancient city linking Cambodia's famed Angkor

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Wat temple complex. The laser scanning revealed a previously
undocumented formally planned urban landscape integrating the 1,200-year-
old temples

In Residential patterning at Angkor Wat, Greater Angkor Project,Miriam T.

Stark,Damian Evan et al have this to say, “the functions and internal
organisation of the large rectangular enclosure surrounding the temple. Such
enclosures have long been assumed to have been sacred precincts, or
perhaps ‘temple-cities’: work exploring the archaeological patterning for
habitation within them has been limited. The results of LiDAR survey and
excavation have now revealed evidence for low-density residential
occupation in these areas, possibly for those servicing the temple. Recent
excavations within the enclosure challenge our traditional understanding of
the social hierarchy of the Angkor Wat community and show that the temple
precinct, bounded by moat and wall, may not have been exclusively the
1
preserve of the wealthy or the priestly elite.”

The LiDAR survey reveals that, in the Angkor area, the formal division of
enclosed space into urban grids first occurs unambiguously at the temples of
Angkor Wat and Beng Mealea (Figures 6 & 7), although we can identify a
possible prototype for the grid system at the slightly earlier temple of Chau
Srei Vibol (Evans et al. 2013b).

The road-grid pattern therefore precedes, by at least half a century, the

reorganisation within Angkor Thom. The LiDAR survey reveals that the grid
pattern extends far beyond the 9km2 enclosed by the walls of Angkor Thom
(Figure 11). This extended pattern beyond Angkor Thom is therefore from an
earlier period because very few of the linear features in the extramural grid
line up precisely with the linear features of the Jayavarman VII era inside
Angkor Thom.

The implication of the grid within Angkor Wat, therefore, is that this
rigidly geometric patterning of space became a defining feature of the urban
areas around the major temples sometime in the early twelfth century AD
and is strongly associated with the reign of Suryavarman II, who was
originally from the area around Phimai in present day Thailand.

Was the grid pattern of Phimai a provincial Khmer settlement pattern that
was introduced to the capital? Or was it a central metropolitan development
that was exported to the provinces? The date of the grid in Phimai is crucial.
The question of Indian influence in the layout of Angkor Thom needs to be
pursued further, as the grid could have been originally a borrowing from the
‘Indian’ tradition in the early first millennium AD and then become entirely
Khmer, or perhaps also had an additional phase of input from the Indian

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tradition in the twelfth century
AD.-------------------------------------------------------------------------

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/
286246541_Residential_patterning_at_Angkor_Wat

Given that the narrow blocks of the grid within Angkor Thom also resemble
the blocks in Chinese towns such as Suzhou, as can be seen in the famous
Pingjiang map of AD 1229 (Skinner & Baker 1977; Xu 2000), the issue
becomes very complex.

Angkor Wat is a unique combination of the temple mountain (the

standard design for the empire's state temples) and the later plan of
concentric galleries, most of which were derived from religious beliefs
of Hinduism originally. The construction of Angkor Wat also suggests that
there was a celestial significance with certain features of the temple. This is
observed in the temple's east–west orientation, and lines of sight from
terraces within the temple that show specific towers to be at the precise
location of the sunrise on a solstice. The temple is a representation of Mount
Meru, the home of the gods according to Hindu mythology: the
central quincunx of towers symbolises the five peaks of the mountain, and
the walls and moat symbolize the surrounding mountain ranges and ocean.
[41]
Access to the upper areas of the temple was progressively more
exclusive, with the laity being admitted only to the lowest level.

A detailed plan of the central structure

The Angkor Wat temple's main tower aligns to the morning sun of the spring
equinox. Unlike most Khmer temples, Angkor Wat is oriented to the west
rather than the east. This has led many (including Maurice Glaize and George
Coedès) to conclude that Suryavarman intended it to serve as his funerary
temple. Further evidence for this view is provided by the bas-reliefs, which
proceed in a counter-clockwise direction—prasavya in Hindu terminology—as
this is the reverse of the normal order. Rituals take place in reverse order
during Brahminic funeral services.
Archaeologist Charles Higham also describes a container which may have
been a funerary jar which was recovered from the central tower. It has been

223
nominated by some as the greatest expenditure of energy on the disposal of
a corpse. Freeman and Jacques, however, note that several other temples
of Angkor depart from the typical eastern orientation, and suggest that
Angkor Wat's alignment was due to its dedication to Vishnu, who was
associated with the west.
Drawing on the temple's alignment and dimensions, and on the content and
arrangement of the bas-reliefs, researcher Eleanor Mannikka argues that the
structure represents a claimed new era of peace under King Suryavarman II:
"as the measurements of solar and lunar time cycles were built into the
sacred space of Angkor Wat, this divine mandate to rule was anchored to
consecrated chambers and corridors meant to perpetuate the king's power
and to honour and placate the deities manifest in the heavens above."
Mannikka's suggestions have been received with a mixture of interest and
scepticism in academic circles. She distances herself from the speculations
of others, such as Graham Hancock, that Angkor Wat is part of a
representation of the constellation Draco.
Style

Angkor Wat as viewed from the side

Angkor Wat is the prime example of the classical style of Khmer architecture
—the Angkor Wat style—to which it has given its name. By the 12th century
Khmer architects had become skilled and confident in the use
of sandstone (rather than brick or laterite) as the main building material.
Most of the visible areas are of sandstone blocks, while laterite was used for
the outer wall and for hidden structural parts. The binding agent used to join
the blocks is yet to be identified, although natural resins or slaked lime has
been suggested.
Harmony of Design: The temple has drawn praise above all for the
harmony of its design. According to Maurice Glaize, a mid-20th-century
conservator of Angkor, the temple "attains a classic perfection by the
restrained monumentality of its finely balanced elements and the precise
arrangement of its proportions. It is a work of power, unity, and style."
Architecturally, the elements characteristic of the style include:
1. The Moat and as part of the grid
2. the ogival,

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 3. redented towers shaped like lotus buds;
4. half-galleries to broaden passageways;
5. axial galleries connecting enclosures; and
6. the cruciform terraces which appear along the main axis of the temple.
Typical decorative elements are devatas (or apsaras), bas-reliefs, and
on pediments extensive garlands and narrative scenes. The statuary of
Angkor Wat is considered conservative, being more static and less graceful
than earlier work.Other elements of the design have been destroyed by
looting and the passage of time, including gilded stucco on the towers,
gilding on some figures on the bas-reliefs, and wooden ceiling panels and
doors

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 VIII
ASTROLOGICAL DESIGN of MENDUT
Dr Uday Dokras

In my paper THESTORYOFASTROLOGYINANGKOR WAT & OTHER KHMER

TEMPLES=https://www.academia.edu/56273723/THE_STORY_OF_ASTROLOGY_IN_
ANGKOR_WAT I have dicussed the possibility of ASngkor having a Hindu Astrological
locational setting.

These
Pics belongs to Borobudur temple. See the meru formation which resembles a shree yantra.

The walls of the Borobudur, a magnificent Buddhist ruin on the island of Java, are decorated
with scenes from the 600 previous lives of Gautama Buddha.

According to historians, Mendut Temple has a close connection with Pawon Temple, because
Mendut Temple, Pawon Temple and Borobudur Temple are located in a straight line from north-
south. Even now it is still a mystery why the three temples are connected in a straight line? It is
very possible that this has a purpose, for example associated with astrology or others. Another
question is how to determine the location of the temples in the past? What technology was used
at that time?

The positions of Candii Borobudur, Candi Pawon and Candi Mendut are in this line following
the constellation Orion Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka (Orion Belt). Maybe after this of course we
will ask. How did in the past understand the relationship between the three temples and the

226
constellation Orion? Why do the three temples stand in the same slanted line as the constellation
Orion? Everything is still a mystery. Similar to the mystery of the various reliefs in the
Borobudur Temple. Likewise, the mystery of how the Prambanan temples were made in the past
with a high level of complexity. What kind of technology existed in the past?

The temples were built by the kings of the Syailendra Dynasty who were known as the family of
temple builders in the archipelago. Other temples that are also close to Borobudur Temple are
Canggal Temple / Mount Wukir and Losari Temple around Salam, Asu Temple, Lumbung
Temple, Selagriya Temple, Ngawen Temple and Sari Temple around Muntilan.

Stairs to the top floor of Mendut Temple

There is still one more temple, namely Banon Temple which has Hindu characteristics. In this
temple, there are found statues of the main Hindu gods in good condition, namely Shiva, Vishnu,
Brahma, and Ganesha. Unfortunately, the existence of Banon Temple is difficult to reconstruct
because there are very few stones found in Banon Temple. The statues of Banon Temple during
the Dutch East Indies era were moved to Batavia and stored at the National Museum of
Indonesia.

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 Relief of Mendut Temple

Mendut Temple. Guard statue on the stairs to enter Mendut Temple.

The ruins of Mendut Temple were first discovered in 1836. The discovery at that time was the
base and building of the temple but the top and roof were not visible. Then in 1897-1904, the
Dutch East Indies Government carried out renovations in several parts including the roof of the
temple so that it displayed a shape that was almost the same as it is today, although not yet
perfect.

228
 Reliefs on the walls of Mendut Temple
BACA JUGA
The Dutch East Indies government returned to reconstruction and restoration in 1908 led by Van
Erp with the results of refining the roof shape and replacing the stupas. This restoration was not
completed but was temporarily suspended due to lack of funds, resuming in 1925.

Physically, Mendut Temple building which stands on a rectangular foundation has a height of
26.40 m. The position of the Mendut temple land is quite high, also about 2 meters from the
surrounding height. There are many reliefs on the walls of the base of the temple with 31 panels
in the form of dioramas of various stories. Relief forms in the form of carvings of people,
animals, flowers and tendrils.

Guard Statue on the stairs of Mendut Temple

To reach the top of the temple through the date which is on the west side which has the entrance
to the room in the temple. The roof of the viewer is the same height and blends with the roof of
the temple body. Mendut Temple does not have a gate. The walls of the stairs are fanel reliefs
depicting various Buddhist stories. At the beginning of the date there is a pair of dragon heads
whose mouths are wide open. On the underside of the dragon's head was a panel with the image

229
of a dwarf.

Some Stories in the Reliefs of Mendut Temple

In one part of the Mendut temple fanel, there is a relief depicting the story of Dharmabuddhi and
Dustabuddhi. This story is about two friends, children of merchants. One day Dharmabuddhi
found money and told his friend Dustabuddhi. They keep the money under a tree.

The story of Dharmabuddhi and Dustabuddhi in Mendut Temple

When they need money, Dharmabuddhi takes some of the money and divides it in half. The
always suspicious and dissatisfied Dustabuddhi took all the remaining money. He reversed the
facts by accusing Dharmabuddhi of taking all the money and bringing it to court. Fortunately the
judge was able to prove that Dustabuddhi was found guilty and convicted.

Another story from the relief at Mendut Temple is that two parrots are different in their behavior
because one is educated by a thief. While one bCandi Mendut is a shrine that can be entered, as
opposed to a Buddhist stupa (reliquary mound) like Borobudur, which can only be
circumambulated. Candi Mendut’s interior walls have niches in which to place sculptures of
buddhas or lamps to illuminate the dark space. Its relief carvings on Candi Mendut suggest a
royal connection. In the vestibule leading inside, Buddhist deities and members of their celestial
supporting cast flock toward the shrine, bearing offerings fit for gods. Mendut Temple and
Pawon Temple are part of the Borobudur Temple Compounds, with the two smaller temples
located to the east on a straight axis to Borobudur. The Mendut temple is on the
processionalwalkwayto Borobudur. Built in the early 9th century it is considered older than
Borobudur which is three kilometres away. It was buried beneath volcanic ash and debris from
Mt Merapi and was discovered in 1834. There are numerous large panels.bas-reliefs.

Relief Of Hariti_Inner Northeast Wall of the Porch-Candi Mendut

An example of religious usurpation, in which a contact religion (Buddhism, in this case)

incorporates the gods of its competitors (Hinduism, in this case) into its own pantheon.

Twin reliefs on the inner walls of the porch illustrate the popular Buddhist legend of Hariti, a
Hindu plague goddess who was converted by the Buddha to become a protector of children1.
This relief of Hariti is located on the inner northeast wall of the porch. A relief of Atavaka, her
husband, is seen on the previous page.

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The Story Of The Foolish Tortoise

Northeast Wall of the Staircase

Candi Mendut

In this Tantri tale from the northeast wall of the staircase, a foolish tortoise is chased by hunters,
suspends himself by his jaws from a stick, and convinces two geese to carry him to safety. But the
silly turtle can not stop himself from opening his mouth to boast of his cleverness, which of course
causes him to lose his grip on the stick, and so he falls down to his death on the rocks below.
Compare: the same story on Temple 2, Nalanda, India.

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Relief Of Atavaka-Inner Southwest Wall of the Porch,Candi Mendut

Twin reliefs on the inner walls of the porch illustrate the popular Buddhist legend of Hariti, a plague
goddess who was converted by the Buddha to become a protector of children1. A relief of Hariti is
displayed on the next page. Seen here, on the inner southwest wall, is a rare and unusual relief of her
husband Atavaka (or, Panchika) surrounded by the children whom he, like his wife, is now protecting.

The Main Sanctum

The main sanctum contains three massive seated Buddhist figures, each carved from a single
block of stone. The three statues are the Buddhist main divinities revered at Mendut which can
explain the spiritual purpose of the establishment of this temple. At the center of the chamber is a
grand 3 meter tall stone statue of Dhyani Buddha Cakyamuni or Dhyani Buddha Vairocana
facing west, sitting in the dharma Cakra Mudra hand position (turning the wheel of Dharma).
This central statue is believed to symbolize the turning of the wheels of all life on earth.
On the right of the central statue is the Boddhisatva Avalokitesvara in a seated position with the
left leg crossed, while the right leg touches the ground. The hand position is varamudra which
illustrates the Buddha delivering his teachings. The statue portrays Buddha in his grand costume
complete with the jewelries and wearing a crown.

The third statue is the Bodhisatva Vajrapani which sits on the left side of the Budha Cakyamuni.
Just as the Bodhisatva Avalokitesvara, this statue also portrays the Buddha in his grand costume
with reverse crossed legs to those of the Bodhisatva Avalokitesvara. Also called the Bodhisatva
Maitreya, the hand position is simhakarnamudra which is similar to varamudra but with closed
fingers, and represents the Buddha as the salvation of mankind.

The central buddha, Vairochana, holds his hands in dharmachakra mudra, a teaching gesture, and
plants his two feet firmly on a double-lotus pedestal. Flanking him are the bodhisattvas
Avalokiteshvara and Vajrapani.

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Let us talk of the theory of the three Buddha statues, though trhere is another theory that there
are two and the third is of a prince. Be as it may, the central three metre high statue is stunning
and depicts Dhyani Buddha Vairocana/Dhyani Buddha Cakyamuni who is flanked by,
Boddhisatva Avalokitesvara to the left, with Boddhisatva Vajrapani on the right. Each of the
statues are cut from a single block of stone and thought to have been carved on site with the
temple walls and ceiling built after.

Temple Mendut was part of a larger temple complex, however all that remains of other
buildings are neatly stacked into piles within the temple grounds, where amongst the rubble,
carved stones can be seen. There is a very large banyan tree near the temple. Nearby is the
Mendut Buddhist Monastery. Very few people know that the grounds were originally a
Catholic Monastery until the 1950’s, when it was purchased by the Buddhist foundation and
turned into a Buddhist Monastery. Flip flop of religions. The grounds are very serene to walk
through and full of statues, pools of water and greenery.

However between the green lies a mystery.

What is tantric Buddha?

Tantra is a Hindu and Buddhist philosophy which affirms all aspects of the material world as
infused with divine feminine power. It is rooted in sacred instructional texts, composed from
around the sixth century onwards, called the Tantras.Inside the temple we find an altar-shaped
throne, and on the throne sits a colossal Buddha statue, dressed in the manner of the southern
Buddhists, having uncovered his right shoulder and arm. The hands before his breast have the
posture (mudra) of the Mahayanists, that is, the followers of the "Big Carriage" (Great Vehicle).

233
 In the above pic Buddha is on
the left with the Buddha image in the crown. The middle Buddha is the Mahāvairocana. Princve is on the
right. This prince is not a Buddha.

It is explained that this is the posture that the followers “of the northern church, generally (not
always) give tothefirst of theirfiveDhyani-Buddhas”. In the Mendut temple, to the right of
Buddha, we see a buddhistic prince seated on a throne. This statute is considered to be

234
Buddha statute by some as mentioned earliuer and the controversy rages on. Be at it may, this
statute is richlydecorated with nagas, lions, and elephants. He wears the monk's hood and a
small Buddha image in his crown.This characterises him as a Buddhist. The other prince that
we see opposite him, to the left of the Buddha, seatingon an equally rich throne, doesn't wear
a monk's hood. This characterises him as not buddhistic prince. The twokings wear the
prabha, or disk of light, on the back of their heads.

Statue of Shakyamuni Buddha-Central Shrine, Candi Mendut

This colossal (10 ft tall) statue of Shakyamuni, located in the interior cella of Candi
Mendut, is very special: it is the oldest (c. 800 AD, as mentioned on the previous
page), the largest, and the finest statue of the historical Buddha that still remains in
its original location in Java. The Buddha is seated in "Western" style, legs apart
(cf: Ajanta, Cave 26), displays dharmachakra mudra, and is flanked by two
bodhisattvas (following pages). In this temple, modern visitors can still experience
something of the awe and majesty that inspired the devotees who first worshiped
here, over a thousand years ago.

Note: some scholars identify this statue as Vairocana, instead of Shakyamuni. See,
for example, "The Transcendental Buddha Vairochana(?) Seated in Western
Fashion," by Martin Lerner, in The Lotus Transcendent: Indian and Southeast Asian
Art from the Samuel Eilenberg Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1991, p.
177.

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 Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara

Central Shrine, Candi Mendut

The nine-foot tall statue of Avalokiteshvara is located to the viewer's left of Shakyamuni (see
previous page). The Bodhisattva of Compassion is identified by a small statue of Amitabha
Buddha that is carved into the top of his crown. Seated on a lotus throne in "Royal Ease," his
extended right hand holds a missing attribute, and his raised left hand holds a missing lotus
stem. To the right is the statue of Bodhisattva Avalokiteswara or the helping Buddha. Buddha
is depicted sitting with left leg bended and right leg hanging down. His right foot steps on a
small lotus pad. To the left and facing north is the statue of Maitreya, or liberating Bodhisattva
who is sitting with hands in simhakarnamudra position, which looks like vitarkamudra
position except that the fingersare clasped. The head of each statue emanates prabha or
divinerays oflight.

Comparison with Ajanta Cave 26

At a distance of 750 m from Ajanta Foot Cave Bus Stop, Cave 26 is a chaityagriha situated
beside the Cave 25.Cave 26 is quite similar to Cave 19, but of a larger dimension and with more
elaborately and exquisitely carved sculpted figures. An inscription (AD 450 - 525) found on the
wall of the front verandah records the gift of this chaityagriha by a monk Buddhabhadra, a friend
of Bhavviraja, a minister of the king of Asmaka (Vidarbha). There is a carving of Lord Buddha
seated in the bhumisparsas mudra under the Bodhi tree at the center. On the left is Mara on an
elephant accompanied by his host of demon-forces attacking Buddha and on the right is the
retreat of Mara. In the foreground are the daughters of Mara trying to tempt Buddha by dance
and music; and in the bottom right corner is the figure of the dejected Mara.The chaityagriha
consists of a hall, side aisles (pradakshina) and a rock-cut stupa with an image of Buddha. The
facade, inner pillars, triforium (between pillars and roof), and side walls are extensively carved
with images and decorative designs. The cave contains a stupa with an image of Buddha seated
on a lion throne. He is flanked by riders and flying attendants.

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 However, the most striking and prominent image of this cave is a large carved statue of the
reclining Buddha, representing his moment of death. Below him, his followers mourn his
passing; above, celestial beings rejoice.

Bodhisattva Vajrapani-Central Shrine, Candi Mendut ( pic Right above)

Bodhisattva Vajrapani is usually paired with Padmapani, not Avalokiteshvara (previous page); the
unusual combination of Avalokiteshvara and Vajrapani in this Shakyamuni Triad must reflect either an
iconographic confusion, or perhaps a transitional form or a regional variant in the evolution of the triad
from Padmapani/Vajrapani (earlier) to Avalokiteshvara/Manjusri (later).

Interpretation of thje Buddhas of Mendut by King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) of Siam

King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) of Siam visited Borobudur in 1896 when Java was still under
Dutch rule. As a Buddhist King Rama of |Thailand (Siam) was deeply interested in the
Borobodur and also Prambanan (for the Ramayana and Mahabharata are of course Hindu epics
that are well known in Thailand). He climbed up the temple twice on that visit. The Dutch
allowed him to choose anything from the temple to bring back as souvenirs as many he wished.
He went back to Bangkok with eight containers full of Buddha statues, bas-reliefs, door facades
from Borobudur, Prambanan, and other archaeological sites nearby. Several Buddha statues he
brought from Borobudur are now used to decorate royal temples in Bangkok including the
Emerald Buddha temple in the Grand Palace; others are on display in the National Museum in
Bangkok. Many years later, King Rama VII returned some masterpieces from Prabanan back

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Bodhisattva Vajrapani-Central Shrine, Candi Mendut ( pic Right above)

Bodhisattva Vajrapani is usually paired with Padmapani, not Avalokiteshvara (previous page); the
unusual combination of Avalokiteshvara and Vajrapani in this Shakyamuni Triad must reflect either an
iconographic confusion, or perhaps a transitional form or a regional variant in the evolution of the triad
from Padmapani/Vajrapani (earlier) to Avalokiteshvara/Manjusri (later).

Interpretation of thje Buddhas of Mendut by King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) of Siam

King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) of Siam visited Borobudur in 1896 when Java was still under
Dutch rule. As a Buddhist King Rama of |Thailand (Siam) was deeply interested in the
Borobodur and also Prambanan (for the Ramayana and Mahabharata are of course Hindu epics
that are well known in Thailand). He climbed up the temple twice on that visit. The Dutch
allowed him to choose anything from the temple to bring back as souvenirs as many he wished.
He went back to Bangkok with eight containers full of Buddha statues, bas-reliefs, door facades
from Borobudur, Prambanan, and other archaeological sites nearby. Several Buddha statues he
brought from Borobudur are now used to decorate royal temples in Bangkok including the
Emerald Buddha temple in the Grand Palace; others are on display in the National Museum in
Bangkok. Many years later, King Rama VII returned some masterpieces from Prabanan back to
its original place during his visit to Java and Bali in 1929. He interpreted the images as follow.

He took home four Buddha statues from Borobodur that now have places of honour at the Phra
Mondop in the Grand Palace complex; although the Buddha statues he admired most were those
in Candi Mendut. If those were sent to Siam a new temple would be built for them. He knew the
head of the Netherlands Indies Archaeological Society, Dr Groneman. When he first saw
Borobodur he wrote that it was not possible to describe it in words, that it would be better to see
it from pictures but even those would not be as marvelous as seeing it with one’s own eyes. Dr
Groneman believed that the Buddha statues there were Mahayana because Buddhism in Java was
the same as in China but the King convinced him that they were of Indian influence. On his third
trip when they visited Prambana, he commented that Dr Groneman could have given a good
presentation “but it was no fun this time because he had become my student so there was nothing
on which to disagree with each other.”

1. One of the princes, who is wearing, “like he does himself, a Buddha image in hiscrown,”
was “perhaps the king of the buddhistic empire, under whose reign the Barabudur was
built”.

2. Further theKing surmised that the other images represented the not-buddhistic father and
predecessor.
(AmeliaCarolinaSparavigna.TheRuinsoftheBuddhistTemplesintheProgoValley,Borobudur,MendutandPawon,DescribedbyIsaacGroneman
inhisBookof1912..Philica,2017.hal-01674399)

According to the above article there were 5 Tathgathas but today only one remains flanked by
Vairocana, Avalokiteshvara and Vajrapani. Remaining 4 are not currently presently, destroyed
probably by vagaries of time,nature or man.These once occupied the niches. A niche is a

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semicircular architectural recess or platform, sometimes crowned by a semi-dome, and either set
into a building's façade or free-standing. This niche or exedra would typically have
an apsidal podium that supported the stone bench. The free-standing (open air) exedra, often
supporting bronze portrait sculpture, is a familiar Hellenistic structure, characteristically sited
along sacred ways or in open places in sanctuaries.

One of the four Buddha statues from the Borobodur given to Rama V during a trip to Java.
All four statues were placed in the Phra Mondop building in the Grand Palace complex in
Bangkok where they can be see still today. (photo: IO/Tamalia)

Vairocanābhisaṃbodhi Sūtra and the DESIGN of the Mendut

The Vairocanābhisaṃbodhi Sūtra or Vairocana’s Awakening Sutra, Mahāvairocana is an
important Vajrayana Buddhist text composed before 674 CE. The Indian tantric
master Buddhaguhya (fl. c.700 CE) classified the text as a caryātantra, and in Tibetan
Buddhism it is still considered to be a member of the carya classification. In Japan where it is
known as the Mahāvairocana Sūtra (Daibirushana jōbutsu jinpen kajikyō), it is one of two
central texts in the Shingon school, along with the Vajrasekhara Sutra. Both are also part of
the.Tendai.school. The longer title of the scripture
is Mahāvairocanābhisaṃbodhivikurvitādhiṣṭhānavaipulyasūtrendrarājanāmadharmaparyāya
(Dharma Discourse Called “Mahāvairocana’s Awakening and His Empowerment of Miracles,”
King of the Best of the Extensive Scriptures). Though the text is often called a tantra by later
figures (including later Indian commentators), the scripture does not call itself a tantra.

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12th century painting of Mahāvairocana, Heian period, collecting in Nezu Museum/ Tibetan representation of Buddha
Vairocana, featuring several of his defining characteristics, including his white color, the teaching gesture
(dharmacakramudra), and sitting on an elaborate lion throne. Our mendut Buddha at extreme right.

The Mahāvairocana Tantra is the first true Buddhist tantra, the earliest comprehensive manual
of tantric Buddhism. It was probably composed in the middle of the 7th century, in all
probability in north-eastern India at Nālandā. Evidence to support the text's composition in
Nalanda include the fact that many of the Buddhist scholars involved in the transmission of the
text resided in Nalanda including Buddhaguhya and Śubhakarasiṃha. The description of plants
and trees in the MVT also matches those found in the region surrounding Nalanda in North-East
India.

The Mahāvairocana Tantra consists of three primary mandalas corresponding to the body,
speech and mind of Mahāvairocana, as well as preliminary practices and initiation rituals.
According to Buddhaguhya’s Piṇḍārtha (a summary of the main points of the tantra)
the Mahāvairocana Tantra system of practice is in three stages: preliminary, application, and
accomplishment. Attached here and there are doctrinal passages, and sadhana practices which
relate back to the main mandalas.

A new wave of Buddhismfrom Northeast India

A.J. Bernet Kempers published an important study in which he advanced his theories for a possible Indian
origin of the iconography of the five main statues of Candi Jago, namely Amoghapasa Lokesvara with his
four attendants Tara, Sudhanakumara, Hayagrrva, and Bhrkutr. Accordingly the Candi Jago statues have
been influenced by a new wave of Buddhism from Northeast India, which reached Java in the first part of
the 13th century. (Ancient Indonesian Sculpture,Series: Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor
Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Volume: 165 E-Book ISBN: Brill,1995)

Pala Mandala of theAmoghapāśa: One of the richest visual objects in Tibetan Buddhism is the
mandala. A mandala is a symbolic picture of the universe. It can be a painting on a wall or scroll,
created in coloured sands on a table, or a visualisation in the mind of a very skilled adept. In the
Paladynasty there are no 8 armed images of the Buddha.Therefore, how the concept of the

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Amoghapāśa came to be linked with the Pala dynasty is not clear. What is clear is that the

10th-11th century, India, Kurkihar hoard, bodhisattva on lion, bronze, photo on vmis, at the Patna Museum./// Circa 10th
century, India, Bihar, Nalanda, Avalokiteshvara, stone, item 4473/A24143 at the Indian Museum in Kolkata (India).// 9th
century, India, Bihar, Nalanda, Avalokiteshvara, stone, item 3962/A24123 at the Indian Museum in Kolkata/ 8th century,
India, Nalanda, Padmapani (Avalokiteshvara), stone, item 49-148 at the National Museum in New Delhi (India).
Amoghapāśa had a beginning in India and the concept was carried on to Tibet, Sri Lanka and the
Indonesian kingdoms of the earlier time.

Avalokiteshvara is a bodhisattva, a divine being who is on the path to becoming a Buddha (“Awakened One”)
and helps others on the path toward enlightenment. This multi-armed figure is hollow-cast from an alloy of
copper and 5% tin, called bronze. Using computed tomography or CT scans, museum conservators
determined that the head, arms, and body were cast in stages and joined using sophisticated metal casting
techniques. Avalokiteshvara is covered with images of the Buddha, like the ones making up his necklace.
Each of these small figures was originally carved or stamped in wax and applied to themodel before being
cast in bronze.Avalokiteshvara also wears arm and wristbands made of a different metal alloy: brass, which
initially would have glistened like gold.
RIGHT PIC- Tibet Buddhism 4 Head 8 Arm Ushnishavijaya Namgyalma Kwan-Yin Buddha statue

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 IX

Uncharted Astrological Seas of the Khmer

Landscape
Dr Uday Dokras
Ms Srishti DoKras MS (Pratt Institute, New York )

242
243
244
 I
Significance of SUNLIGHT & NUMEROLOGY to the
Angkor Temples
Scientific Background; In the elementary school one is taught that the sun
raises in the east and sets in the west. In reality the point on the horizon
where the sun raises moves quite a lot. It is visibly south of due east during
mid winter at which time sunset is also south of due west. Obviously, at this
time, the sun does not reach the exact zenith, the point exactly overhead. A
little thought would immediately reveal that the sun path is not exactly
perpendicular to the horizon and as the sun rises, it moves not only up from
the horizon but also slightly to the south. As the months pass, the point of
sunrise on the horizon moves north and at midsummer it reaches a farthest
point north of due east. The sun set point is also north of due west. As the
sun travels south to north and back, during the year, the sun reaches the
exact zenith, the point exactly overhead only two times in a year. The sun
path diagram in the figure is self -explanatory.

This describes the situation when the place of observation is between the
tropic of cancer and the equator. If the place is beyond the tropics, the sun
never reaches the zenith. As one moves beyond the arctic- circle, the very
Idea of sunrise and sunset lose meaning and one has six months of daylight
and six months of darkness at the North Pole. The situation in the southern
hemisphere is of course exactly the reverse.

The path of sun in the sky on two different days at one place do not
cross. If the sun were to be considered a point, and the location below the
tropic of cancer, the sun would be at a given point on the sky a maximum of
two times per year as the curve swings from solstice to solstice. For points
on the path at solstice the sun is present only once per year. For points
beyond these? Obviously, never! The angle between the sunrises at the two
solstices depends on the latitude but is a minimum of 23° at the equator.

Cluster of Temples in the Khmer Kingdoms: The fact that all of the
Angkor temples are clustered at one site not too far away from each other
adds to the theorey that the builders believed in Vastu Shastra, As it is we
know very well the impact of Astronomy and Astrology on Khemer
Architecture. Not only Khemer but also the Architecture of neighbouring
countries like Indonesia. Read my book on Celestial Mysteries of the
Borobudur Temple for more details.Eleanor Mannikka. Mastered the concepts
of Time, Space and Kingship . Worth your while to read Angkor Wat: Time, Space

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and Kingship by Eleanor Mannikka.Ars Orientalis,Vol. 28, (1998),
The.Smithsonian.Institution.

Rooted in the Vedas, India's ancient system of knowledge, Vedic astrology

is based on the belief that the stars and planets have a powerful influence on
our lives. According to Hindu teachings, life is meant for spiritual growth. The
role of past lives in present day problems and rebirth of souls is a debatable
subject in many religions. However, rebirth of souls is a fundamental belief
in Hinduism.Vedic astrology is related to Hindu belief and this system of astrology
talks about past lives and accumulated karmas of past lives which get manifested in
situations of the present life. Vedic Astrology is based on the belief of karma and in
the concept of Moksha (salvation).

It is believed that a soul has to wait for the exact constellation of stars before it
takes birth in this world. The type of life which a person gets depends on his
“Sanchit Karma” (accumulated deeds of past lives). The uniqueness of Vedic
astrology is that it takes into account the effects of accumulated deeds of the past.
It is believed that the dasa system devised in Vedic astrology is the “unfolding of
one’s karma in the past”. Any change in dasa can bring good or bad results
depending on the karmic records of earlier lives.

Vedic Astrology also believes in “Rinanu- Bandhan” (past life debts). This means
that the friend one makes, the enmity one keeps, and family which one gets
depends upon past life debts. No one comes in a person’s life without any reason.
People are interlinked with each other by the hidden hands of past karma. It means,
if someone is coming repeatedly in life or if some issues are not getting resolved
even after honest efforts, it is likely that such persons or issues are linked with the
karmic records of past lives.
If one shares fortune, career, life or luck with someone, it is likely that such
relationship is developing on account of past debts. It is also seen at times that bad
fortune of someone becomes good fortune for the other. Such situations may
remain interlinked.
Vedic astrology also talks about different “doshas” (problems) caused by curses
from past-lives. These “doshas” normally cause problems in having children,
nurturing relationships, career-related issues, financial issues and many other
issues which may affect an individual. So too the Hindus of the ancient Khemer
Lands believed the link about the Macro( Stars) and the Micro (life0

The microcosm–macrocosm analogy (or, equivalently, macrocosm–microcosm

analogy) refers to a historical view which posited a structural similarity between

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the human being (the microcosm, i.e., the small order or the small universe) and
the cosmos as a whole (the macrocosm, i.e., the great order or the great universe).
[1]
Given this fundamental analogy, truths about the nature of the cosmos as a
whole may be inferred from truths about human nature, and vice versa.
One important corollary of this view is that the cosmos as a whole may be
considered to be alive, and thus to have a mind or soul (the world soul), a position
advanced by Plato in his Timaeus. Moreover, this cosmic mind or soul was often
thought to be divine, most notably by the Stoics and those who were influenced by
them, such as the authors of the Hermetica. Hence, it was sometimes inferred that
the human mind or soul too was divine in nature.

Apart from this important psychological and noetic (i.e., related to the mind)
application, the analogy was also applied to human physiology.[5] For example,
the cosmological functions of the seven classical planets were sometimes taken to
be analogous to the physiological functions of human organs, such as the heart,
the spleen, the liver, the stomach, etc
The view itself is ancient, and may be found in many philosophical systems world-
wide, such as for example in ancient Mesopotamia,[7] in ancient Iran,[8] or in
ancient Chinese philosophy. However, the terms microcosm and macrocosm refer
more specifically to the analogy as it was developed in ancient Greek
philosophy and its medieval and early modern descendants.
In contemporary usage, the terms microcosm and macrocosm are also employed to
refer to any smaller system that is representative of a larger one, and vice versa.

Paracelsus (1494–1541) RIGHT Zeno of Citium (c. 334–262 BCE), founder of the Stoic school
of philosophy.

Antiquity
Among ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophers, notable proponents of the
microcosm–macrocosm analogy included Anaximander (c. 610 – c. 546 BCE),
[10]
Plato (c. 428 or 424 – c. 348 BCE), the Hippocratic authors (late fifth or early
fourth century BCE and onwards), and the Stoics (third century BCE and onwards).
[13]
In later periods, the analogy was especially prominent in the works of those
philosophers who were heavily influenced by Platonic and Stoic thought, such
as Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BCE – c. 50 CE) the authors of the early
Greek Hermetica (c. 100 BCE – c. 300 CE), and the Neoplatonists (third century CE
and onwards).[16] The analogy also started occurring from an early date in religious
literature, such as in the Zoroastrian encyclopedic work called the Bundahishn, or in
the early Rabbinical text called the Avot de-Rabbi Nathan

Middle Ages

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Medieval philosophy was generally dominated by Aristotle, who despite having been
the first to coin the term "microcosm", [18] had posited a fundamental and
insurmountable difference between the region below the moon (the sublunary
world, consisting of the four elements) and the region above the moon (the
superlunary world, consisting of a fifth element). Nevertheless, the microcosm–
macrocosm analogy was adopted by a wide variety of medieval thinkers working in
different linguistic traditions: the concept of microcosm was known
in Arabic as ʿālam ṣaghīr, in Hebrew as olam katan, and
in Latin as microcosmus or minor mundus. The analogy was elaborated
by alchemists such as those writing under the name of Jabir ibn Hayyan (c. 850–950
CE),[20] by the anonymous Shi'ite philosophers known as the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ ("The
Brethren of Purity", c. 900–1000 CE), by Jewish theologians and philosophers such
as Isaac Israeli (c. 832–932), Saadia Gaon (882/892–942), Ibn Gabirol (11th
[22]
century), and Judah Halevi (c. 1075–1141), by Victorine monks such as Godfrey of
Saint Victor (born 1125, author of a treatise called Microcosmus), by
the Andalusian mystic Ibn Arabi (1165–1240), by the German cardinal Nicholas of
Cusa (1401–1464), and by numerous others.

Renaissance
The revival of Hermeticism and Neoplatonism in the Renaissance, both of which had
reserved a prominent place for the microcosm–macrocosm analogy, also led to a
marked rise in popularity of the latter. Some of the most notable proponents of the
concept in this period include Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499), Heinrich Cornelius
Agrippa (1486–1535), Francesco Patrizi (1529–1597), Giordano Bruno (1548–1600),
and Tommaso Campanella (1568–1639). It was also central to the new medical
theories propounded by the Swiss physician Paracelsus (1494–1541) and his
many followers, most notably Robert Fludd (1574–1637).[26] Andreas Vesalius (1514–
1564) in his anatomy text De fabrica wrote that the human body "in many respects
corresponds admirably to the universe and for that reason was called the little
universe by the ancients."

In the Archaeology of Knowledge Traditions of the Indian Ocean World

edited by Himanshu Prabha Ray we read that:

1. What is in the Macrocosm is in the Microcosm.

2. What is seen or perceive in the Universe is with in the us.

3. The Universe and we are not different.

The principles in the making of the universe are within us and the Hindu temples
keep this point in constructing them. Being built according to Vedic Principles of
Cosmology and the physical structural guidelines are from the Vaasu Sasta and
Agamas.All temples, have the Sun’s Rays falling on the God’s idol on specific
days.

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 Angkor Vat Temple.

Hindus built temples because in the past millennium, the Gods left the
Earth and went back to their home. The Temples are a way to connect to them. Not
only that but also a way to connect to the devotees and bring them closer to God.
Hence ancient Kings undertook construction of temples- some large, other larger in
order to impress:
1. God- look at how big a temple I built for you
2. For the subjects- the potential devotees. See thse magnificent structures and
remember ME- I built them.

Example 1; Vishnu’s Mathsya temple also has these feature. Shrine dedicated
to vishnu’s matsya avatara in Nagalapuram, approximately eighty km from
Chennai, houses the Vedanarayana Svami temple, a unique shrine for God
Vishnu’s first incarnation as a fish (Matsya Avatara)..

Nagalapuram, approximately eighty km from Chennai, houses the Vedanarayana

Svami temple, a unique shrine for God Vishnu’s first incarnation as a fish (Matsya
Avatara).. According to the traditional lore (Sthala-purana) of this temple, a
demon (asura) called Somakudu took the Vedas from Lord Brahma and hid them
in the ocean. God Vishnu, in the form of Matsya killed this asura and retrieved
the Vedas. Inscriptions record that the Vijayanagar Emperor Krishnadeva Raya
(1509-1529 AD), enroute to Kumbakonam for the Mahamagam festival, travelled
through this place which is called Nagalapuram, after the name of this monarch’s
mother Nagaladevi.

Matsya Narayana temple was established by Madras Chinmaya Seva trust in the
year 2011 due to miraculous incidents as explained by Temple's main Seer ( priest).
Shri Vishnu's idol is carved in precious stone , the foot part is in the form of Fish
(Merman)

Shri Vishnu has incarnated as Merman (matsya) Avatar to protect the Universe from
disaster.

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The main idol is a 12-feet granite rendition of Shri Vishnu in Matsya (fish) avatar
surrounded by 108 granite pillars. Each nine-foot pillar has inscriptions from Vishnu
Sahasranamam and Ashthottara Shatha Namavali of Swami Chinmayananda, with
the inscriptions in Tamil and Sanskrit, and also translations in English. There are
also Ganesha, Shiva and Hanuman idols in the meditation park. All the statues are
open to the sky. It’s a place where people can relax and meditate”, says the trustee
of Madras Chinmaya Seva trust.It is adjacent to the beach, so the beauty of the
temple gets enhanced because of the waves roaring and soothing sound. The best
part about the temple are the pillars, and Shiva and Shri Vishnu, both deities are in
the same place.

The Main Image of God Vishnu is Matsya avatara with four arms, the upper
two holding the conch and discus. The lower right hand is in abhaya hasta
(offering protection) and the lower left hand is in uruhasta (resting on the thigh).
The unique feature is that Vishnu is seen with the lower part of the body in the
form of a fish. This image, enshrined under the Padmakara Vimana, and flanked
by Sridevi and Bhudevi, is believed to be svaymbhu (self-manifest).

The temple has three prakaras (circumambulatory passages) and many gopuras.
Surya Puja, a unique festival, is celebrated on three days of the year — on the
12th, 13th and 14th of the Tamil month of Panguni, when the rays of the setting
sun fall directly on the feet, body and face respectively of the main deity. This is
believed to indicate the worship of Mahavishnu by the Sun God (Surya
Bhagavan).
Many Vijayanagar era inscriptions, especially of Krishnadeva Raya’s reign, etched
on the walls register gifts to this temple.

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An inscription of Krishnadeva Raya mentions that lands were donated for the
recitation of the Vedas and also the Dravida Veda (Divya Prabandham) and for
the exposition of Vedanta.
1. Main deity: The deity here is Vishnu as Matsya Avatara
2. Name of Goddess:Lakshmi is worshipped as Vedavalli Thayar
3. Another nameNagalapuram was also called Arigandapuram
4. Annual festivalBrahmotsavam is celebrated for ten days 1

There are temples where the shadow of the idol falls at a specific pre marked space.

We have the Sun temple at Konark where one can find Astronomy being used in
the construction of temple.

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Konark Sun Temple (Odia: କୋଣାର୍କସୂର୍ଯ୍ୟମନ୍ଦିର) is a 13th-century CE (year
1250) Sun temple at Konark about 35 kilometres (22 mi) northeast from Puri on the
coastline of Odisha, India. The temple is attributed to king Narasimhadeva I of
the Eastern Ganga Dynasty about 1250 CE.
Dedicated to the Hindu Sun God Surya, what remains of the temple complex has
the appearance of a 100-foot (30 m) high chariot with immense wheels and horses,
all carved from stone. Once over 200 feet (61 m) high,[1][5] much of the temple is
now in ruins, in particular the large shikara tower over the sanctuary; at one time
this rose much higher than the mandapa that remains. The structures and elements
that have survived are famed for their intricate artwork, iconography, and themes,
including erotic kama and mithuna scenes. Also called the Surya Devalaya, it is a
classic illustration of the Odisha style of Architecture or Kalinga Architecture.
The cause of the destruction of the Konark temple is unclear and still remains a
source of controversy. Theories range from natural damage to deliberate
destruction of the temple in the course of being sacked several times by Muslim
armies between the 15th and 17th centuries. This temple was called the
"Black Pagoda" in European sailor accounts as early as 1676 because it looked a
great tiered tower which appeared black. Similarly, the Jagannath Temple in Puri
was called the "White Pagoda". Both temples served as important landmarks for
sailors in the Bay of Bengal. The temple that exists today was partially restored by
the conservation efforts of British India-era archaeological teams. Declared a
UNESCO world heritage site in 1984, it remains a major pilgrimage site for Hindus,

252
who gather here every year for the Chandrabhaga Mela around the month of
February.
Konark Sun Temple is depicted on the reverse side of the Indian currency note of 10
rupees to signify its importance to Indian cultural heritage.

The play of light and shadow- Accuracy of the Sundial at Konark:During the
construction of the temple, the sun path diagrams have been accurately followed.
The builders had comprehensive knowledge ofAstronomy and Architecture. It was
constructed in such a way that the first rays of sun wiuld fall on the hedad of the
statute of the diety-SUN GOD coming in from ALL doors. 100% on all days and in all
seasons this happens. The alignment of the supporting pillars is such that none
obstructs the rays.Even during the southern and Northern movement of the sun.2

Sun temples in India are connected with the celestial body sun, it’s rotation around
earth, sun path. Time line shows that there is no particular region or not particular
period of construction of sun temples. Geographical position shows that sun
temples are randomly constructed in all over India, no path followed for
construction. In Sun temples light plays an important role in position of deity and
facing of sun temple. Decorative features or elements used for enhancing external
appearance of sun temples and are associated with the rotation of sun around
earth. Newly constructed sun temple in Gwalior is just a replica of Konark sun
temple, it’s not adding remarkable element. All the sun temples in India follow basic
form of temples practised in India from decades. No specific material used in
construction, in fact locally available material is used. Sun temple at Konark, Odisha
and Sun temple at Modera, Gujrat are famous compared to other sun temples in
India it may be because they are in good condition compared to other sun temples
in India. 3

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We have the city of Jaipur built based on Vedic principles,

Designing a structure that permits sunlight to enter for a limited time on a

specific day is thus relatively simple. A temporary structure representing the
doorway, window or skylight could be constructed at the time and place,
adjusting the distance from the position of the idol to ensure that sunlight is
falling as desired. This can be comfortably integrated with the final
construction. No wonder so many cultures have incorporated this concept
into their religious buildings.

Sunlight Enters The Temple!

In many temples in India, on one specific day in the year, sun light enters the
temple, illuminating the idol in the sanctum. This is often cited as an
example of the scientific accomplishments of ancient Indians.With the
advent of the social media, exaggerated claims have become the norm.
Ancient Indians knew much more about astronomy than we give them credit
for.

But in some of these cases, the claims have been verified by scientists, for
example, the Gavi Gangadhareshwara Temple in Bangalore. Thousands of
devotees come in middle January every year on Makara sankranti Day to this
cave temple. This is a special day when the sunrays fall on the Sivalinga for
one hour as it passes between the horns of the Nandi.
It is common to find laudatory references to ancient Indians.Such was the
knowledge of architecture and astronomy that the ancient sculptors could
craft the horns of the stone bull outside the temple so that the sun’s rays
would pass through its horns and light up the deity Shiva Linga inside the
cave.”

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Similarly, the phenomenon is authenticated in the case of the Lord
Vedanarayanaswamy Temple at Nagalapuram in Andhra Pradesh. The sun
rays fell inside the temple on Tuesday 24, March 2015, in the evening the
news report says, and the phenomenon will assume several interesting
phases with the rays shifting from the feet of the Lord’s idol at the sanctum
sanctorum to the navel (nabhi) point with each day till March 29, 2015. The
rays are expected to fall at the feet of the idol on Wednesday evening. The
presiding deity here is worshipped as the protector of sacred Vedas in the
‘Mastya avatar’ (fish).

Analysis
How difficult a technological feat is this? How could the ancient societies
come up with such feats? Examples of such constructions are known in other
civilizations including the Mayan in America, the people who built the
stonehenge in Britain 5000 years ago, the ancient Egyptians and many
others.
To speak of direct sunlight entering a house through windows only in
summer or winter (as the case may be) is common. Since this change occurs
very slowly, over months, the claim that the sunlight falls at a specific spot,
namely the idol in the temple on a specific day and time appears startling.
Everyone is familiar with the sun travelling either south or north on the
horizon at sunrise. Those in higher latitudes, North India for example, are
acutely aware that the sun is lower in the sky even at midday during the
winter months and that direct sunlight feels hotter during the summer
months when the sun is higher in the sky. But once again changes are
perceived to be slow.

Most ancient cultures of the world have independently learnt these

facts by direct observation).

With this background, consider the news report regarding the temples. If one
were to stand directly under the doorway of the temple, the sunrise can be
observed at both solstices (unless other buildings obstruct the view). Assume
that the doorway is about 3 metres wide and the idol is at a distance of 30
meters from the doorway. The angle of the sky visible from the idol will be a
couple of degrees which is less than a tenth of the angle between the
sunrises at the two solstices. If the temple faces due west, the sunset will be
visible for a couple of days around equinoxes. If the temple points to sunset
at the summer solstice, sunset would be visible for a few days around that
date. As the picture above makes clear, the sun path is not perpendicular to
the horizon. So the sun traverses the width of the doorway, at an angle.
Naturally the period of sunlight in the sanctum will be a few minutes. If the
sunlight falls through a window or skylight the duration for which sunlight
enters could be made smaller and would not be restricted to sunrise and
sunset.

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The sun enters the Gavi Gangadhareshwara temple on January 14, the
traditional start of the uttarayana or northward movement of the sun. This is
the transition of the sun into the zodiac house of cancer. Nearly seventeen
centuries ago, this coincided with the winter solstice. But now the northward
movement of the sun actually starts on December 22. January 14 is nearly
22 days after solstice and it should be expected that sunlight would enter
the temple nearly as many days before solstice too. Sure enough, scientists
who investigated found sunlight entering the temple around 30 November!!

The 2000 year claim is obviously rubbish. While perturbations to the Earth’s orbit
with time periods of thousands to millions of years have been identified, there is
none with 2000 year periodicity. More importantly, these are small changes that
would not change the relative positions of the sun and earth to effect the entry of
sunlight into temples for parts of a day.

All The Science Behind Sunlight Entering

The Temples,by takes2mins2debunkhttps://takes2mins2debunk.wordpress.com/
2017/05/20/all-the-science-behind-sunlight-entering-the-temples/

Sun temples are always associated with light. Position of deity is always
corelated with light. Because Sun is eqated to light, the importance of the latter
cannot be underestimated as a design concept. Sun temple of Modera, Gujrat or
Sun temple of Konark, Orissa are the temples where sun light direct falls on the
deity. The Sun temple of Modera has three different types of spaces where light
create different effect.

A.The foremost space is a kund or waterbody. The kund (water tank) is a stepwell
with varied sized steps. Steps are arranged like inverted pyramid and are decorated
with numerous designs. When light fall on these steps, it casts beautiful shadow
pattern.

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 B.The other type of space is semi- open mandapa. Due to the openings, the
amount of light entering, its intensity is comparatively more than other spaces in
the temple.

C. The prasad is an enclosed space, as its covered with thick stone wall. So, amount
of light entering is only through two small openings in the wall, which cast dim light
but sufficient enough to create dramatic effect of contrast light and shadow effect
and highlight texture of stone walls. The ambulatory path or pradkshina path
surrounding sanctum has sufficient light due to three windows of side walls and
provide adequate light to the dark, closely place deity in sanctum.

Sun temples in India are connected with the celestial body sun, it’s rotation around
earth, sun path. Time line shows that there is no particular region or not particular
period of construction of sun temples. Geographical position shows that sun
temples are randomly constructed in all over India, no path followed for
construction. In Sun temples light plays an important role in position of deity and
facing of sun temple. Decorative features or elements used for enhancing external
appearance of sun temples and are associated with the rotation of sun around
earth. Newly constructed sun temple in Gwalior is just a replica of Konark sun
temple, it’s not adding remarkable element. All the sun temples in India follow basic
form of temples practised in India from decades. No specific material used in
construction, in fact locally available material is used. 4

ANGKOR
Suryavarman II built Angkor Wat temple - Surya means ‘sun’and Varman
‘Shield”

In Sanskrit language, Varma is the masculine form of the word for "Shield,
Defensive armour". The word Varman derive from Varamban as in the Chera king
title Vana-varamban, meaning one whose kingdom is bounded by the sky. Its usage
can be traced back to the Sangam period. Not surprising that his thought was
focused on his name. Some solar alignments that can be observed in the
planning of the Angkor Wat temple complex in Cambodia. This complex was
originally constructed in the early 12th century as a Hindu temple for the
Khmer Empire and gradually transforming into a Buddhist temple. To
illustrate the solar alignments we use SunCalc.net software and
Photographer’s Ephemeris on Google Earth satellite images. 5.

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 In 1976, researchers of the Michigan University carried a comprehensive analysis of
the role of astronomy and cosmology in the planning of the temple [5]. The
Michigan researchers suggested in their paper that the architects of Angkor Wat
had encoded calendrical, historical and cosmological themes into the architectural
layout. As shown by [5], the researches demonstrated how Angkor Wat's architects
had established solar alignments between the temple and a nearby mountaintop
shrine that took place during the summer solstice]. In fact, twenty-two possible
alignments had been identified and their relationship to bas relief and Hindu time
cycles examined. The authors in [5] concluded that: 1. The rising sun appears
aligned on equinox and solstice days with the western entrance of Angkor Wat; 2.
The movements of the moon can be observed from a variety of positions within the
temple, and lunar cycles may have been recorded in the three sets of libraries; 3.
The bas reliefs of the third gallery can be understood in relation to the movements
of the sun; 4. The measurements of the temple appear proportional to calendric and
cosmological time cycles. 6

In the central tower, the topmost elevation has external axial dimensions of 189.00
Cambodian cubits east-west, and 176.37 Cambodian cubits north-south, with the
sum of 365.37. This last figure is “perhaps the most outstanding number (in the
Angkow Wat complex), almost the exact length of the solar year” [5,6]. However, as
shown by Subhash Kak in his very interesting work; also the other two figures are
remarkable: they are evidence of Vedic roots for the division of the solar year in
Angkor Wat into two unequal parts. Kak tells that the inequality of the two
dimensions with figures corresponding to the two parts of the year, a fact that the
Michigan researchers were not able to explain, was not a mere accident but based
7
on the ancient Indian astronomical knowledge.

258
A new study of Angkor Wat (pictured) and surrounding temples in Siem Reap has
revealed that many of the temple’s orientations were planned with astrological
alignment in mind.8,9

“heirophany : Giulio Magli, professor of archaeoastronomy at Politecnico di Milano,

used modern technology to test age-old thought in a bid to prove the clear
orientation of buildings to the west was “connected with the temple’s symbolism
and the management of power by the Khmer kings” and went about the task of
verifying with angles and axes what has long been theorised about Cambodia’s
iconic Angkor Wat – that the temples took their cues from the sky.

Using previously unavailable Google Earth satellite data, geographic information

system (GIS) data from the Greater Angkor Project and by reconstructing the
ancient sky with software called Stellarium, he traced the phenomenon of the sun
disappearing vertically behind the temple at equinoxes. He described the
phenomenon as a “heirophany” – a manifestation of the divine – that created a
connection between the temple and the heavens, while island temples built in
barays (water reservoirs) aligned later kings with those who went before in a
symbolic legitimisation of their rule. These buildings have explicit messages
encoded in the astronomical content with the finding that all 31 monuments aligned
east-west, within a margin of 5 degrees, but his research also hinted that another,
peripheral state temple in Cambodia – Preah Khan of Kampong Svay, roughly 100
kilometres east of Angkor in Preah Vihear province – had “a very clear astronomical
solution”, involving not the sun, but the moon.

In his report, Archaeoastronomy in the Khmer heartland, on the Cornell University

Library open-access site arXiv.org, he also dismissed the idea that any of the

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temples functioned as precise “calendars in stone”. Apsara Authority spokesperson
Chau Sun Kerya has further confirmed that these new findings added to past
researchers’ discoveries about the links between the construction of the temples,
astronomy and patterns of the sun showing evidence that on 23 or 24 March, every
year, the sun is exactly above of the central tower of Angkor Wat temple.

What is interesting is that the principles of the Vedas are fully used in a Temple,
which is in Cambodia.It is the Angkor vat Temple. The number 108 represents the
distance from the earth to the sun and the moon in sun and moon diameters,
respectively. The diameter of the Sun is 18 times the diameter of the earth
The distance between the human body and its inner Sun is also 108.

Number 360,taken to represent an year is the number of bones in the Human body
at the time of birth and they get fused into 206 when the Body grows (Satapatha
Brahmana)

The primary Vedic number is three, representing the tripartite division of the
physical world into the earth, the atmosphere, and the
sky and that of the person into the physical body, the pranas, and the inner sky.
Hindu Temples represent the Meru Mountain and Bruhat Samhita lists 56 principles
on this.

The AngkorVat.
The most impressive aspect of the temple representation is that it occurs both at
the level of the part as well as the whole in a recursive fashion, mirroring the Vedic
idea of the microcosmsymbolizes the macrocosm at variouslevels of expressions.
This is done not only in the domain of numbers and directions, but also using
anppropriate mythological themes and historical incidents. Speaking just of
numbers, the various lengths and circumferences of units representing the motion
of the moon may equal 27, 28, 29 (nakshatras or days of the month), 354 (days of
the lunar year), or 360 (tithis of the lunar year). Other lengths represent the solar
year (360, 365, or 366) or larger time cycles. For example, the west-east axis
represents the periods of the yugas. The width of the moat is 439.78 cubit;
1. the distance from the first step of the western entrance gateway to
balustrade wall at the end of causeway is 867.03 cubit; the d istance fromthe
first step of the western entrance gateway to the first step of
2. the central tower is 1,296.07 cubit; and the distance from the first step of
bridge to the geographic center of the temple is 1,734.41 cubit.
3. These correspond to the periods of 432,000; 864,000; 1,296,000; 1,728,000
years for the Kali, Dvapara, Treta, and Kritayuga, respectively.

Sacred Number 108: The Mystic Meaning

Some numbers carry a universal meaning across different cultures and religions.
Many forms of the numeral 108 have made its appearance in various fields of
knowledge, religion and culture. Although the association with its occurrence is
unknown, it is believed that this magic number connects the modern and the
ancient world mysteriously.

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Invoking such numbers or even by just viewing the number activates a deep
subconscious urge for unity. One such number is 108.
For example India, as a diverse country, has defined languages and dialects for
each state, and there are 108 different dance forms in the Indian tradition.
There are many more interesting facts associated with this number. Let us ponder
about the significance of this figure, its representation and importance across
countries.

Secret Society of Hung League

The Hung League is considered as one of the most mysterious and archaic societies
of China. Their rituals take us back to the pre-Buddhist religions.

A group of sacred numbers possessing a mystical significance has been absorbed

into the ritual and statutes of the Hung League.
These number are:
2x9 = 18; 3x7 = 21; 3x12 =36; 2x36 =72; 36+72 = 108; 30x12 = 360
This community followed a ritual of planting 108 plants in a pot and 108 groves of
red bamboo.

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 According to Z. Sitchin, The 12th Planet, a Sumerian king Gudea of the city of
Lagash, built a temple to Ningirsu employing 216,000 workers. His meal usually
consisted in 108 different servings. See Thian Ti Hwui; The Hung-League, or
Heaven-Earth-League, a Secret Society with the Chinese in China and
India Paperback – Import, 26 June 2012,by Gustaaf Schlegel.1866
ed. Rarebooksclub.com

Significance in Vedic Cosmology

The numeral 108, as per the Vedic cosmology, is the basis of creation and it
represents our universe and our existence. Number 1 indicates God
consciousness, 0 implies void and 8 indicates infinity. In fact, ancient Vedic texts of
cosmology state that 108 represents the sacred numerological relationship of the
Earth to the Moon and the Sun. Here is a simple fact to prove the numerological
relationship: Earth’s diameter at the equator is 7926 miles. The diameter of the Sun
is about 108 times which is 865,000. The average or midpoint distance between
Earth and Sun is 93,020,000 miles (again 108 times the sun’s diameter). Similarly,
the Moon’s diameter is 2,180 miles. The average distance from Earth to Moon is
238,800 miles. Again, it is 108 times the Moon’s diameter!
Buddhism in Numbers

The prayer bead or mala of the Tibetan monks consists of 108 beads or stones.
The prayer bead is used to keep the count of the mantras or hymns in their ritual of
meditation. In Buddhism there are 108 types of meditation. The famous Tibetan
work, “Gandjour”, contains 108 volumes of Buddha doctrines. On New Year’s Eve, in
Japan, the bell in Buddhist temples are chimed 108 times to mark the end of an old
year and to welcome the new year. Each ring is believed to represent the 108
earthly temptations that a man is supposed to overcome to attain nirvana or reach
enlightenment.

The 14 th Century Bodnath Stupa, the largest stupa in Kathmandu, Nepal

associated with Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara has a wall whose base is decorated
with 108 images of Buddha and his mantra Om Mani Padme Hum is carved on the

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prayer wheels. The total of the numbers 108 gives us a result of 9. When we
multiply each number by 9 and on summing, we get 9 as the result!

Stupa at LEFT and some of the 108 CARVINGS to the right

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------

9 x 2 = 18 (1 + 8 = 9)
36 x 9 = 324 (3 + 2 + 4 = 9)
285 x 9 = 2565 (2 + 5 + 6 + 5 = 18 = 1 + 8 = 9)
Ancient Vedic sages who dealt with astronomy and mathematics considered this
number as a magic number that is associated with success and perfection.

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What’s So Sacred About the Number 108?- Mathematicians and 108
You may have read of people doing 108 Sun Salutations (Surya Namaskar)
at the time of the spring equinox, or own mala with 108 beads. Here's why
the number is considered so auspicious.
Rae notes that renowned mathematicians of Vedic culture viewed 108 as a number
of the wholeness of existence. This number also connects the Sun, Moon, and Earth:
The average distance of the Sun and the Moon to Earth is 108 times their respective
diameters. Such phenomena have given rise to many examples of ritual
significance.
Mathematicians have also noted that the number 108 has an elegant divisibility and
geometry, producing endless patterns. It also is the hyperfactorial of 3 since it is of
the form, an abundant number, a semiperfect number and a tetranacci number and
in Euclidean space, the interior angles of a regular pentagon measure 108 degrees
each.
The sum of the parts may offer more clues to why the number 108 is sacred. Both 9
and 12 have been said to have spiritual significance in many traditions. 9 times 12
is 108.

Importance in Hinduism and Other Religions

Even in Indian culture, the numeral 108 has immense significance. The Sanskrit
language comprises of 54 letters, representing both genders, the male and the
female and are regarded as the Hindu God Shiva (masculine) and Goddess Shakti
(feminine). When we multiply the letters with the two genders; 54 x 2, gives us the
result as 108.
As per Sri Yantra designs, there are marmas where three lines intersect. And on
the Sri Yantras there 54 such intersections. Again, like the Sanskrit language each
intersection here has a feminine and masculine, i.e. Shiva and Shakti.

Lord Krishna of Hindu mythology is often said to be surrounded by gopis or women.

According to the Hindu Puranas, it is believed that Lord Krishna had 108 women
serving him at any point in time. These Gopis, or milkmaids from the life of young
Krishna - who was a herdsman, are sometimes called his 16,000 wives. This
mythology of Krishna's love with gopis is also described theologically as devotional
worship of Krishna. The gopis risked having a relationship with him. It is also said he
assumed 16,000 forms at the same time to be with all of them for love play.
Another theory relates the Krishna, who plays the flute and the lover of music, and
his 16,000 wives to the 16,000 ragas or musical modes or passions or affections of
the mind in Indian classical music, and their wives - the Raginis (female raga).
The Raginis selected one of these ragas to which to modulate her strains for
affecting and securing the heart of Krishna, the amorous and harmonious deity.
Krishna who was devoted to music received and enjoyed every variety of
modulation, multiplied to the number of 16,000, fancifully personified in the form of
the women derived from Bhauma (a name of Narakasura), a five-stringed musical
instrument.

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108 in Ancient Architecture

Phnom Bakheng is an ancient Hindu temple and represents the sacred Mount Meru.
The temple is dedicated to Lord Shiva and is built in the form of a temple mountain.
Phnom.Bakheng.at.Angkor.

The temple is surrounded by 108 towers. According to an investigation conducted

by Jean Filliozat of the Ecole Francaise, a French expert on Indian cosmology and
astronomy, the structure is on a rectangular base and rises in five levels and has
five main towers as its crown. There are one hundred four smaller towers that are
distributed over the four lower levels. The towers are placed so symmetrically that
only 33 can be seen from the center of any side. 33 is the number of gods who lived
on Mount Meru.

Of the 108 surrounding towers, the central tower represents the axis of the world
while the 108 smaller towers indicate the four lunar phases, with 27 days. The
seven levels signify the seven heavens while each terrace has 12 towers that
represent the 12-year cycle of Jupiter.

Earthly Desires
In Buddhism, there is believed to be defilements, or “earthly desires” that humans
experience. There is said to be 108 of these vices that we go through during our
time on earth. These include experiences like arrogance, obsession, and violence.
Each human experiences these earthly desires as a means to enlightenment. It is

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thought that in order to be free of suffering and attain enlightenment, humans must
be free from all of these earthly desires.

Pithas and Upanishads

Pithas are sacred sites considered to be the seats of the goddess, associated with
different part’s of the diety’s body. These sacred sites are scattered throughout
India, all located near a body of water which is believed to be infused with the
energy of the goddess. The 108 Pithas are important pilgrimage sites for the
members of the Shakti sects of Hinduism.

Pithas were created from an origin myth recounted in the Mahabharata and
the Brahma-purana. The legend involves the Goddess Sati, daughter of Daksa and
wife of Shiva. When Daksa refused to invite Shiva and Sati to a sacrifice, Sati came
to the sacrifice uninvited, and there committed suicide. As a result, Shiva became
enraged, killed Daksa, and destroyed the sacrifice. Carrying the body of Sati on his
shoulder he danced in a way that threatened the cosmos. In order to stop Shiva’s
dance, the God’s caused the body of Sati to disintegrate, causing the parts of her
body fell to earth.
The Upanishads are Vedic Sanskrit texts of Hindu teachings and ideals. The
Upanishadic texts are part of the Shruti literature and are considered to be divine in
origin. Scholars differ in opinion on the number of Upanishads and what constitutes
Upanishads, but many believe there to be 108 of these ancient texts, adding to the
significance of this sacred number.

108 and the Sanskrit Alphabet

The Sanskrit alphabet is also part of why this number is so significant in yoga.
The sanskrit alphabet is comprised of 54 letters. Each letter in the alphabet has
both a masculine (Shiva) and feminine (Shakti) energy. 54 multiplied by these two
energies is 108.

108 Marma Points Cover the Human Body

Marma points are a juncture on the body where two or more types of tissue meet,
yet they are much more than that. Marma points are intersections of the vital life
force and prana, or breath. These points are thought to house the three Ayurvedic
Doshas, Vata, Pitta, and Kapha.
108 of these points cover the human body and the major Marma points correspond
to the seven chakras, or energy centers of the body. Traditionally marma points are
grouped into 3 categories; those on the legs and feet, Sanakha Marma, on the
trunk, Madhayamanga Marma, neck and head, Jatrurdhara Marma.
These points of life force energy throughout the body are yet another reason why
the number 108 is so sacred. 12

During a puja, have you ever chanted a mantra for ten minutes or 25 times?
Probably not! You may recall being told to recite it 108 times. Many Hindus have
some form of 108 in their passwords, in their mobile numbers and license plates.
Companies have made great marketing plans and logos with 108.

But why is 108 viewed as holy? The answer, just like every other answer you will
get from your parents, is that it lies in math and science. Vedic sages, pre-dating

266
modern mathematical formulas, had it all figured out! According to Vedic
cosmology, 108 is the basis of creation, represents the universe and all our
existence.

Hinduism believes that outer cosmology should mirror our inner spirituality because
our ultimate realization is that we are one in the same. It is said that the number
108 units represent the distance between our body and the God within us.
According to Ayurveda, we have 108 marma points (vital points of life forces) in our
body. So, this is why all mantras are chanted 108 times because each chant
represents a journey from our material self towards our highest spiritual self. Each
chant is believed to bring you 1 unit closer to our god within.

108 has significance in meditation as well. There are said to be 108 styles of
meditation. In pranayama, the yogic practice of regulating breath, it is believed that
if an individual can be so calm as to only breathe 108 times in one day,
enlightenment will be achieved. Furthermore, an average person is said to breathe
21,600 times in a 24-hour period. Half, 10,800, are solar energy (breaths during
day), and the other half is lunar energy (breaths during night). 100 multiplied with
108 equals 10,800. Also, in Kriya yoga, the maximum number of repetitions per
session is said to be 108.

Hindus also believe our body contains seven chakras, starting at the top of the head
and ending at the base of the spine. Each chakra is said to be an energy center
within our body. The heart chakra, located at the exact center of the chest, is
associated with transformation and love energy. It is believed that opening this
energy center will lead to joy and compassion. The heart chakra is said to have
108 nadi (energy lines) that converge to form this energy center.

Also, in Hinduism there are 108 Upanishads, the sacred texts of wisdom from
ancient sages. Additionally, in the Sanskrit alphabet, there are 54 letters. Each
letter has a feminine, or Shakti, and masculine, or Shiva, quality. 54 multiplied by 2
equals 108.
These reasons explain why Hindus considered 108 holy. However, other religions
recognize the mystical power of 108 as well. In Buddhism, for example, there are
said to be 108 Earthly desires, 108 lies, and 108 delusions of the mind. This
illustrates that the power of 108 has permeated into Eastern philosophies, but it
does not stop there. In fact, 108 is not exclusive to religion, as it appears in our
natural world.
In astrology, 108 can be noticed with the approximate relationships the Sun, Earth,
and Moon. The diameter of the Sun is 108 times the diameter of Earth. The distance
from the Sun to Earth is 108 times the diameter of the Sun. The distance from the
Earth to Moon is 108 times the diameter of the moon. Lastly, there are 12
astrological houses and 9 planets. 12 multiplied by 9 equals 108. 13

Additionally, 108 is associated with the River Ganga and Stonehenge. River Ganga
spans a longitude of 12 degrees (79 to 91) and latitude of 9 degrees (22 to 31). 12
multiplied by 9 equals 108. Stonehenge’s diameter has been measured to be 108
feet in diameter. 14

267
 REFERENCES
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Updated: 31st July 2018 11:07 PM By Chithra Madhavan

2. Astronomiical Heritage- The Sun Temple at Konark, Dr Mayarani Praharaj, Journal

of the Indian Institute of Architects,2015,Vol 80, Issue 12. See also

3. The Architectural Study of Sun Temples in India: Based on Location,

Construction Material and Spatial Analysis Study Ar. Swarna Junghare Amity
school of architecture and planning Amity University Raipur, Chhattisgarh DOI:
10.29322/IJSRP.11.01.2021.p10935
http://dx.doi.org/10.29322/IJSRP.11.01.2021.p1093 International Journal of
Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 11, Issue 1, January 2021

4. The Architectural Study of Sun Temples in India: Based on Location, Construction

Material and Spatial Analysis Study Ar. Swarna Junghare Amity school of
architecture and planning Amity University Raipur, ChhattisgarhInternational
Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 11, Issue 1, January 2021

5. Solar Alignments of the Planning of Angkor Wat Temple Complex Amelia Carolina
Sparavigna Department of Applied Science and Technology, Politecnico di
Torino, Torino, Italyhttps://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01312473/document

6. Stencel, R., Gifford, F., & Moron, E. (1976). Astronomy and cosmology at Angkor
Wat, Science, 193, 281-287. DOI: 10.1126/science.193.4250.281
7. Solar Alignments of the Planning of Angkor Wat Temple Complex Amelia Carolina
Sparavigna Department of Applied Science and Technology, Politecnico di
Torino, Torino, Italyhttps://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01312473/document

8. Kak, S. (2003). Indian Physics: Outline of Early History. arXiv preprint

physics/0310001.

9. Tech used to prove Angkor’s link to sun,Erin Handley | Publication date 25 April
2016 | 06:19 ICT

10.9. This complex was originally constructed in the early 12th century as a Hindu
temple for the Khmer Empire and gradually transforming into a Buddhist temple.
To illustrate the solar alignments we use SunCalc.net software and
Photographer’s Ephemeris on Google Earth satellite images.
11.10.Solar Alignments of the Planning of Angkor Wat Temple Complex, Amelia
Carolina Sparavigna,PHILICA, Article number 591
2016

12.. https://www.yogajournal.com/yoga-101/the-number-108/
13. https://www.hinduamerican.org/blog/heres-how-the-number-108-binds-us-to-
the-universe/

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14. https://www.look4wardstore.com/blogs/news/sacred-number-108-the-mystic-
meaning----source:look4ward.co.uk

II
THE COSMOLOGY OF ANGKOR
(Featuring gist of brilliant articles by Subhash Kak)
Neither being (sat) nor non-being was as yet. What was concealed?
And where? And in whose protection?…Who really knows?
Who can declare it? Whence was it born, and whence came this creation?
The devas (gods) were born later than this world's creation,
so who knows from where it came into existence? None can know from where
creation has arisen, and whether he has or has not produced it.
He who surveys it in the highest heavens,
He alone knows or perhaps He does not know."

— Rig Veda 10. 129

Connecting the universal with the physical, Angkor Wat, as a moon temple, is a surrealist
impression of the link between the individual and universal worlds. It is an artistic embodiment
of the patterns of destiny; and the geometric and mathematical knowledge employed are a
product of Vedic Astrology and Hindu Cosmology. The cultural significance of the monument
cannot be understated. Angkor Wat is a prime example of traditional Khmer 12th century
building techniques. It is the world's largest temple, a world heritage site and the best preserved
Khmer temple in the Angkor complex. Arising from the dense jungle in Northwest Cambodia to
touch the setting sun over a vast expanse, it is an awe-inspiring vision that captivates the viewer
and prepares the mind for a transcendent experience. The complex layout was designed to mark
the passing of time, as a place of pilgrimage, a path to purification, and a place to contemplate
the meaning of life. It is an expression of grandeur which helped solidify Khmer cultural
dominance over the area. Using the elements and natural order of life to mirror cosmic and
societal ideologies, Angkor Wat`s design speaks to the original questions of our creation and
place in the cosmos.

From its very inception Angkor Wat was legendary. It was built in an estimated 37 years.
Builders today estimate that by current standards, it would take almost 300 years to complete a

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project of this scale. The world heritage site was commissioned sometime between 1100 and
1150 CE, by King Suryavarman II (Shield of the Sun) of the Khmer Empire, after military
victories that united neighboring areas. The immense 5 million tons of sandstone used, was
quarried from one spot 25 miles away. Angkor Wat was built as the Khmer capital and lies 5.5
kilometres north Siem Reap. It was dedicated to the Hindu protector god Vishnu. Workers were
brought in from the surrounding areas, and, as well combination of elephants, coir ropes, pulleys
and bamboo scaffolding were used to ensure the temple would be completed in record time. The
monument and surrounding landscaping are dramatic enough to make a footprint visible from
space. Few written records survive of the people who built it. We aren't even sure about its
original name. The information available from the temple reliefs at Angkor Wat offer the best
available insight into the culture and time period, almost like an art and engineering time capsule
for the 12th century Khmer civilization.

The city of Angkor was a prosperous city of approximately 1,000,000 people. It had a complex
irrigation system, paved roads and beautiful wooden buildings. The kingdom could support a
huge population with surplus bounty. There was an extensive rectangular grid system of canals
carved across the landscape, improving agricultural yields to 2 to 3 times a year.
Communication was an important aspect to the Khmer's regional domination and a sophisticated
network of roads lead from across the kingdom directly to Angkor.

Angkor Wat “was at once the symbolic centre of the nation and the actual centre where secular
and sacred power joined forces,” Eleanor Mannikka writes in her book Angkor: Celestial
Temples of the Khmer Empire. She continues “In the central sanctuary, Vishnu is not only
placed at the latitude of Angkor Wat, he is also placed along the axis of the earth.” She points out
the Khmer knew the earth was round. This was mapped astrologically in the Vedic tradition. The
Vedic religion came from the Indo-Aryans of northern India. It is the predecessor of Hinduism,
the main religion in the Khmer culture. Angkor Wat sits at the centre of the Khmer universe,
marking at least eighteen astronomical alignments. The central spire points perfectly to the sun
on the vernal equinox, or zero point of the Sun's path across the sky. It functions as a calendar.
The solar year divides into four major sections by alignments from inside the entrance.
"as the measurements of solar and lunar time cycles were built into the sacred space of Angkor
Wat, this divine mandate to rule was anchored to consecrated chambers and corridors meant to
perpetuate the king's power and to honor and placate the deities manifest in the heavens above."

Set on an east-west axis, along a straight causeway that extends into the horizon, the structure
was built in very grand terms. The faced oriented structure dictates a precise route for a
processional walk. The building only reveals itself as you progress along the route. One passes
through the adorned post and lintel gopuras located at the cardinal points, to the concentric series
of walls, through the four courtyards lined by cruciform galleries, to the quincunx shaped
sanctuary. Vishnu is thought to reside under the central spire where the vertical axis of the
buildings are centred, know as the sacred cave. Half galleries buttress the temple as Angkorian
architects have yet to discover the true arch. The corbeled arch without mortar was used, which
could not span wide spaces adding to the need for the concentric walls. Some of the blocks are
fastened by mortise and tenon joints.

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The buildings along the route are placed axially according to their hierarchy of importance. This
mirrors the social order of the Hindu demigod-king tradition. The linga and yoni shaped spire
and bases that the temple represents is a rapturous union between male and female evoking
Shatapatha cosmology of the union between the individual and the universal, which is the goal of
Hinduism. The spire is adorned with lotus flowers. Stories state the lotus arose from Vishnu’s
navel, with Brahma the creator at the centre. There are accounts of the world born through a
"Golden Lotus" and Padmakalpa, the Lotus Age in the Padmapurana (678 ce). "Hindu texts
describe that water represents the procreative aspect of the Absolute, and the cosmic lotus, the
generative."
As an artistic representation of the Hindu concept of the cosmos, the moat symbolizes the
oceans. The temple is Mount Meru. The verandas leading to the sanctum are continents. “The
constant upward movement of the building from one gallery to the next represents the spiritual
path of a human being. The final destination is the sanctum sanctorum where one comes face to
face with divinity."
The stone materials used for the Angkor monuments are made from sandstone and laterite. This
was a common choice for Khmer architects for a temple material. It is fairly weather resistant
and easy to work with. "Grey to yellowish-brown sandstone, consisting mainly of quartz,
plagioclase, alkali feldspar, biotite, muscovite and rock fragments, is the main sandstone used for
almost of the monuments in the surrounding area. As for laterite, two types can be distinguished:
porous laterite and pisolitic laterite. Types of laterite consist of the same minerals: kaolinite,
quartz, hematite and goethite. However, the sandstone blocks of Angkor Wat show a
homogeneous magnetic susceptibility despite the large scale. This may suggest that the
sandstone blocks were supplied from one quarry keeping its consistency." According to
metaphysical mythology, sandstone enhances creativity, helps bring people together, promotes
truth, clarity, balance and facilitates energy flow. It removes abrasiveness while encouraging
compassion. Laterite, a soft clay that hardens, was used in the hidden structural parts and for the
outer wall. The surface of laterite is uneven, thus unsuitable for decorative carvings, so it is
dressed with stucco. This stone has a higher concentration of magnetism, because it contains a
high percentage of iron. "Hindus once believed that the use of iron in buildings would spread
epidemics." It is still unlucky today although it was used and worn in magical protective rituals.
Its associated stones are quartz and holey stones such as the lingam. Quartz is also known as the
star stone, while Hematite was the blood stone. All have been ascribed protective properties.
“Aspects of the cosmos are incorporated into the temple by the use of specific forms, sacred
geometry, careful orientation and axial alignments.”

Angkor Wat is built on a grid like subdivided-square mandala pattern. The square shape being a
symbol for the earthly realm, while the circle represents the heavens. Yantric buildings in the
form of mandalas, dated to about 2000 BCE, have been discovered in North Afghanistan that
belong to a period that corresponds to the late stage of the Harappan tradition “Numbers
associated with the gods are important in constructing and interpreting the mandala which
provides link to divine proportions, hence harmony with the cosmos." It is likely that the
astronomical basis of the Stupa was inspired by the Vedic altar that represented the circuit of the
sun. It has been shown elsewhere how this representation of the sun's motion remained common
knowledge and it was used in Angkor Wat."

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In Vedic Astrology the sun's movements are marked against the backdrop of constellations,
which are of unequal distance. The earth, as an imperfect sphere experiences pole shifts every
"Great Year" or processional age which occurs every 2,160 years. According to Graham
Hancock and precise computer mapping, the area around Angkor Wat is part of an “Angkor-
Draco” alignment and is a “symbolic diagram of the universe”. There are several temples that
line up to reflect the early beacon point. When the Rig Vedas were thought to be conceived, the
Pole Star was Draconis, meaning the point at which the Sun returns to has changed since the
beginning of time. Knowing the exact date when the point of the vernal equinox and the sidereal
zodiac meet is knowing the date of the birth of the universe. Angkor Wat marks the passing of
these events and is an excellent place from which to observe the solar system. Perhaps the temple
monks were using Angkor Wat to map the changes in order to help calculate this sacred date.

The Rig Vedas offer insight into the answer with the four ages of man or yugas. These periods
follow the rise and decent of man and last 1,728,000 years; 1,296,000 years; 864,000 years; and
432,000 years respectively. Angkor Wat`s causeway has axial lengths that approximate
extremely closely to 1,728 hat, 1,296 hat, 864 hat, and 432 hat – the yuga lengths scaled down by
1000. The temple dimensions are based on the hat or Cambodian cubit measurement unit. In the
central sanctuary, the sets of steps are approximately 12 hat apart, like the 12 lunar mansions, or
annual months. The length and width of the central tower add up to approximately 91 hat. On
average, there are 91 days between any solstice and the next equinox, or any equinox and the
next solstice. The yugas are represented in the moat water level, and various distances.

As an example of one of the many stunning carved scenes, the continuous series of relief's in the
third gallery take you through the four seasons. Entrance to this space was based on a hierarchy
of importance. On the East wall the creation scene is symbolic of the renewal of spring, the
bright summer, the west has a great battle as the autumn decline, followed by the dormancy or
the lifeless winter. As the sun passes through its annual round, it lights parts of scene. The first
light of the year shines on the creation story of the Churning of the Ocean of Milk and the
creation of the elixir of immortality. At the Fall equinox, the battle of Kurukshtra is hit by the
setting sun. In the dry season, the north gallery is dark, the relief's on the south gallery are lit of
the kingdom of death.

Measuring the impermanence of time, Angkor Wat is a literal and artistic expression of walking
a path to purification toward transmigration of the soul, the cyclical nature of time, and the law
of natural order, cause and effect. Angkor Wat serves as tool for mapping of Vedic destiny and
sacred geometry. It directs us along a path which can deliver us from unhappiness, even if simply
to bask in its splendor. Through hard work and spiritual purification as well as the veneration of
all living creatures can one attain the elixir of immortality or changeless state. It attempts to
convey a message to about the human connection with the infinite. Knowing ones place in the
world both spiritually, materially and in the Khmer kingdom can save a lot of suffering and
increase ones karmic sphere. As an transcendent experience, a place to train the soul for life after
death, a place to increase the prestige of the Khmer Dynasty and home for monks teaching about
the mechanisms of change over time, Angkor Wat has expanded the imagination of visitors and
1
views alike.

Hindu
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The Hindu cosmology, like the Buddhist and Jain cosmology, considers all existence as cyclic.
With its ancient roots, Hindu texts propose and discuss numerous cosmological theories. Hindu
culture accepts this diversity in cosmological ideas and has lacked a single mandatory view point
even in its oldest known Vedic scripture, the Rigveda. Alternate theories include a universe
cyclically created and destroyed by god, or goddess, or no creator at all, or a golden egg or
womb (Hiranyagarbha), or self-created multitude of universes with enormous lengths and time
scales. The Vedic literature includes a number of cosmology speculations, one of which
questions the origin of the cosmos and is called the Nasadiya sukta:
Neither being (sat) nor non-being was as yet. What was concealed?
And where? And in whose protection?…Who really knows?
Who can declare it? Whence was it born, and whence came this creation?
The devas (gods) were born later than this world's creation,
so who knows from where it came into existence? None can know from where
creation has arisen, and whether he has or has not produced it.
He who surveys it in the highest heavens,
He alone knows or perhaps He does not know."

— Rig Veda 10. 129

Time is conceptualized as a cyclic Yuga with trillions of years. In some models, Mount
Meru plays a central role. Beyond its creation, Hindu cosmology posits divergent theories on the
structure of the universe, from being 3 lokas to 12 lokas (worlds) which play a part in its theories
about rebirth, samsara and karma. The complex cosmological speculations found in Hinduism
and other Indian religions, states Bolton, is not unique and are also found in Greek, Roman, Irish
and Babylonian mythologies, where each age becomes more sinful and of suffering.
Philosophy of Cosmology
Cosmology (the study of the physical universe) is a science that, due to both theoretical and
observational developments, has made enormous strides in the past 100 years. It began as a
branch of theoretical physics through Einstein’s 1917 static model of the universe (Einstein
1917) and was developed in its early days particularly through the work of Lemaître (1927). [1] As
recently as 1960, cosmology was widely regarded as a branch of philosophy. It has transitioned
to an extremely active area of mainstream physics and astronomy, particularly due to the
application to the early universe of atomic and nuclear physics, on the one hand, and to a flood of
data coming in from telescopes operating across the entire electromagnetic spectrum on the
other. However, there are two main issues that make the philosophy of cosmology unlike that of
any other science. The first is,

I. The uniqueness of the Universe: there exists only one universe, so there is nothing else
similar to compare it with, and the idea of “Laws of the universe” hardly makes sense.

This means it is the historical science par excellence: it deals with only one unique object that is
the only member of its class that exists physically; indeed there is no non-trivial class of such
objects (except in theoreticians’ minds) precisely for this reason. This issue will recur throughout
this discussion. The second is

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 II. Cosmology deals with the physical situation that is the context in the large for human
existence: the universe has such a nature that our life is possible.

This means that although it is a physical science, it is of particular importance in terms of its
implications for human life. This leads to important issues about the explanatory scope of
cosmology, which we return to at the end.

Cosmology’s Standard Model

Physical cosmology has achieved a consensus Standard Model (SM), based on extending the
local physics governing gravity and the other forces to describe the overall structure of the
universe and its evolution. According to the SM, the universe has evolved from an extremely
high temperature early state, by expanding, cooling, and developing structures at various scales,
such as galaxies and stars. This model is based on bold extrapolations of existing theories—
applying general relativity, for example, at length scales 14 orders of magnitude larger than the
those at which it has been tested—and requires several novel ingredients, such as dark matter and
dark energy. The last few decades have been a golden age of physical cosmology, as the SM has
been developed in rich detail and substantiated by compatibility with a growing body of
observations. But what was the situation of knowledge at the time of The Kings of Angkor who
were DEVRAJAS?

Multiverse

The multiverse response replaces a single, apparently finely-tuned universe within an ensemble
of universes, combined with an appeal to anthropic selection. Suppose that all possible values of
the fundamental constants are realized in individual elements of the ensemble. Many of these
universes will be inhospitable to life. In calculating the probabilities that we observe specific
values of the fundamental constants, we need only consider the subset of universe compatible
with the existence of complexity (or some more specific feature associated with life). If we have
some way of assigning probabilities over the ensemble, we could then calculate the probability
associated with our measured values. These calculations will resolve the fine-tuning puzzles if
they show that we observe typical values for a complex (or life-permitting) universe.

Many cosmologists have argued in favor of a specific version of the multiverse called eternal
inflation (EI).[51] On this view, the rapid expansion hypothesized by inflationary cosmology
continues until arbitrarily late times in some regions, and comes to an end (with a transition to
slower expansion) in others. This leads to a global structure of “pocket” universes embedded
within a larger multiverse.

On this line of thought, the multiverse should be accepted for the same reason we accept many
claims about what we cannot directly observe—namely, as an inevitable consequence of an
established physical theory. It is not clear, however, that EI is inevitable, as not all inflationary
models, arguably including those favored by CMB observations, have the kind of potential that
leads to EI. Accounts of how inflation leads to EI rely on speculative physics. [53] Furthermore, if
inflation does lead to EI, that threatens to undermine the original reasons for accepting inflation
(Smeenk 2014): rather than the predictions regarding the state produced at the end of inflation
taken to provide evidence for inflation, EI seems to imply that, as Guth (2007) put it, in EI
“anything that can happen will happen; in fact, it will happen an infinite number of times”.

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There have been two distinct approaches to recovering some empirical content in this situation.
[54]
First, there may be traces of the early formation of the pocket universes, the remnants of
collisions between neighboring “bubbles”, left on the CMB sky (Aguirre & Johnson 2011).
Detection of a distinctive signature that cannot be explained by other means would provide
evidence for the multiverse. However, there is no expectation that a multiverse theory would
generically predict such traces; for example, if the collision occurs too early the imprint is erased
by subsequent inflationary expansion.

The other approach regards predictions for the fundamental constants, such as Weinberg’s
prediction of ΛΛ discussed above. The process of forming the pocket universes is assumed to
yield variation in the local, low-energy physics in each pocket. Predictions for the values of the
fundamental constants follow from two things: (1) a specification of the probabilities for
different values of the constant over the ensemble, and (2) a treatment of the selection effect
imposed by restricting consideration to pocket universes with observers and then choosing a
“typical” observer.The aim is to obtain probabilistic predictions for what a typical observer
should see in the EI multiverse. Yet there are several challenges to overcome, alongside those
mentioned above related to anthropics. The assumption that the formation of pocket universes
leads to variation in constants is just an assumption, which is not yet justified by a plausible,
well-tested dynamical theory. The most widely discussed challenge in the physics literature is the
“measure problem”: roughly, how to assign “size” to different regions of the multiverse, as a first
step towards assigning probabilities. It is difficult to define a measure because the EI multiverse
is usually taken to be an infinite ensemble, lacking in the kinds of structure used in constructing a
measure. On our view, these unmet challenges undercut the hope that the EI multiverse yields
probabilistic predictions. And without such an account, the multiverse proposal does not have
any testable consequences. If everything happens somewhere in the ensemble, then any potential
observation is compatible with the theory.

Supposing that we grant a successful resolution of all these challenges, the merits of a multiverse
solution of fine-tuning problems could then be evaluated by comparison with competing ideas.
The most widely cited evidence in favor of a multiverse is Weinberg’s prediction for the value
of ΛΛ, discussed above. There are other proposals to explain the observed value of ΛΛ; Wang,
Zhu, and Unruh (2017), for example, treat the quantum vacuum as extremely inhomogeneous,
and argue that resonance among the vacuum fluctuations leads to a small ΛΛ.

The unease many have about multiverse proposals are only reinforced by the liberal appeals to
“infinities” in discussion of the idea. [55] Many have argued, for example, that we must formulate
an account of anthropic reasoning that applies to a truly infinite, rather than merely very large,
universe. Claims that we occupy one of infinitely many possible pocket universes, filled with an
infinity of other observers, rest on an enormous and speculative extrapolation. Such claims fail to
take seriously the concept of infinity, which is not merely a large number. Hilbert (1925 [1983])
emphasized that while infinity is required to complete mathematics, it does not occur anywhere
in the accessible physical universe. One response is to require that infinities in cosmology should
have a restricted use. It may be useful to introduce infinity as part of an explanatory account of
some aspect of cosmology, as is common practice in mathematical models that introduce various
idealizations. Yet this infinity should be eliminable, such that the explanation of the phenomena
remains valid when the idealization is removed. Even for those who regard this demand as too

275
stringent, there certainly needs to be more care in clarifying and justifying claims regarding
infinities.

In sum, interest in the multiverse stems primarily from speculations about the consequences of
inflation for the global structure of the universe. The main points of debate regard whether EI is a
disaster for inflation, undermining the possibility of testing inflation at all, and how much
predictions such as that for ΛΛ lend credence to these speculations. Resolution of these
questions is needed to decide whether the multiverse can be tested in a stronger sense, going
beyond the special cases (such as bubble collisions) that may provide more direct evidence.

Buddhist cosmology

In Buddhism, like other Indian religions, there is no ultimate beginning nor final end to the
universe. It considers all existence as eternal, and believes there is no creator god. [7][8] Buddhism
views the universe as impermanent and always in flux. This cosmology is the foundation of
its Samsara theory, that evolved over time the mechanistic details on how the wheel of mundane
existence works over the endless cycles of rebirth and redeath. In early Buddhist
traditions, Saṃsāra cosmology consisted of five realms through which wheel of existence
recycled. This included hells (niraya), hungry ghosts (pretas), animals (tiryak), humans
(manushya), and gods (devas, heavenly). In latter traditions, this list grew to a list of six realms
of rebirth, adding demi-gods (asuras). The "hungry ghost, heavenly, hellish realms" respectively
formulate the ritual, literary and moral spheres of many contemporary Buddhist traditions.
According to Akira Sadakata, the Buddhist cosmology is far more complex and uses
extraordinarily larger numbers than those found in Vedic and post-Vedic Hindu traditions. It also
shares many ideas and concepts, such as those about Mount Meru. The Buddhist thought holds
that the six cosmological realms are interconnected, and everyone cycles life after life, through
these realms, because of a combination of ignorance, desires and purposeful karma, or ethical
and unethical actions.
Jain
Jain cosmology

Jain cosmology considers the loka, or universe, as an uncreated entity, existing since infinity,
having no beginning or an end. Jain texts describe the shape of the universe as similar to a man
standing with legs apart and arm resting on his waist. This Universe, according to Jainism, is
narrow at the top, broad at the middle and once again becomes broad at the bottom.
Mahāpurāṇa of Ācārya Jinasena is famous for this quote:
Some foolish men declare that a creator made the world. The doctrine that the world was created
is ill advised and should be rejected. If God created the world, where was he before the creation?
If you say he was transcendent then and needed no support, where is he now? How could God
have made this world without any raw material? If you say that he made this first, and then the
world, you are faced with an endless regression.

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 Photo courtesy of www.andybrouwer.co.uk

Background:
One of the most spectacular structures of astronomical significance that has ever been built is the
temple of Angkor Wat in what is now Cambodia. Rarely in history has any culture given rise to a
structure that so elaborately and expansively incorporates its concept of the cosmos. Angkor Wat
stands as a striking and majestic monument in honor of the Universe and our place in it.

Angkor Wat is the most famous temple at Angkor, a former capital of the Khmer empire. It was
built by King Suryavarman II in the 12th century, and is as immense as it is beautiful.
Surrounded by a rectangular moat 1.5 kilometers (0.9 mile) long and 1.3 kilometers (0.8 mile)
wide, the structure itself consists of two rectangular walls enclosing three nested rectangular
galleries that culminate in a central spire surrounded by four smaller towers. The straight lines of
its moat, walls and galleries are oriented along the north-south, east-west directions, and unlike
most temples in the area its entrance faces west, being approached by way of a long bridge that
spans the moat.

The origins of the temple lie in what may be the world's oldest religious text, the Rigveda, one of
the four Veda Samhitas of Hindu literature. This text describes the gods of heaven and earth,
including the earthly god Vishnu, "The Preserver." It is to Vishnu that Angkor Wat is
consecrated, and with more than mere symbolic intent. Hindu temples were built to be earthly
abodes for the gods. The central sanctuary was the most sacred place, directly inline with the
vertical axis of the central spire that provided the connection between the realms of heaven and
Earth. The surrounding architecture of the temple would then mirror Hindu cosmology, being
essentially a mandala in stone—a diagram of the cosmos itself. Furthermore, the Khmer
civilization had by the time of Angkor Wat's construction incorporated the idea that a king
would, after his death, be transmuted into one of the gods. Hence, it was at Angkor Wat that
Suryavarman II, after his death, was believed to reside as Vishnu.

Astronomical.significance:
Astronomy and Hindu cosmology are inseparably entwined at Angkor Wat. Nowhere is this

277
more evident than in the interior colonnade, which is dedicated to a vast and glorious carved
mural, a bas-relief illustrating the gods as well as scenes from the Hindu epic the Mahabharata.
Along the east wall is a 45-meter (150-foot) scene illustrating the "churning of the sea of milk," a
creation myth in which the gods attempt to churn the elixir of immortality out of the milk of
time. The north wall depicts the "day of the gods," along the west wall is a great battle scene
from the Mahabharata, and the south wall portrays the kingdom of Yama, the god of death. It
has been suggested that the choice and arrangement of these scenes was intended to tie in with
the seasons—the creation scene of the east wall is symbolic of the renewal of spring, the "day of
the gods" is summer, the great battle on the west wall may represent the decline of autumn, and
the portrayal of Yama might signify the dormancy, the lifeless time of winter.

The architecture of Angkor Wat also has numerous astronomical aspects beyond the
basic mandala plan that is common to other Hindu temples. As many as eighteen astronomical
alignments have been identified within its walls. To mention but three of them: when standing
just inside the western entrance, the Sun rises over the central tower on the spring (vernal)
equinox; it rises over a distant temple at Prasat Kuk Bangro, 5.5 kilometers (3.4 miles) away, on
the winter solstice; and on the summer solstice it rises over a prominent hill 17.5 kilometers
(10.9 miles) away.

Finally, some researchers have claimed that the very dimensions of many of the structures at
Angkor Wat have astronomical associations. These associations emerge from consideration of
the unit of length that was in use at that time, a unit known as the hat or "Cambodian cubit."
There is some question as to how long a hat was, and indeed its definition may not have been
uniformly applied; but a value of 43.45 centimeters (17.1 inches) for the length of a hat is
suggested by the structures themselves.

Using this value, archaeologists discovered numerous dimensions of the temple that seem to
have astronomical and cosmological significance—for example, the following:

 The dimensions of the highest rectangular level of the temple are 189 hat in the east-west
direction and 176 hat in the north-south direction. Added together these give 365, the
number of days in one year.

 In the central sanctuary, the distances between sets of steps is approximately 12 hat.
There are roughly 12 lunar cycles, or synodic months (from full Moon to full Moon, say
—the basis for our modern month) in one year.

 The length and width of the central tower add up to approximately 91 hat. On average,
there are 91 days between any solstice and the next equinox, or any equinox and the next
solstice.

Because of its orbit around the Earth, the Moon's apparent position in the sky relative to the
background stars will appear to shift from night to night. Since it takes the Moon just over 27
days to complete one orbit (known as its sidereal period), it will during this time appear to move
through 27 successive regions of the sky. In Hindu cosmology, these regions were known as
the naksatras, or lunar mansions. In some contexts there were 27 lunar mansions, while in other

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contexts an additional naksatra containing the star Vega was included, giving 28 lunar
mansions. The central tower at Angkor Wat contains nine inner chambers. If you total the
dimensions of all of these chambers it equals 27 hat in the north-south direction and 28 hat in the
east-west direction, corresponding to the possible number of lunar mansions. Also, the libraries
have lengths measured along their interiors of 16 hat in the east-west direction, and either 12 or
11 hat in the north-south direction, depending upon whether or not the doorways are included.
Added together, these also give either 28 or 27 hat. Finally, the north-south width of the libraries
measured from the exteriors of the walls is again 28 hat. Hindu cosmology recognizes four time
periods, or Yugas, that are represented in the dimensions of the temple:

 The length of the Kali-Yuga, our current time period, is 2 x 60 3 years, or 432 thousand years.
The width of the moat that surrounds the temple,
measured at the water level, is approximately 432 hat.
 The length of the Dv apara-Yuga is 4 x 603 years, or 864 thousand years. The distance from
the entrance to the inner wall is 867 hat.

 The length of the Treta-Yuga is 6 x 603 years, or 1,296 thousand years. The distance from the
entrance to the central tower is 1,296 hat.

 The length of the Krita-Yuga is 8 x 603 years, or 1,728 thousand years. The distance from the
moat bridge to the center of the temple is 1,734 hat.

According to the Sthapatya Veda (the Indian tradition of architecture), the temple and the town should mirror the
cosmos. The temple architecture and the city plan are, therefore, related in their conception. Volwahsen (2001)
has remarked on the continuity in the Indian architectural tradition. The Harappan cities have a grid plan, just as
is recommended in the Vedic manuals. The square shape represents the heavens, with the four directions
representing the cardinal directions as well as the two solstices and the equinoxes of the sun’s orbit.

Although it has long been known that the Angkor Wat temple astronomy isderived from Puran.ic
and Siddhantic ideas, the Vedic roots of this astronomyhave only recently been identified. We
have found the Vedic altar astronomynumbers 21, 78, and 261 in the temple design. The
division of the solar yearinto two unequal halves is explained by the design of theSatapatha
Brahman.aaltar on the asymmetric circuit of the sun. We need a more thorough exami-nation of
the altar numbers in the design to interpret their signicance in thecontext of di
erent architectural units so brilliantly decoded by Mannikka.For example, was there any obvious
in
influence of the Agnicayana ritual on the phased construction of the Angkor Wat temple?The
decoding of the astronomy of Angkor Wat has opened the way for asimilar examination of
medieval and ancient Indian temple complexes, which were built with astronomical observations
.2
in mind

The monument that has been studied most extensively for its cosmological basis is the Angkor Wat temple.
Although it is located in Cambodia, it was built according to the principles of Indian architecture and,
therefore, we will describe it at some length. The connections between Angkor Wat and Vedic astronomy
emerged out of my own work (Kak, 1999 and Millar and Kak, 1999).

The astronomy and cosmology underlying the design of the Angkor Wat temple was extensively researched in
the 1970s and it is well summarized in the book by Eleanor Mannikka (1996). Basically, it was found that the
temple served as a practical observatory where the rising sun was aligned on the equinox and solstice days

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 with the western entrance of the temple, and many sighting lines for seasonally observing the risings of the
sun and the moon were identified.

This paper presents the basis of the Hindu temple design going back to the earliest period. We trace this design
back to the fire altars of the Vedic period which were themselves designed to represent astronomical knowledge
(Kak, 1995, 2000, 2002). An assumed equivalence between the outer and the inner cosmos is central to the
conception of the temple. It is because of this equivalence that numbers such as 108 and 360 are important in the
temple design.

The number 108 represents the distance from the earth to the sun and the moon in sun and moon diameters,
respectively. The diameter of the sun is also 108 times the diameter of the earth, but that fact is not likely to have
been known to the Vedic rishis. This number of dance poses (karanas) given in the Natya Shastra is also 108, as
is the number of beads in a rosary (japamala). The “distance” between the body and the inner sun is also taken to
be 108, and the number of marmas in Ayurveda is 107. The total number of syllables in the Rigveda is taken to
be 432,000, a number related to 108.

The number 360, the number of days in the civil year, is also taken to be the number of bones in the developing
foetus, a number that fuses later into the 206 bones of the adult. The centrality of this number in Vedic ritual is
stressed in the Shatapatha Brahmana.

The primary Vedic number is three, representing the tripartite division of the physical world into the earth, the
atmosphere, and the sky and that of the person into the physical body, the pranas, and the inner sky.

The Hindu temple also represents the Meru mountain, the navel of the earth. The Brihat Samhita 56 lists the
many design requirements that the temple building must satisfy. For example, it says “the height of the temple
should be double its width, and the height of the foundation above the ground with the steps equal to a third of
this height. The sanctum sanctorum should be half the width of the temple” and so on. It also lists twenty types
.3
of temples that range from one to twelve storeys in height

Angkor Wat, the front side of the main complex (Bjørn Christian Tørrissen/Wikimedia Commons)
Snapshot
 The great Visnu temple at Angkor Wat in north-central Kampuchea (Cambodia) is known to
have been built according to an astronomical plan.
The astronomy of Angkor Wat has the lesson that the medieval and ancient Indian temple
complexes should be examined for their astronomical bases.
The great Visnu temple of Angkor Wat was built by the Khmer Emperor Suryavarman II, who
reigned during AD 1113-50. This temple was one of the many temples built from AD 879-1191,

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when the Khmer civilisation was at the height of its power. The Visnu temple has been called
one of humankind’s most impressive and enduring architectural achievements.
More than 20 years ago, Science carried a comprehensive analysis by Stencel, Gifford and
Morón (SGM) of the astronomy and cosmology underlying the design of this temple. The
authors concluded that it served as a practical observatory where the rising sun was aligned on
the equinox and solstice days with the western entrance of the temple, and they identified 22
sighting lines for seasonally observing the risings of the sun and the moon. Using a survey by
Nafilyan and converting the figures to the Cambodian cubit or hat (0.435 m), SGM demonstrated
that certain measurements of the temple record calendric and cosmological time cycles.
In addition, SGM showed that the west-east axis represents the periods of the yugas. The width
of the moat is 439.78 hat; the distance from the first step of the western entrance gateway to
balustrade wall at the end of causeway is 867.03 hat; the distance from the first step of the
western entrance gateway to the first step of the central tower is 1,296.07 hat; and the distance
from the first step of bridge to the geographic center of the temple is 1,734.41 hat. These
correspond to the periods of 4,32,000, 864,000, 1,296,000, 1,728,000 years for the Kali,
Dvapara, Treta, and Krta yuga, respectively. SGM suggest that the very slight discrepancy in the
equations might be due to human error or erosion or sinking of the structure.
In the central tower, the topmost elevation has external axial dimensions of 189.00 hat east-west,
and 176.37 hat north-south, with the sum of 365.37. In the words of SGM, this is “perhaps the
most outstanding number” in the complex, “almost the exact length of the solar year.” But SGM
were not able to explain the inequality of the two halves, which is the problem that we take up in
this paper. We will show that these numbers are old Satapatha Brahmana numbers for the
asymmetric motion of the sun.

The Historical Background of Angkor Wat

The kings of the Khmer empire ruled over a vast domain that reached from what is now southern
Vietnam to Yunan, China and from Vietnam westward to the Bay of Bengal. The structures one
sees at Angkor today, more than 100 temples in all, are the surviving religious remains of a
grand social and administrative metropolis whose other buildings - palaces, public buildings, and
houses - were all built of wood and are long since decayed and gone. As in most parts of India,
where wood was plentiful, only the gods had the right to live in houses of stone or brick; the
sovereigns and the common folk lived in pavilions and houses of wood.
Over the half-millenia of Khmer rule, the city of Angkor became a great pilgrimage destination
because of the notion of Devaraja, which has been explained by Lokesh Chandra as a coronation
icon. Jayavarman II (802-850) was the first to use this royal icon. According to Lokesh Chandra,
Devaraja means ‘King of the Gods’ and not ‘God-King’. He is Indra and refers to the highly
efficacious aindra mahabhiseka of the Rgvedic rajasuya tradition as elaborated in the
Aitareyabrahmana. It was not a simple but a great coronation, a mahabhiseka. It was of
extraordinary significance that Jayavarman II performed a Rgvedic rite, which lent him
charismatic authority.

The increasingly larger temples built by the Khmer kings continued to function as the locus of
the devotion to the Devaraja, and were at the same time earthly and symbolic representations of
mythical Mt Meru, the cosmological home of the Hindu gods and the axis of the world-system.
The symbol of the king’s divine authority was the sign (linga) of Siva within the temple’s inner
sanctuary, which represented both the axes of physical and the psychological worlds. The

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worship of Siva and Visnu separately, and together as Harihara, had been popular for
considerable time in southeast Asia; Jayavarman’s chief innovation was to use ancient Vedic
mahabhiseka to define the symbol of government. To quote Lokesh Chandra further,
The icon used by Jayavarman II for his aindra mahabhiseka, his Devaraja = Indra (icon),
became the symbol of the Cambodian state, as the sacred and secular sovereignty denoted by
Prajapatısvara/Brahma, as the continuity of the vital flow of the universal (jagat) into the stability
of the terrestrial kingdom (raja = rajya). As the founder of the new Kambuja state, he contributed
a national palladium under its Cambodian appellation kamraten jagat ta raja/rajya. Whenever the
capital was transferred by his successors, it was taken to the new nagara, for it had to be
constantly in the capital.
Angkor Wat is the supreme masterpiece of Khmer art. The descriptions of the temple fall far
short of communicating the great size, the perfect proportions and the astoundingly beautiful
sculpture that everywhere presents itself to the viewer.
As an aside, it should be mentioned that some European scholars tended to date Angkor Wat as
being after the fourteenth century. The principal reason was that some decorative motifs at
Angkor Wat show a striking resemblance to certain motifs of the Italian Renaissance. This
argument, which is similar to the one used in dating Indian mathematical texts vis-a-vis Greek
texts, has been proven to be wrong. In the words of Cœdes, “If there is some connexion between
the twelfth-century art of the Khmers, the direct heirs to the previous centuries, and the art of the
Renaissance, it must have been due to a reverse process, that is to the importation of oriental
objects into Europe.”

Astronomy of Altars and Temples

To understand the astronomical aspects of Angkor Wat, it is necessary to begin with the Indian
traditions of altar and temple design on which it is based. And since the Angkor Wat ritual
hearkened to the Vedic past, it stands to reason that its astronomy was also connected to the
Vedic astronomical tradition.
In a series of publications I have shown that the Vedic altars had an astronomical basis. In the
basic scheme, the circle represented the earth and the square represented the heavens or the deity.
But the altar or the temple, as a representation of the dynamism of the universe, required a
breaking of the symmetry of the square. As seen clearly in the agnicayana and other altar
constructions, this was done in a variety of ways. Although the main altar might be square or its
derivative, the overall sacred area was taken to be a departure from this shape. In particular, the
temples to the goddess were drawn on a rectangular plan. In the introduction to the Silpa
Prakasa, a ninth-twelfth century Orissan temple architecture text, Alice Boner writes, “[the Devı
temples] represent the creative expanding forces, and therefore could not be logically be
represented by a square, which is an eminently static form. While the immanent supreme
principle is represented by the number ONE, the first stir of creation initiates duality, which is
the number TWO, and is the producer of THREE and FOUR and all subsequent numbers upto
the infinite.” The dynamism is expressed by a doubling of the square to a rectangle or the ratio
1:2, where the garbhagrha is now built in the geometrical centre. For a three-dimensional
structure, the basic symmetry-breaking ratio is 1:2:4, which can be continued further to another
doubling.

The constructions of the Harappan period (2,600-1,900 BC) appear to be according to the same
principles. The dynamic ratio of 1:2:4 is the most commonly encountered size of rooms of

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houses, in the overall plan of houses and the construction of large public buildings. This ratio is
also reflected in the overall plan of the large walled sector at Mohenjo Daro called the citadel
mound. It is even the most commonly encountered brick size.
There is evidence of temple structures in the Harappan period in addition to iconography that
recalls the goddess. Structures dating to 2000 BC, built in the design of yantras, have been
unearthed in northern Afghanistan. There is ample evidence for a continuity in the religious and
artistic tradition of India from the Harappan times, if not earlier. These ideas and the
astronomical basis continued in the architecture of the temples of the classical age. Kramrisch
has argued that the number 25,920, the number of years in the precessional period of the earth, is
also reflected in the plan of the temple.
According to the art-historian Alice Boner,

[T]he temple must, in its space-directions, be established in relation to the motion of the
heavenly bodies. But in as much as it incorporates in a single synthesis the unequal courses
of the sun, the moon and the planets, it also symbolises all recurrent time sequences: the
day, the month, the year and the wider cycles marked by the recurrence of a complete cycle
of eclipses, when the sun and the moon are readjusted in their original positions, anew
cycle of creation begins.

It is clear then that the Hindu temple is a conception of the astronomical frame of the universe. In
this conception, it serves the same purpose as the Vedic altar, which served to express the
motions of the sun and the moon. The progressive complexity of the classical temple was
inevitable given an attempt to bring in the cycles of the planets and other ideas of the yugas into
the scheme.

A text like the Silpa Prakasa would be expected to express the principles of temple construction
of the times that led to the Angkor Wat temple. Given the prominence to the yuga periods in
Angkor Wat and a variety of other evidence, it is clear that there is a continuity between the
Vedic and Puranic astronomy and cosmology and the design of Angkor Wat.

Solar and lunar measurements

Some of the solar and lunar numbers that show up in the design of the Angkor Wat temple are
the number of naksatras, the number of months in the year, the days in the lunar month, the days
of the solar month, and so so. Lunar observations appear to have been made from the causeway.
SGM list 22 alignments in their paper, these could have been used to track not just the solar and
lunar motions but also planetary motions.
The division of the year into the two halves: 189 and 176.37 has puzzled SGM. But precisely the
same division is described in the Satapatha Brahmana. In layer 5 of the altar described in the
Satapatha, a division of the year into the two halves in the proportion 15:14 is given. This
proportion corresponds to the numbers 189 and 176.4, which are just the numbers used at
Angkor Wat.

Consider the physics behind the asymmetry in the sun’s orbit. The period from the autumnal
equinox to the vernal equinox is smaller than the opposite circuit. The interval between
successive perihelia, the anomalistic year, is 365.25964 days, which is 0.01845 days longer than
the tropical year on which our calendar is based. In 1,000 calendar years, the date of the

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perihelion advances about 18 days. The perihelion was roughly on 18 December during the time
of the construction of Angkor Wat; and it was on 27 October during early second millennium
BC, the most likely period of the composition of the Satapatha Brahmana. In all these cases, the
perihelion occurs during the autumn/winter period, and so by Kepler’s 2nd law we know that the
speed of the sun in its orbit around the earth is greater during the months of autumn and winter
than in spring and summer.
During the time of the Satapatha Brahmana, the apogee was about midway through the spring
season, which was then somewhat more than 94 days. The extra brick in the spring quadrant may
symbolically reflect the discovery that this quarter had more days in it, a discovery made at a
time when a satisfactory formula had not yet been developed for the progress of the sun on the
ecliptic.
It is possible that the period from the spring equinox to the fall equinox was taken to be about
189 days by doubling the period of the spring season; 176 days became the period of the reverse
circuit.
Why not assume that there was no more to these numbers than a division into the proportions
15:14 derived from some numerological considerations? First, we have the evidence from
the Satapatha Brahmana that expressly informs us that the count of days from the winter to the
summer solstice was different, and shorter, than the count in the reverse order. Second, the altar
design is explicitly about the sun’s circuit around the earth and so the proportion of 15:14 must
be converted into the appropriate count with respect to the length of the year. Furthermore, the
many astronomical alignments of the Angkor Wat impress on us the fairly elaborate system of
naked-eye observations that were the basis of the temple astronomy.
But since precisely the same numbers were used in Angkor Wat as were mentioned much earlier
in the Satapatha Brahmana, one would presume that these numbers were used as a part of
ancient sacred lore. We see the count between the solstices has been changing much faster than
the count between the equinoxes because the perigee has been, in the past two thousand years,
somewhere between the autumn and the winter months. Because of its relative constancy, the
count between the equinoxes became one of the primary ‘constants’ of Vedic/Puranic astronomy.
The equinoctial half-years are currently about 186 and 179, respectively, and were not much
different when Angkor Wat temple was constructed. Given that the length of the year was known
to considerable precision, there is no reason to assume that these counts were not known. But it
appears that a ‘normative’ division according to the ancient proportion was used.
As it was known that the solar year was about 365.25 days, the old proportion of 15:14 would
give the distribution 188.92 and 176.33, and that is very much the Angkor Wat numbers of 189
and 176.37 within human error. In other words, the choice of these ‘constants’ may have been
determined by the use of the ancient proportion of 15:14.
Conclusions
It has long been known that the Angkor Wat temple astronomy is derived from Puranic and
Siddhantic ideas. Here we present evidence that takes us to the Vedic roots for the division of the
solar year in Angkor Wat into two unequal halves. This division is across the equinoxes and that
number has not changed very much during the passage of time from the Brahmanas to the
construction of the Angkor Wat temple, so it is not surprising that it figures so prominently in the
astronomy. It also appears that the count of 189 days may have been obtained by doubling the
measured period for the spring season.

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The astronomy of Angkor Wat has the lesson that the medieval and ancient Indian temple
complexes, which were also built with basic astronomical observations in mind, should be
examined for their astronomical bases.

The Khmer temple was designed as a microcosm of the Hindu cosmological universe.
Moving from the temple’s entrance to the sanctuary at its center, the visitor undergoes a symbolic
three-staged journey to salvation through enlightenment.
Each of the steps are laid out in the exhibit at right.

Stage 1: Moat as Cosmic Sea

The outermost boundary of a Khmer temple was often surrounded by a moat, a body of water
symbolic of the Cosmic Sea (blue highlights above). For Hindus, the Cosmic Sea is the source of
creative energy and life, the starting point for the journey toward salvation.The temple visitor
begins his journey by crossing the sea on causeways lined with serpents, beasts similarly
intimately associated with both Hindu and Khmer myths of creation (we explore the serpent in
detail in our guidebook to Angkor).
Stage 2: Enclosure Walls as Sacred Mountain Ranges

285
Continuing on his way to the center of the temple, the visitor passes through a series of massive
enclosure walls; these walls recreate sacred mountain ranges, symbolic of obstacles that must be
overcome on the path to enlightenment (green highlights in Fig. 1). Monumental tower
gateways, called gopurams, grant the visitor passage through the walls, each successive one
revealing a more sacred area, farther removed from the outside world.
The combination of concentric enclosure walls with large gateways was derived directly from
South Indian Hindu architectural precedent. Enclosure walls make their first appearance very
early in the Khmer building tradition — at the late 9th century pre-Angkor site of Roluos in the
temples of Preah Ko, Bakong and Lolei — and are a constant feature in all subsequent temples.

Stage 3: Five Sanctuary Towers as Mount Meru

At the center of the temple stand sanctuaries with tower superstructures (red highlights
above).
 The mountain residence of the gods. Under Hindu cosmology, the gods have always
been associated with mountains. The sanctuary’s form, dominated by its large tower,
recreates the appearance of the gods’ mountaintop residence, Mount Meru. The mountaintop
residence of the gods carried particular symbolic resonance for the Khmer people.
 God’s cave. The sanctuary proper, located directly under the tower, is where an image of
the deity resides (see exhibit at right). Its dark interior is designed to represent the cave into
which god descends from his mountain home and becomes accessible to human beings.
 The sacred intersection. At the Hindu temple’s sanctuary, the worlds of the divine and
living connect: the god’s vertical axis (mountaintop to cave) intersects with the visitor’s
horizontal axis (temple entrance to cave). The entire universe emanates from this
intersection, as unity with god is the goal of earthly existence. In Hinduism, god is believed
to temporarily physically inhabit his representation in the sanctuary; the Hindu temple is
arranged to enable the direct devotee-to-deity interaction that necessarily follows. Unlike
other faiths, there is no religious intermediary and no abstraction; god is manifest before the
devotee’s eyes, a profound encounter.

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It is here, among the peaks of Mount Meru, that the visitor’s symbolic journey ends in nirvana:
the pairs of opposites characteristic of worldly existence (e.g., good versus bad, right versus
wrong) fuse into a single infinite everythingness beyond space and time.

“Although it has long been known that the Angkor Wat temple astronomy is derived from
Pur¯an. ic and Siddh¯antic ideas, the Vedic roots of this astronomy have only recently been
identified. We have found the Vedic altar astronomy numbers 21, 78, and 261 in the temple
design. The division of the solar year into two unequal halves is explained by the design of
the Satapatha Br¯ ´ ahman. a altar on the asymmetric circuit of the sun. We need a more
thorough examination of the altar numbers in the design to interpret their significance in
the context of different architectural units so brilliantly decoded by Mannikka. For example,
was there any obvious influence of the Agnicayana ritual on the phased construction of the
Angkor Wat temple? The decoding of the astronomy of Angkor Wat has opened the way for
a similar examination of medieval and ancient Indian temple complexes, which 13 were
.5
also built with basic astronomical observations in minds”

Discovery Of India’s ‘Oldest Observatory’ Reconnects Us To Our Ancient Sacred

Culture
byAravindan Neelakandan-Dec 31, 2016

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Archaeologists this year discovered what is perhaps India’s only megalithic site, at Mudumal in
Telangana.This discovery is of great significance for India as it uncovers a dimension of our
culture that is now unfortunately forgotten.

Of all the discoveries made in 2016, there is one among the few that stood out. It is the discovery by a
team of Indian archeologists in a remote village in the newest state of India – a place that should be
considered ‘the oldest observatory’ in the Indian region. The site is a 7,000 years Before Present
(BP) megalithic site in Mudumal village in Telangana, India. In south-Indian languages, mudumal means
ancient hill.

The discovery in Mudumal, Telangana, India

Here, the archeologists have discovered “a depiction of a star constellation”, perhaps only one of
its kind discovered in a megalithic structure in India. The megalithic site itself is just one of
several with 80 large menhirs (3.5-4m) and about 2,000 alignment stones, (30-60cm), spread
over an area of 80 acres. Such a large concentration and arrangement of megalithic structures in
such a small area is in itself a rarity. The central part of the entire site is the most densely
populated.

The findings related to astronomy are especially fascinating. There is a cup-mark depiction of
Ursa Major (Saptarishi) of the northern skies. Another feature is the arrangement of 30 cup-
marks that seems to imitate the stellar configuration of the night skies. Also discovered is an
imaginary line drawn from the upper two stars (Kratu and Pulaha) in megalithic imitation of
Saptarishi pointed to the Pole Star (Dhruva). The findings await further confirmation, though the
initial scholarly responses appear positive.

Meanwhile, almost 7,800km away in Australia, an astronomer at Monash University, Duane

Hamacher, who is studying the Wurdi Youang stone arrangement – an aboriginal sacred site – is
coming to a conclusion similar to that of Indian astronomers. These stone arrangements were
made in the past for the sake of astronomical observations.
The stone arrangement is made up of about a hundred basalt stones. Arranged like an incomplete
egg, the key stones in the arrangement are aligned to mark the solstice and equinox sunsets.
Hamacher’s in-depth and ongoing study of aboriginal astronomy and other knowledge systems
has made him alert to the biases in academia and media with respect to his findings. “Some
academics have referred to this stone arrangement here as Australia's version of the Stonehenge,”
he points out; however, he says, “The question we might have to ask is, is Stonehenge Britain's
version of Wurdi Youang? Because this could be much, much older.”

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The archeo-astronomical discovery has other ramifications too. It challenges the colonial myth,
which is still the dominant historical narrative, that the aborigines were nomads. The stones are
estimated by geologists to be almost 11,000 BP. If such structures were created by people with
knowledge of astronomy, they were more sedentary than they were nomads, and that might offer
a clue to the origin of agriculture as well.

Science writer Ray Norris writes about “the remarkable similarity between Aboriginal stories
about stars and those of the Ancient Greeks” in his recent article for the New Scientist ('Written
in the Stars'). The Greek and Hindu mythological parallels have already been well-established.
So, perhaps, the proposal of British geneticist and author Stephen Oppenheimer of a common
origin for mythologies in Southeast Asian and Oceanic regions needs a serious relook.

Australian aboriginal observatory

Of course, solstices and equinoxes have been celebrated the world over. And megalithic
structures and indigenous cultures have created sacred spaces based on these two times of the
year. In the Petrified Forest National Park in Navajo and Apache counties of Arizona, the United
States, during summer solstice, a sunbeam is projected onto a sacred rock, which then travels
down to the centre of the spiral.
In England, there is the famed Stonehenge. This, too, was once a pagan ritual centre. Famous
physicist, polymath and a somewhat controversial figure Sir Fred Hoyle was also a Stonehenge
expert. He conjectured that this stone structure was constructed with astronomical knowledge,
and was used to predict solar and lunar eclipses (On Stonehenge, 1977). Eclipse rituals were
perhaps performed here. Archeologist Aubrey Burl, who had spent a lifetime studying stone
circles, also thinks that these structures have religious significance related to lunar circles.

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Summer solstice ritual petroglyph in Arizona
The discovery of an implicit order in the immense celestial circles should have filled the human
mind with awe, which would have become the womb for all artistic and scientific achievements
of humanity. Hoyle points out that the eighteenth-century poet and painter William Blake
seemed to have intuitively grasped this connection when he portrayed the Stonehenge with a
lunar eclipse and three figures whom he identified as Bacon, Newton and Locke, in the drawing
for his poem ‘Jerusalem’.

William Blake: Stonehenge, lunar eclipse and three figures

Even in Mecca, the famous Kaaba stone was said to have been surrounded by 360 stone deities
arranged in a circle, before the sword of Islam destroyed those shrines. Perhaps there too existed
a cultural continuity from megalithic astronomical spirituality which was destroyed by the
monotheistic zeal of Muhammad.
Back in India, solstices and equinoxes have been embedded in the living culture, and the roots
perhaps would have been embedded in the megalithic astronomical substratum. Even today,
there are scores of centuries-old temples where the first rays of the solstice sun strike the interior
shrine.

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A detailed study of the famous Gavi Gangadhareshwara Temple in Karnataka, where the sun
rays touch the Shiva Linga on Makara Sankranthi, was taken up by the astronomers of
Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium, Bengaluru. They discovered that it was a unique temple which
incorporated a marking for both the solstices. They studied a painting of the temple dated 1792,
which showed that “the passage of the sunlight into the cave was probably intended for marking
winter solstice”. And the new construction made in the last two centuries had actually disrupted
the way sunlight interacted with this cave temple as originally intended.

Gavi Gangadhareshwara temple: solstice alignment

In Tamil Nadu, there are many such temples which await a proper study.
- In the southern district of Tirunelveli, at Srivaikuntam, is a Vishnu temple. On the fifth and
sixth days of the first month of the Tamil calendar (during the period of spring equinox), the
local legend says that the sun arrives here to worship Vishnu. On those days, the morning sun
rays directly touch the murthi placed in the sanctum.
- At the Nageshwar temple in the famous temple town of Kumbakonam, starting on the eleventh
day of the first month of the Tamil calendar, the sun rays directly touch the linga in the sanctum
of the temple for three days.
- At the Nelli Vananageshwar temple in Tanjore district, during the seventh month of the Tamil
Calendar (aligning with the autumnal equinox period), the sun is said to pray to the deity for
seven days.
In Trivandrum, Kerala, one can see inside, through the doors of the gopuram of the temple, a
dramatic slow descent of the autumnal equinox sun.

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Autumnal solstice: Padmanabhaswamy Temple, Thiruvananthapuram

There is a strong possibility that while the shrines and temples were later additions, the original
sanctum deity – usually a swayambhu – could have been an astronomically-aligned sacred stone
that has come to us from the megalithic times. Perhaps only in Indian culture have these
elements been preserved in the subsequent temple architecture and the mythologies.
Mythologies too may have encoded the continuity of the ancient megalithic astronomical
traditions. Samba Purana speaks of Samba, the son of Krishna, through the bear clan leader
Jambavan as the one who built three temples for the sun in India; Konark was built for the
morning sun and in eastern India; the Modhera temple in Gujarat, which was built for the
evening sun and situated along the western coast of India; Multan temple (now in Pakistan) for
the afternoon sun. Though Samba Purana is a later-day mythology, the sun temples themselves
should have been older. For example, even a Greek account of Alexander’s time mentions a
magnificent sun temple in Taxila (which is now in Pakistan). We don’t know if these temples
were aligned to the movement of the sun on a pan-Indian scale.

The sun raises exactly on the peak of the main Angkor Temple. This only
happens twice a year, at the so called equinox – time of the year when the sun
crosses the plane of the earth's equator and day and night are of equal length.

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Pan-Indian sun temples attributed to Samban, the bear-clan son of Krishna
Samba Purana also speaks of bringing Maga Brahmins from Mithra Desa, meaning the cross-
fertilisation of the Mithra tradition, then flourishing in Persia, with Indic sun veneration. Persian
Mithra tradition itself could have branched from the Vedic sun worship, and we do know that the
sun mythology embedded in Mithra worship ultimately was carried by Romans to the West,
where it enriched the solar Jesus myth, whose birth and resurrection would align with winter
solstice and spring equinox respectively.
The seventh-century Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang, or Hsüan-tsang, also mentions the well-
established sun temple at Multan which, today, is utterly destroyed to a pile of stones and in
quite a degraded condition. Hsüan-tsang’s description speaks of “the image of the Sun cast in
yellow gold and ornamented with rare gems”. Though himself a Buddhist, he felt its “divine
insight” and “its spiritual powers made lain to all”. Then, he describes women playing music and
of constant royal patronage. The temple was also a centre for compassion. He writes:

They have founded a home of mercy (happiness), in which they provide food and drink, and medicines
for the poor and sick, affording succour and sustenance. Men from all countries come here to offer up
their prayers; there are always some thousands doing so. On the four sides of the Temple are tanks with
flowering groves, where one can wander about without restraint.

Today, all that remains of this grand multifaceted sun temple is a heap of stones – destroyed by
Islamists repeatedly. Early Islamic invaders destroyed most of the temple and kept the sanctum
just to blackmail the Hindu confederacy to not attack their base. They would threaten to destroy

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this temple sanctum if Hindu kings invaded the aggressors. However, they placed a skinned cow
hide over the deity to underline the humiliation.

Martanda Temple, Kashmir

In Kashmir, where yet another magnificent sun temple was present, archeo-astronomical studies
have revealed an impressively constant human fascination with celestial events and their
attempts to record it. Naseer Iqbal et al of the University of Kashmir investigated a rock carving
of multiple concentric circles in Bomai Sopore (Baramullah) as the recording of “a meteorite
impact that occurred sometime between 40,000 BP and 6,000 BP”.
Another Neolithic hunting scene depicted at the site of Burzaham (Srinagar, Kashmir) might
have been a sky map depiction of “the prominent constellations and the moon on the night when
a supernova was observed”. The Martand sun temple built by Lalitaditya in Kashmir in eighth
century CE, which in turn was built as an improvement over on an earlier existing structure,
could be the culmination of a movement that dated back to upper Palaeolithic times in Kashmir.
Of all cultures around the world, India alone is unique today in preserving, nourishing and
maintaining the archeo-astronomy-based sacred culture embedded in the mythology, temple
architecture and, perhaps, even town planning. The discovery in Mudumal of the oldest
megalithic observatory, thus, is a discovery of great importance in uncovering a dimension of our
culture that we have neglected in the two centuries of colonisation and the resulting mindset.

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With the vast democratisation of the tools of knowledge and decentralised digital knowledge
dissemination, time has come for us to view our temples and mythologies with a new perspective
6
of archaeo-astronomy and look ahead to the discoveries that await us in the future.

SUNRISE AT ANGKOR WAT DURING THE EQUINOX IN

C A M B O D I A - INGAJANUARY 4, 2013

“Quest for the Lost civilization”, by Graham Hancock, is a fascinating documentary about the
world’s ancient monuments. By the minute 29:00 of the video you can see the amazing scene of
a very special sunrise at Angkor. The sun raises exactly on the peak of the main Angkor Temple.
This only happens twice a year, at the so called equinox – time of the year when the sun crosses the plane
of the earth’s equator and day and night are of equal length. It is hard to believe how people were able to
build up such amazing events already in ancient times.

Connecting the earth with the sky at Angkor

Archaeologist believe during ancient times kings wanted to connect the earth with the sky. Hence they
used to integrate sky events to temples, not just at Angkor but all over the world. The equinox sunrise at
Angkor Wat is only one of those.

Exciting facts surrounding Angkor Wat

Researchers have found that the main route to Angkor Wat temple differs by three quarters of a degree
from the east-west axis to the north. According to the precession of the earth’s axis, the North Pole is not
fixed but moves like a spiral. This happens extremely slowly. Around 72 years for each degree. It takes
about 26,000 years for a complete revolution.

Multiplying the precession of the earth’s axis – the aforementioned three quarters of a degree – with the
number 72 results in the number 54. The number 54 is more frequent in Angkor Park. For example, the

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four-faced towers at the Bayon Temple or the guards in front of the South Gate of the city of Angkor
Thom.

The Equinox in Cambodia

In Cambodia, this astronomical event happens during Spring (around 20th of March), and during Autumn
(around 23rd of September). Dates are:

Primary equinox

20.03.2017 um 17:29 Uhr

20.03.2018 um 23:15 Uhr
21.03.2019 um 04:58 Uhr
20.03.2020 um 10:50 Uhr

Secondary equinox

22.09.2017 um 04:02 Uhr

23.09.2018 um 09:54 Uhr
23.09.2019 um 17:50 Uhr
22.09.2020 um 21:31 Uhr

REFERENCES
1. https://akellsmystic.wixsite.com/sojourner/single-post/2018/01/25/Angkor-Wat%E2%80%99s-
Cosmology#:~:text=Connecting%20the%20universal%20with%20the,the%20individual%20and
%20universal%20worlds.&text=Angkor%20Wat%20is%20a%20prime,Khmer%2012th%20century
%20building%20techniques.

2 Time, Space, and Astronomy in Angkor Wat, 2002.Subhash Kak.. Available from:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2889330_Time_Space_and_Astronomy_in_Angkor_Wat
[accessed Jan 18 2021].

3.How The Sublime Vishnu Temple At Angkor Wat Is An Expression Of Vedic Astronomy
By Subhash Kak-Oct 15, 2016 05:31 PM]

4 https://www.approachguides.com/guide/cambodia-temples-of-angkor/
Astronomy and Cosmology at Angkor Wat
By Robert Stencel, Fred Gifford, Eleanor Morón,Science 23 Jul 1976:
Vol. 193, Issue 4250, pp. 281-287https://science.sciencemag.org/content/193/4250/281

5. Time, Space, and Astronomy in Angkor Wat Subhash Kak Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
Louisiana State University Baton Rouge, LA 70803-5901, USA FAX: 225.388.5200; Email: [email protected] August
6, 2001

6. https://swarajyamag.com/culture/discovery-of-indias-oldest-observatory-reconnects-us-to-our-
ancient-sacred-culturehttps://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/ang3.pdf

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 III
9 Planets or 9 GRAHA in ANGKOR Frescos
Dr Uday Dokras, PhD Stockholm

NTRODUCTION: Ancient Indian scholars extensively studied the stars

and other celestial bodies in the never-ending spatial sky. This
thorough study of astronomy and astrology eventually created the
the nine planets, influence the lives of the earth dwellers. Though not
all members of the Navagraha are planets; Surya, the sun is a star;
Chandra, the moon is the natural satellite of Earth; Rahu and Ketu are
lunar nodes that are responsible for eclipses of the sun and moon.

The below reproduced narrative is from the pictorial series The Ratnas Of
Samudra Manthan-or Churning of the Oceans By Shivam Pathania( AMAR
CHITRA KATHA) copied and pasted for simplicity in explaining in this paper
that already stretches over 20 pages.

Samudra Manthan or the churning of the ocean is one unique occasion in

Hindu Mythology, when the Devas and their arch-nemesis, the Asuras, unite
for an important reason. Expression in Angkor wat and other Temples and
has a direct bearing on understanding why the 9 planets are important to
understand the depiction in the Frescos and carvings. As compared to the
100’s of Km of the reliefs the occasional occurrence of the 9 planest has
not attracted much attentoion from scholars and hardly 1 or 2 papers throw
light on the subject- the most comprehensive being the one quoted below
as a footnote(- viz Nine Deities Panel in Ancient Cambodia , Chhum Menghong , Journal of Buddhist and Hindu Art,
Architecture and Archaeology of Ancient to Premodern Southeast Asia 2019)

This particular mythology has been popular in Hindusim. If there are

millions of Hindus in India then each and every one has done a Pooja of the
9 planest at least one in his or her lifetime and many like me do it several
times a year.

The churning of the ocean was a result of a curse by Sage Durvasa. From
this churning arose the many planets of the 9.

Once, he offered a garland to Indra, the king of Devas. Indra accepted the
garland and showed his happiness, putting the garland on his elephant,
Airavata, as an ornament. Airavata, irritated by the scent of the garland,

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picked it with his trunk and threw it on the ground. Durvasa was furious
and cursed Indra and the devas to lose their kingdom, power, and glory.

As a result, Indra’s mighty vahana instantly went into oblivion. Lakshmi,

the goddess of fortune, could no longer stay in the same realm as the
Devas, and parted ways with her consort, Vishnu. She made the depths of
Kshir Sagar her new home. Due to Lakshmi’s absence in Devlok, the devas
lost all their riches. The luminous Chandra, adorning Shiva’s matted hair,
disappeared too. Robbed of their power, the devas were soon defeated by
the asuras in battle. The defeated devas approached Lord Vishnu for a
solution, who advised them to churn Kshir Sagar, to obtain Amrit. Amrit or
the elixir of immortality would help the devas regain their powers. The
Asuras willingly offered to assist their half-brothers since they too wanted
immortality and invincible powers by consuming Amrit.

Mount Mandara was used to churn the ocean, which was kept afloat in the
ocean by Kurma, Vishnu’s turtle avatar. The Naga king, Vasuki, who Shiva
wears as a garland, became the churning rope. Several precious
items, ratnas, emerged from the cosmic ocean which were distributed
amongst the Devas, the Asuras and the Sages.
Halahala

Illustration: Sanjay Valecha and Durgesh Velhal

The Halahala was a deadly poison that had the potential to destroy all
beings in the three realms. None amongst the armies of asuras and devas
stepped in to stop the poison from spreading into the universe as they
feared the poison would destroy them too. Lord Shiva descended from
Mount Kailash to consume the poison. Goddess Parvati, Shiva’s consort,
used her powers to stop the Halahal in Shiva’s throat, and as a result, his
throat turned blue. Thus he came to be called Neelkanth.
Airavata
Airavata, the king of elephants, was a white coloured winged being with six
trunks and six pairs of tusks. He said to dig his trunk deep into the ground
and reach water which is inaccessible to humans. He uses his trunk to
spray the water in the form of monsoon showers. After appearing from the
cosmic ocean, Airavata chose to serve his master Indra, who was delighted
to reunite with his loyal vahana.
Uchhaisravas

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Often considered as the king of the horses, the seven-headed, snow-white
horse, was one of the three animals that appeared during the Samudra
Manthan. The magnificent steed was taken by Indra.
Eventually, Uchhaisravas came into the hands of King Mahabali, the asura
king, who ruled over the three worlds.
Once Goddess Lakshmi was spellbound by the beauty of Uchhaisravas and
forgot to pay attention to her consort, Vishnu. This infuriated him and he
cursed Lakshmi to be born as a mare.
The colour of Uchhaisravas’ tail once became a topic of debate for two
sisters, Kadru and Vinata. The sisters studied the horse from a distance and
Vinata declared that the horse’s tail was white, while Kadru insisted that
the tail was black. The sisters decided to come back and see the horse the
next day. Whoever of the two had guessed the wrong colour, would have to
become the slave of the other. Kadru won the bet by treachery as she
commanded her sons, the Nagas, to cover the tail of the horse. Thus Vinata
ended up becoming Kadru’s slave.
Kamdhenu

Kamdhenu was one of the precious ratnas obtained from the cosmic ocean
and is considered to be the mother of all cattle. Kamdhenu is depicted with
the face of a woman, the body of a cow with a pair of wings and the tail of
a peacock. She was given to the Saptrishis as she provided them with
ample milk. The milk was used to prepare curd and ghee which were
regularly required for their sacred rituals. According to the Mahabharata,
Kamdhenu was in the possession of one of the Saptrishis, Jamadagni. The
sage invited King Kartavirya Arjuna to a feast. The greedy king learnt about
the resourcefulness of Kamdhenu and forcefully took Kamdhenu and her
calf away from the sage. The sage’s son, Parshurama, the sixth avatar or
incarnation of Vishnu, single-handedly defeated the king and his army,
successfully retrieving the sacred cow and her calf.
Apsaras
Apsaras are female heavenly spirits of Devaloka or the home of the gods.
They are associated with music and dance. After appearing from the cosmic
ocean, they chose Gandharvas as their companions. The Gandharvas
served as musicians in Indra’s court. Indra, who was constantly insecure
about his throne, often commanded the enchanting apsaras to distract
sages or asuras from their tapasya to achieve his own ends.
Parijat
From the depths of the ocean, sprung a divine flowering tree called the
Parijat. The flowers of the tree were white, with a tinge of orange at the

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stalk. Indra decided to keep the beautiful flowering tree with the
enchanting fragrance for himself and planted the tree in his garden in
Devaloka. Yugas later, Krishna and Indra duelled over the tree as Krishna
wanted to bring the tree bearing the scented flowers to Prithvilok for his
wives Satyabhama and Rukmini. Eventually, Krishna defeated Indra, and
took the tree. The tree has a special significance in Hinduism, as it is
forbidden to pluck its flowers and only the fallen flowers can be used to
worship deities.

Vishnu’s Sharanga bow, Panchajanya Conch, and Kaustubh Mani

The Sharanga bow was one of the two divine bows crafted by Vishwakarma,
the architect of the gods. Vishnu used the bow in his Parshurama, Rama
and Krishna avatars. Before returning back to his holy abode, Vishnu, in the
form of Krishna, left the bow in the possession of Varuna, the god of
oceans.
In ancient times the sound of the conch signified the beginning of a war.
Vishnu’s conch, Panchajanya is a symbolic way of portraying his role as the
preserver of the universe. God steps into battlefields again and again, in
different avatars to save humanity.
Kaustubh Mani is a sacred precious gemstone that is embedded in the
necklace worn by Vishnu. The gemstone is said to be as beautiful as an
exotic lotus and as radiant as the sun.
Illustration: Sanjay Valecha and Durgesh Velhal
Chandra
The moon God Chandra appeared as one of the precious ratnas and took
refuge in the matted hair of Shiva. His father-in-law, Prajapati Daksha once
cursed him for not being a good husband to his daughters. Due to the
curse, Chandra lost his powers and his body started withering. After
extensive prayers, Shiva came to the deity’s rescue and wore him as an
ornament in his hair to neutralize the curse. However, Chandra still waxes
and wanes as a result of that curse.
Lakshmi and Alakshmi

Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth, prosperity and fortune. She is one of

the three supreme goddesses, with Saraswati and Parvati. She emerged
from the cosmic ocean draped in her red and gold saree while seated on a

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grand lotus with smaller lotuses in her hands. After a long time of
separation, the goddess was finally reunited with her consort, Lord Vishnu.
Her return brought back the riches of the devas, giving Devaloka its earlier
splendour.
The arrival of Lakshmi was followed by her counterpart and elder sister,
Alakshmi, who had unkempt hair and was draped in a single white cloth.
She is the goddess of misfortune, poverty and misery and is said to visit
houses filled with ego, pride, selfishness, and envy. Unlike her sister
Lakshmi, who likes sweet food, Alakshmi has an appetite for hot, sour and
pungent food. So, many Hindu households often hang lemon and chillies at
their doorstep to satisfy the appetite of the goddess of misfortune.
Dhanvantri

Dhanvantri, the physician of the gods, appeared from the turbulent ocean
carrying the pot of Amrita. Dhanvantri was responsible for teaching the
ancient knowledge of medical science, Ayurveda, to mortals. Brahma
created Ayurveda, before he created mankind, but the vast knowledge of
medical science was difficult for mortals to understand. So, Dhanvantri
split the original text into eight divisions and taught his disciples.
Amrita

As soon as Dhanvantri appeared with the pot of Amrit, the Asuras snatched
the pot and planned to consume the entire pot of elixir. Vishnu devised a
plan and took the form of an enchanting woman, Mohini. Mohini used her
charm to lure the asuras out of hiding and used the opportunity to take the
pot back to the Devas. While the devas were consuming the elixir to regain
their divine strength back, one of the asuras, Rahuketu disguised himself
as a deva to taste the Amrit. However, he was discovered just as he was
pouring the liquid into his mouth. Vishnu instantly hurled the Sudarshan
Chakra and beheaded Rahuketu but the amrita had already reached the
asura’s throat. Rahuketu’s head and body were flung on opposite sides of
the universe and became Rahu and Ketu.

NINE PLANETS TEMPLE AT KONARK

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the Bhaumakara period, there contain only the figures of eight grahas (planets).
Ketu making his appearence on the architraves from the Ganga period onwards.

In carving out the images in, their attributes are not correctly attended to. They are
made mostly alike in from, except a few in the group. Most of them are holding
rosary and kamandalu in their hands, wearing high pointed crowns and sitting on
lotuses the descriptions in the puranas.

A huge chlorite slab, 20 feet (6 metres) long, four feet (1.2 metre) high and seven
feet (2 metres) deep was used as an architrave, above the main entrance to the
Jagamohana. This is made into nine different panels representing the Navagraha
(Nine Planets) figures and richly ornamented.

9 Graha in Konark

From
Takeo Province Angkor in a Museum ABOVE RIGHT

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 Angkor

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In the ancient Khmer context, some divinities in the so-called 9 planet
(navagrḥa ) ensemble are actually lokapāl, or ‘guardians of the world’.
Identifying each individual divinity in a systematic manner is challenging as
the reliefs are found from the 7th century CE (Sambor Prei Kuk style) until
the early 13th century (Bayon style).

Four divinities maintain a fixed position over this period: on the far
left are the planets Surya and Candra, and on the far right are Rahu and
Ketu. Of the other five remaining figures, only some can be positively
identified, and their positions are interchangeable. Generally, reading from
left to right, the third figure is Yama, the fourth is Brahma, the sixth is
Kubera, and the seventh is Agni. The divinity occupying the middle position
is Indra, who always appears mounted on an elephant. Interpretation of the
function of the nine divinities panels poses a second challenge due to the
fact that few have been found in their original contexts. These few were
located inside a ‘library’ set to the southeast of a temple’s main sanctuary.
Even this site contextualization has not however allowed for clear
interpretation of function.

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Navadevas panel from Kuk Roka temple, ca. late 12th century. Stone. National Museum of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, Ka.1658.
Deities from left: Sūrya, Candra, Yama (?), Brahmā or Varuṇa, Indra, Kubera, Agni, Rāhu and Ketu. Photograph by Chhum
Menghong

from Bihar India

______________________________________________________________________________-

Nine Deities Panel in Ancient Cambodia , Chhum Menghong , Journal of Buddhist and Hindu Art,
Architecture and Archaeology of Ancient to Premodern Southeast Asia 2019

The construction of Angkor Wat is thought to have taken 35 years,

300,000 laborers and 6,000 elephants, according to inscriptions.

Angkor Wat was initially designed and constructed in the first half of the 12th
century, during the reign of Suryavarman II (ruled 1113 – c. 1150), as the king’s
state temple and capital city. It was built without the aid of any machinery, as there
was no machinery available at that time.

The temple walls are decorated with thousands of storytelling bas-reliefs.

The bas-reliefs on the walls represent important deities and figures in the Hindu and
Buddhist religions and key events in their narrative tradition.

Carved Bas Reliefs of Hindu Narratives

305
There are 1,200 square meters of carved bas reliefs at Angkor Wat, representing
eight different Hindu stories. Perhaps the most important narrative represented at
Angkor Wat is the Churning of the Ocean of Milk(below), which depicts a story about
the beginning of time and the creation of the universe. It is also a story about the
victory of good over evil. In the story, devas (gods) are fighting the asuras (demons)
in order reclaim order and power for the gods who have lost it. In order to reclaim
peace and order, the elixir of life (amrita) needs to be released from the earth;
however, the only way for the elixir to be released is for the gods and demons to
first work together. To this end, both sides are aware that once the amrita is
released there will be a battle to attain it.

Churning of the Ocean of Milk (detail), Angkor

Wat. Siem Reap, Cambodia, 1116-1150
Churning of the Ocean of Milk (detail), Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia, 1116-1150 (photo: John
Brennan, CC BY-ND 2.0)

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The relief depicts the moment when the two sides are churning the ocean of
milk. In the detail above you can see that the gods and demons are playing a sort of
tug-of-war with the Naga or serpent king as their divine rope. The Naga is being
spun on Mt. Mandara represented by Vishnu (in the center). Several things happen
while the churning of milk takes place. One event is that the foam from the
churning produces apsaras or celestial maidens who are carved in relief throughout
Angkor Wat (we see them here on either side of Vishnu, above the gods and
demons). Once the elixir is released, Indra (the Vedic god who is considered the
king of all the gods) is seen descending from heaven to catch it and save the world
from the destruction of the demons.

The nine deities panel has been found in large numbers and existed with
several configurations of deities in ancient Cambodia. The oldest known example
dates from the pre-Angkorian period and shows the navagrahas (nine celestial
bodies) in a standing posture. The iconographic form differs on Angkorian-period
panels, with the nine deities on their individual vāhana (mount). By reanalysing the
iconography of the deities and the typological development of the panels, it is
argued that this later group represents the navadevas, a term used to designate the
combination of four grahas and five dikpālas (guardians of the directions). This
study also considers issues relating to the imagery’s meaning and significance,
based on their iconographic and architectural contexts in Khmer temples. The
colocation of the navadevas and related iconographic themes including Viṣṇu
Anantaśayana, the grahas as seven ṛṣis, and the mātṛkās, clarifies that the
imagery’s meaning relates to the celestial bodies, the directions and the notion of
cosmological order. The panel was used both as a lintel above a temple doorway
and installed inside the sanctum as an independent object near the image of the
main deity, and appears to have been especially associated with shrines located in
the southeast of a temple complex. The sigAngkor Wat is dedicated to the Hindu
god Vishnu who is one of the three principal gods in the Hindu pantheon (Shiva and
Brahma are the others). Among them he is known as the “Protector.” The major
patron of Angkor Wat was King Suryavarman II, whose name translates as the
“protector of the sun.” Many scholars believe that Angkor Wat was not only a
temple dedicated to Vishnu but that it was also intended to serve as the king’s
mausoleum in death.

Three years after King Suryavarman II came to the throne, he started the
construction of Angkor Wat most probably in the year 1116 C.E-with construction

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ending in 1150, shortly after the king’s death. Evidence for these dates comes in
part from inscriptions.

Carved Bas Reliefs of Hindu Narratives

These reliefs represent eight different Hindu stories. According to ancient Sanskrit
and Khmer texts, religious monuments and specifically temples are to be organized
in such a way that they are in harmony with the universe, meaning that the temple
should be planned according to the rising sun and moon, in addition to symbolizing
the recurrent time sequences of the days, months and years. The central axis of
these temples should also be aligned with the planets, thus connecting the
structure to the cosmos so that temples become spiritual, political, cosmological,
astronomical and geo-physical centers. They are, in other words, intended to
represent microcosms of the universe and are organized as mandalas—diagrams of
the universe.

In Planetary clustering and navagraha at Banteay Srei , Asger Mollerup found that
an inscription at Prasat Banteay Srey, 15 km north of Angkor Wat in Cambodia,
dates the inauguration of this Shivaite sanctuary to coincide with a planetary
alignment. A planetary clustering or planetary alignment is when the five planets
visible to the naked eye are observable at dawn or dusk above the eastern or
western horizon. The five planets form together with the sun, the moon, Rahu and
Ketu the Indian concept the Navagraha. A close gathering of the five planets is an
impressive celestial event and has been described in ancient Indian and Chinese
records and calculations.1 Based on that your author predicted the performance of a
Navagraha Puja or adoration to the Gods to bless the temple and the consecration.

____________________________________________________________________

1https://www.academia.edu/41864223/Planetary_clustering_and_navagraha_at_Banteay_Srei

NAVAGRAHA PANELDS IN KHEMER TEMPLES

14. Navagrahas panel from Sambor Prei Kuk, ca. 7th century. Stone
15. Navadevas panel from the Bayon, ca. 13th century. Stone
16. Navadevas panel from Prasat Neang Khmau, ca. 2nd half of 9th century. Stone
17. Preah Khan temple, ca. late 12th century
18. West Mebon temple, ca. 11th century. Stone.
19. Ba Kan temple, ca. late 10th century. Stone
20. East Mebon temple, ca. 10th century. Stone
21. Preah Pithu temple, ca. late 10th century

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 22. Phnom Penh, Ka.3216
23. Wat Prei Phdao, near Siem Reap
24. Pedestal with 9 holes, installed on a brick terrace next to the image of Harihara, in tower
N10, North group, Sambor Prei Kuk, ca. 7th century. Stone
25. Navadevas on a lintel at Neak Ta Kong Srok temple, ca. mid-10th century. Stone
26. . Navagrahas on a pre-Angkorian lintel, provenance unknown, ca. 2nd half of 7th century.
Stone
The above clusterings of the planets is an ancient good fortune ritual or worship. Putting the
carvings of these or having small statutes or pictures in homes today is a common occurring
phenomenon in millions of hindu homes and home alters or devagriha>

CLUSTERING of GODS & GODDESSES IN HINDUISM

Clustering of Gods and Goddesses in a Hindu religion Phenomenon. In the Puranic

traditions, of course, the cluster of goddesses is elaborated as the Matrikas. The
Matrikas are, sometimes, identified with the Kritikkas, but more commonly are seen
as the female form of various gods, like Indrani of Indra, Brahmani of Brahma,
Vaishnavi of Vishnu, Narasimhi of Narasimha, Varahi of Varaha, Shivani or
Maheshwari of Shiva.

These various female gods join Durga, in the battle against the various asuras.
These goddesses became powerful as the influence of the goddess increased in
Hinduism. Another cluster that is popular nowadays is the Tantrik cluster of Maha
Vidyas, the 10 wisdom deities. Some of them are the young Sodasi, the 16-year-old,
or Kamala, the full-blown lotus woman, or Dhumvati the old hag, or Baglamukhi.
The idea of multiple women also come from folk literature as the Yoginis. There are
the 32 Yoginis that are fixed on the throne of Vikramaditya who will destroy
unworthy men who dare sit on the throne. There is also the Chausat Yoginis or 64
yoginis who play music around Shiva while Shiva dances for them. It is the reverse
version of the Krishna Maharaas, where Krishna plays the music and the gopikas
dance around him. In the Yogini Mandala, the woman play music while the man
dances.

The Mahavidya ( Great Wisdoms) are a group of ten aspects

of Mahadevi in Hinduism. These.10.Mahavidyas.are Kali, Tara, Tripura Sundari
(Shodoshi), Bhuvaneshvari, Tripura
Bhairavi, Chhinnamasta, Dhumavati, Bagalamukhi, Matangi and Kamala.

The development of the Mahavidyas represent an important turning point in

the history of Shaktism as it marks the rise of the Bhakti aspect in Shaktism, which
reached its zenith in 1700 CE. First sprung forth in the post-Puranic age, around 6th
century C.E., it was a new theistic movement in which the supreme being was
envisioned as female. A fact epitomized by texts like Devi-Bhagavata Purana,
especially its last nine chapters (31-40) of the seventh skandha, which are known as
the Devi Gita, and soon became central texts of Shaktism. In a story from the
Shakta Maha-Bhagavata Purana, which narrates the creation of all the
Mahavidyas, Sati, the daughter of Daksha and first wife of god Shiva, feels insulted
that she and Shiva are not invited to Daksha's yagna ("fire sacrifice") and insists on
going there, despite Shiva's protests. After futile attempts to convince Shiva, the

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enraged Sati transforms into the Mahavidyas, who surround Shiva from the ten
cardinal directions.

The ten corresponding Avatars with

Mahavidyas
no. Goddess names Avatar names
1. Kali Krishna
2. Tara (Devi) Rama
3. Lalita Tripura Sundari Vamana
4. Tripura Bhairavi Varaha
5. Bhuvaneshvari Kalki
6. Chhinnamasta Narasimha
7. Matangi Parashurama
8. Bagalamukhi Kurma
9. Kamalatmika Balarama
10 Dhumavati Matsya

Similarly, Matrikas or "divine mothers" also called Matar or Matri, are a group of
mother goddesses depicted together in Hinduism. The Matrikas are often depicted
in a group of seven, the Saptamatrika(s) (Seven MothersHowever, they are also
depicted as a group of eight, the Ashtamatrika(s).

In the Brihat Samhita, Varahamihira says that "Mothers are to be made with
cognizance of gods corresponding to their names." They are associated with these
gods as their spouses or their energies (Shaktis) Brahmani emerged
Brahma, Vaishnavi from Vishnu, Maheshvari from Shiva, Indrani from Indra, Kaumari
from Skanda, Varahi from Varaha and Chamunda from Devi, and additionals
are Narasimhi, Vinayaki.

Originally believed to be a personification of the seven stars of the star cluster

the Pleiades, they became quite popular by the seventh century and a standard
feature of goddess temples from the ninth century onwards. [8] In South India,
Saptamatrika worship is prevalent whereas the Ashtamatrika are venerated
in Nepal, among other places.

The Matrikas assume paramount significance in the goddess-oriented sect

of Hinduism, Tantrism. In Shaktism, they are described as "assisting the great
Shakta Devi (goddess) in her fight with demons." [11] Some scholars consider
them Shaiva goddesses. They are also connected with the worship of warrior
god Skanda. In most early references, the Matrikas are associated with the
conception, birth, diseases and protection of children. They were seen as
inauspicious and the "personification of perils", propitiated in order to avoid those
ills, that carried off so many children before they reached adulthood. They come to
play a protective role in later mythology, although some of their early inauspicious

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and wild characteristics continue in these legends. Thus, they represent the
prodigiously fecund aspect of nature as well as its destructive force aspect.

There are several Puranic texts related to the origin of Matrikas. Matsya
Purana, Vamana Purana, Varaha Purana, Kurma Purana and
the Suprabhedagama contain references to Matrikas, and this asserts their
antiquity.

According to the Shumbha-Nishumbha story of Devi Mahatmya, Matrikas appear

as Shaktis from the bodies of the gods – Brahma, Shiva, Skanda, Vishnu, Indra;
[45]
having the form of each, approached Chandika (identified with Devi) with
whatever form, ornaments and vehicle the god possessed. In that form, they
slaughter the demon army. Thus, the Matrikas are goddesses of the battlefield.
They are described as assistants of Durga having sinister as well as propitious
characteristics.] After the battle, the Matrikas dance drunk with their victim's
blood. This description is repeated with little variation in Devi Bhagavata Purana
and Vamana Purana. The Devi-Bhagavata Purana mentions three other goddesses,
Shaktis of other gods' in addition to the Saptamatrika, making a group of 10
Matrikas.

According to latter episode of Devi Mahatmya, Durga created Matrikas from herself
and with their help slaughtered the demon army. In this version, Kali is described as
a Matrika, who sucked all the blood of demon Raktabija. Kali is given the
epithet Chamunda in the text. When demon Shumbha challenges Durga to a single
combat, she absorbs the Matrikas in herself and says that they are her different
forms.[ In the Vamana Purana too, the Matrikas arise from different parts of Devi
and not from male gods although they are described and named after the male
deities.

In Matsya Purana, Shiva had created seven Matrikas to combat the demon Andhaka,
who had the ability to duplicate from each drop of his blood that falls from him
when he is wounded. The Matrikas drink up his blood and help Shiva defeat the
demon. After the battle, the Matrikas begin a rampage of destruction by starting to
devour other gods, demons and peoples of the world. Narasimha, Vishnu's man-lion
incarnation, creates a host of thirty-two benign goddesses who calm down the
terrible, fire-breathing Matrikas. Narasimha commanded the Matrikas to protect the
world, instead of destroying it and thus be worshipped by mankind. At the end of
the episode, Shiva's terrible form Bhairava is enshrined with the images of the
Matrikas at the place where the battle took place. This story is retold in
Vishnudharmottara Purana.[54] Vishnudharmottara Purana further relates them with
vices or inauspicious emotions like envy, pride, anger etc.

Navagraha are nine heavenly bodies (as well as deities) that influence
human life on Earth in Hinduism and Hindu astrology. The term is derived
from nava ("nine") and Graha (planet, seizing, laying hold of, holding).

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The Navagraha are
20.Surya: the Sun
21.Chandra: the Moon
22.Mangala: Mars
23.Budha: Mercury
24.Bṛhaspati: Jupiter
25.Shukra: Venus
26.Shani: Saturn
27.Rahu: Shadow body associated with the ascending (or north) lunar node
28.Ketu: Shadow body associated with the descending (or south) lunar node

Muthuswami Dikshitar, a Carnatic music composer from southern India composed

the Navagraha Kritis in praise of the nine planets. Each song is a prayer to one of
the nine planets. The sahitya (lyrics) of the songs reflect a profound knowledge of
the mantra and jyotisha sastras.

Navagraha temples devoted to Navagraha—the nine (nava) major celestial bodies

(Grahas) of Hindu astronomy.These temples are made of stones and are very
beautiful. These celestial bodies are
named Surya (Sun), Chandra (Moon), Mangala (Mars), Budha (Mercury), Brihaspati (J
upiter), Shukra (Venus), Shani (Saturn), Rahu (North Lunar Node)
and Ketu (South Lunar Node). Many temples in South India contain a shrine
dedicated to the Navagrahas. However, the term Navagraha temples refers to a
cluster of nine separate temples, each an abode of one of the Navagrahas.

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The Temple as a Mandala- Avittathur Mahadeva Temple

Chola Temples-The Navagraha temples in Tamil Nadu are a cluster of

Navagraha Temples dating from the Chola dynasty. During the Chola dynasty
near Kumbakonam in Tamil Nadu many temples were built. The Angkor Wat is a
reflection of the Chola Religio-cultural traditions albit on a grander scale .
As per Hindu legend, Sage Kalava was suffering from serious ailments along with
leprosy. He prayed to the Navagrahas, the nine planet deities. The planets were
pleased by his devotion and offered cure to the sage. Brahma, the Hindu god of
creation, was angered as he felt that the planets have no powers to provide boons
to humans. He cursed the nine planets to suffer from leprosy and were sent down to
earth in Vellerukku Vanam, the white wild flower jungle - the modern time Suryanar
Kovil. The planets prayed to Shiva to relieve them off the curse. Shiva appeared to
them and said that the place belonged to them and they would have to grace the
devotees worshipping them from the place. Each temple is located in a different
village, and is considered an abode of one of the Navagrahas. However, eight
among these temples are dedicated to Shiva. The Surya temple is the only one
dedicated to the Graham. In fact, it is dedicated entirely to the worship of the Sun-
God and the other navagrahas, the former being the object of worship as the
principal deity and the latter as attendant deities. It was built around the 11th or
12th century. The other temples were built earlier, ranging back to 7th-9th century.

21.Surya Navagrahastalam -- Sooriyanar Kovil (Thanjavur District)

22.Chandra Navagrahastalam -- Thingalur (Thanjavur District)
23.Angaarakan Navagrahastalam -- Vaitheeswaran Kovil (Mayiladuthurai district)
24.Budha Navagrahastalam -- Thiruvenkadu (Mayiladuthurai district)
25.Guru Navagrahastalam -- Alangudi(Thiruvarur District)
26.Sukra Navagrahastalam -- Kanjanur (Thanjavur District)
27.Shani Navagrahastalam -- Thirunallar (Karaikal)
28.Raahu Navagrahastalam -- Thirunageswaram (Thanjavur District)
29.Ketu Navagrahastalam -- Keezhperumpallam (Mayiladuthurai district)
30.Angineeshwar temple -- Birth place of Lord Sanieeswarar and Lord
Yematharmar, Kodiyalur, Thirumeyachur, Thiruvarur District.

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Legand- As per Hindu legend, Sage Kalava was suffering from serious ailments
along with leprosy. He prayed to the Navagrahas, the nine planet deities. The
planets were pleased by his devotion and offered cure to the sage. Brahma, the
Hindu god of creation, was angered as he felt that the planets have no powers to
provide boons to humans. He cursed the nine planets to suffer from leprosy and
were sent down to earth in Vellurukku Vanam, the white wild flower jungle - the
modern time Suryanar Kovil. The planets prayed to Shiva to relieve them off the
curse. Shiva appeared to them and said that the place belonged to them and they
would have to grace the devotees worshipping them from the place. This is the only
temple where there are separate shrines for each of the planet deities.

The Changed positions of the Dieties in the Cambodian relics highlights the
importance of comparing to Khmer iconography, rather than considering only the
Indian context. The deities occupying the third, fourth, sixth and seventh positions
appear to change positions here, and are variously mounted on a bird, antelope,
goat, horse, bull, buffalo or rhinoceros. Scholars including Bhattacharya and
Malleret have previously suggested different identifications of these deities based
on their vāhana. For instance, a deity riding a haṃsa bird appears especially in
fourth position,
Navgraha – the nine planets as per Hinduism.
However, I would not attach too much importance to this because in Hinduism,
Various Gods have become favourite of the populous depending on the time, i.e.
like a trend. Today for instance SHANI is very popular in India, because the Planet
as an astrological landmark on lives of people is the supposed root cause of
impediments in life. Ganesh, on the other hand, is a revered God without getting a
place on the 9 for the simple reason that he is Vignaharta or remover of obstacles.

A close up of detailed carvings of

Ganesha elephant and monkey Buddhist mythology. In black and white. At the Angkor Wat temple
complex in Siem Reap, Cambodia

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In Vedic astrology, there are 9 planets. These are known as Nav (9) and grahas
(planets ). Navgraha

The nine bodies (navagraha)

10.Sun (Soorya)
11.Moon (Chandra)
12.Mars (Mangla/Sevvai)
13.Mercury (Budha)
14.Jupiter (Guru)
15.Venus (Sukra)
16.Saturn (Shani)
17.Upper lunar node (Rahu)
18.Lower lunar node (Ketu)

Surya
Surya is the chief, the solar deity, one of the Adityas, son of Kasyapa and one of his
wives Aditi, of Indra. He has hair and arms of gold. His chariot is pulled by seven
horses, which represent the seven chakras. He presides as “Ravi” over “Ravi-vaara”
or Sunday.

Surya the sun God |

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In Hindu religious literature, Surya is notably mentioned as the visible form of God
that one can see every day. Furthermore, Shaivites and Vaishnavas often regard
Surya as an aspect of Shiva and Vishnu, respectively. For example, the sun is called
Surya Narayana by Vaishnavas. In Shaivite theology, Surya is said to be one of eight
forms of Shiva, named the Astamurti.
He is said to be of Sattva Guna and represents the Soul, the King, highly placed
persons or fathers.
According to Hindu scriptures, among the more renowned progenies of Surya are
Shani (Saturn), Yama(God of Death) and Karna (Mahabharata fame).
Stotra:
Javaa kusuma sankasam kashyapeyam mahadutim
Tamorim sarva paapghnam pranatosmi divakaram
Chandra

Mangal///Chandra the Moon God |

Chandra is a lunar deity. Chandra (moon) is also known as Soma and identified with
the Vedic Lunar deity Soma. He is described as young, beautiful, fair; two-armed
and having in his hands a club and a lotus. He rides his chariot (the moon) across
the sky every night, pulled by ten white horses or an antelope. He is connected with
dew, and as such, is one of the gods of fertility. He is also called Nishadipati
(Nisha=night; Adipathi=Lord) and Kshuparaka (one who illuminates the night).
He as Soma, presides over Somavaaram or Monday. He is of Sattva Guna and
represents the Mind, the Queen or Mother.
Stotra:
Dadhi shankha tushaarabham ksheero darnava sambhavam
Namaami shashinam somam shambhor mukuta bhooshanam.

Mangala

Mangala is Bhauma (‘son of Bhumi’ or Bha) in Sanskrit. He is the god of war and is
celibate. He is considered the son of Prithvi or Bhumi, the Earth Goddess. He is the
owner of the Aries and Scorpio signs, and a teacher of the occult sciences (Ruchaka
Mahapurusha Yoga). He is of Tamas Guna in nature and represents Energetic

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action, confidence and ego. He is painted red or flame colour, four-armed, carrying
a trident, club, lotus and a spear. His Vahana (mount) is a ram. He presides over
‘Mangala-vaara’ or Tuesday.
Stotra:
Dharanee garbha sambhootam vidyut kaanti samaprabham
Kumaram shakti hastam tam mangalam pranamamyaham.
Budha
Budha is the god of the planet Mercury and the son of Chandra (the moon) with
Tara (Taraka). He is also the god of merchandise and protector of merchants. He is
of Rajas Guna and represents Communication.

Guru or Jupiter | Budha |

He is represented as being mild, eloquent and of greenish colour. He is represented

holding a scimitar, a club and a shield, riding a winged lion in Ramghur temple. In
other illustrations, he holds a sceptre and lotus and rides a carpet or an eagle or a
chariot drawn by lions. Budha presides over ‘Budha-vaaram’ or Wednesday.
Stotra:
Priyangu kalika shyaamam roopena pratimam budham
Soumyam soumya gunopetam tam budham pranamamyaham
Guru
Brihaspati is the Guru of Devas, personification of piety and religion, the chief
offerer of prayers and sacrifices, represented as the Purohita of the gods with whom
he intercedes for men. He is the Lord of planet Jupiter. He is of Sattva Guna and
represents knowledge and teaching. He is often known simply as “Guru”.
According to Hindu scriptures, he is the guru of the Devas and the nemesis of
Shukracharya, the guru of the Danavasa. He is also known Guru, the god of wisdom
and eloquence, to whom various works are ascribed, such as the “atheistic”
Barhaspatya sutras. Guru is usually depicted with an elephant or chariot drawn by
eight horses as his vehicle. He is also depicted in a lotus flower.
His Tattva or element is Akasha or ether, and his direction is north-east. He is
described of yellow or golden colour and holding a stick, a lotus and his beads. He
presides over ‘Guru-vaaram’, Brihaspativaara or Thursday.

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Stotra:
Devanaam cha rishinaam cha gurum kaanchan sannibhaam
Buddhi bhootam trilokesham tam namaami brihaspatim.
Shukra
Shukra, Sanskrit for “clear, pure” or “brightness, clearness”, is the name the son of
Bhrigu and Ushana, and preceptor of the Daityas, and the guru of the Asuras,
identified with the planet Venus (Shukracharya). He presides over ‘Shukra-vaara’ or
Friday. He is Rajas in nature and represents wealth, pleasure and reproduction.

Shani or Saturn | Shukra or Venus |

He is of white complexion, middle-aged and of agreeable countenance. He is
described variously mounted, on a camel or a horse or a crocodile. He holds a stick,
beads and a lotus and sometimes a bow and arrow.
Stotra:
Hima kundaa mrinalaabham daityanaam paramam gurum
Sarv shastra pravaktaaram bhargavem pranamamyaham.
Shani
Shani is one of the nine primary celestial beings in Hindu astrology (that is, Vedic
astrology). Shani is embodied in the planet Saturn. Shani is the son of Surya. His
Tattva or element is air, and his direction is west. He is Tamas in nature and
represents learning the hard way, Career and Longevity.

The origin of word Shani(शनि) comes from the following: Shanaye Kramati Sa:
(शनयेक्रमतिसः) i.e. the one who moves slowly. Shani is actually a demi-god and is a
son of Surya (the Hindu Sun God) and surya’s wife Chhaya. It is said that when he
opened his eyes as a baby for the very first time, the sun went into an eclipse,
which clearly denotes the impact of Shani on astrological charts (horoscope).

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He is depicted dark in colour, clothed in black; holding a sword, arrows and two
daggers and variously mounted on a black crow or a raven. He presides over ‘Shani-
var’ or Saturday.
Stotra:
Neelanjana samaabhasam ravi putram yamagrajam
Chaaya martanda sambhootam tam namaami shanaischaram.
Rahu
Rahu is God of the Ascending / North lunar node. Rahu is the head of the demonic
snake that swallows the sun or the moon causing eclipses, according to Hindu
scriptures. He is depicted in art as a dragon with no body riding a chariot drawn by
eight black horses. He is a Tamas Asura who does his best to plunge any area of
one’s life he controls into chaos. The rahu kala is considered inauspicious.

Rahu the lod of the Ascending According to

legend, during the Samudra manthan, the asura Rahu drank some of the divine
nectar. But before the nectar could pass his throat, Mohini (the female avatar of
Vishnu) cut off his head. The head, however, remained immortal and is called Rahu,
while the rest of the body became Ketu. It is believed that this immortal head
occasionally swallows the sun or the moon, causing eclipses. Then, the sun or moon
passes through the opening at the neck, ending the eclipse.
Stotra:
Ardha Kaayam mahaa veeryam chandraditya vimardhanam
Simhika garbha sambhootam tam rahum pranamaamyaham.
Ketu

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 Ketu the Lord of Descending
Ketu is the Lord of Descending. He is considered as Tail of the Demon Snake. It is
believed to have a tremendous impact on human lives and also the whole creation.
In some special circumstances it helps someone achieve the zenith of fame. He is
Tamas in nature and represents supernatural influences.
Stotra:
Palaash pushpa sankaasham taraka graha mastakam
Roudram roudraatmakam ghoram tam ketum pranamaamyaham.
Graha Stuti:
Brahma, Muraari, Sripuraantakaari, Bhanu, Shashi, Bhoomisuto, Budhascha
Guruscha, Shukra, Shani, Rahu, Ketavah, kuruvantu sarve mama suprabhatam
These Navagrahas fall under the the Hindu Astronomy and play a major part in the
Hindu astronomical sphere. The Hindu astronomy whose origin dates back to the
time of Vedas is concerned with the placement of nine planets and their influence
on the world and on an individual. According to the Hindu astrology, the position of
the planets when a person is born determines his potential in life.
The nine planets collectively are called Navagrahas. These 9 planets are worshipped
by Hindus to overcome any hindrance, obstacle or bad luck. They are found mostly
in all the temples and faithful believers pray to the Navagrahas before they pray to
any other deity.
Out of those nine planets, seven are named after the planets in the Solar System
and the other two are actually demons who managed their way into this group by
trickery – Rahu and Ketu. Depending upon their location in the planetary system,
they are deemed either auspicious or inauspicious. While Navagrahas are found in
every temple, there are some temples that are solely dedicated to them. One such
temple is the Navagraha temple located in the outskirts of Ujjain.

A number of scholars have undertaken research on ancient Khmer sculpted

representations of the called navagroḥ or phkāy nabagroḥ. The first person to have
studied this topic in detail was Kamaleswar Bhattacharya1 . Soon after, Louis

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Malleret wrote a summary of the issues at hand. The panels even today in
Cambodia are sculpted with nine divine figures – hence the appellation of naba (or
nava in Sanskrit), meaning nine. On the other hand, the use of the second term,
groḥ, to name this iconographic type is not entirely accurate, because, of the 9
figures, some are indeed groḥ (planets) while others are just divinities. In Sanskrit,
the word groḥ or graha refers to the planets - places distinct from our earth. The
discrepancy I note only occurs in the Cambodian context. In India, the nine divinities
are the navagraha, corresponding to the seven days of the week plus Rahu who is
considered to be a planet connecting two planets, with Ketu, also called a comet.

GEMSTONES & 9 BODIES

These 9 Celestial bodies is what influences use of 9 gemstones which are tied to
mythological concepts around cosmology and astrology and the "Navagrahas", or
"nine celestial gods". In Thailand, the Navaratna is officially recognised as a
national and royal symbol of the king. A high award given by the king is called
"Noppharat Ratchawaraphon" (the Ancient Auspicious Order of the Nine Gems).

Ribbon of the Order

The decoration consists of a single class (Knight). The insignia is:
 Pendant of the Nine Gems, on a yellow sash with a red, blue and green trims,
worn over the right shoulder of the left hip (for men). For women, the Pendant of
the Nine Gems is attached onto a silk ribbon, worn on the front left shoulder.
 Star of the Nine Gems, to wear on the left chest
 Gold Ring of the Nine Gems, for men, to wear on the right ring finger.

Late Thai astrologer Horacharn Thep Sarikabutr has given the meaning of these
nine gems in his Parichad-Jataka (chapter 2, verse 21, page 35–36) translated as
follows
"Top quality and flawless ruby is the gem for the Sun, natural pearl for the Moon,
red coral for Mars, emerald for Mercury, yellow sapphire for Jupiter, diamond for
Venus, blue sapphire for Saturn, hessonite for Rahu (ascending lunar node), and
cat's eye for Ketu (descending lunar node)."
This quote attributed to the Sanskrit "Brihat Jatak" is also quoted in the "Mani-mala"
page 575, verse 79 by S.M. Tagore (1879), and also in the ancient "Jataka Parijata,"
chapter 2, sloka 21 compiled by Sri Vaidyanatha Dikshitar,
माणिक्यंतरणेःसुजात्यममलंमुक्ताफलंशीतगोः
माहेयस्यचविद्रुमंमरकतंसौम्यस्यगारुत्मतम
देवेज्यस्यचपुष्पराजमसुराचार्यस्यवज्रंशनेः
नीलंनिर्मलमन्ययोश्चगदितेगोमेदवैदूर्यके
and reads in Sanskrit transliterated as follows:
māṇikyaṃ taraṇeḥ sujātyamamalaṃ muktāphalaṃ śītagoḥ
māheyasya ca vidrumaṃ marakataṃ saumyasya gārutmatama
devejyasya ca puṣparājamasurācāryasya vajraṃ śaneḥ
nīlaṃ nirmalamanyayośca gadite gomedavaidūryake
Translation:
 Ruby (māṇikyaṃ) for Surya (taraṇeḥ) (Sun),

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 Pearl (muktāphalaṃ) for Chandra (Moon),
 Red coral (vidrumaṃ) for Mangala (māheya) (Mars),
 Emerald (maratakaṃ) for Budha (saumya) (Mercury),
 Yellow sapphire (puṣparājaṃ) for Bṛhaspati (devejya) (Jupiter),
 Diamond (vajraṃ) for Shukra (asurācārya) (Venus),
 Blue sapphire (nīlaṃ) for Shani (Saturn),
 Hessonite (gomeda) for Rahu (the ascending lunar node)
 Cat's eye (vaidūryaṃ) for Ketu (the descending lunar node),
"...these gems must be high-born and flawless."
The traditional setting and arrangement of these
nine gems is shown in the illustration. A ruby
(representing the Sun) is always in the center,
surrounded (clockwise from the top) by a
diamond, a natural pearl, red coral, hessonite, a
blue sapphire, cat's eye, a yellow sapphire, and
an emerald. This is the same placement as the
Nava-graha Yantra.
Traditionally, no gem other than a ruby or a red
spinel is set in the center of a nine gems
arrangement. To do so is believed to go against
the flow of nature. Because the Sun is the center
of the solar system, its gem is positioned in the
heart of a Navaratna Talisman.
For an example of the navaratna in a necklace
setting, see Thailand's "The Queen
Sirikit Navaratna."

Thailand's "Queen Sirikit Navaratna"

necklace.

iV

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 The Star Chart of Angkor
Being the ASTROLOGY (Horoscope) of ANGKOR WAT

Haugen,
There are two great complexes of ancient temples in Southeast Asia, one at
Bagan in Burma, the other at Angkor in Cambodia. The temples of Angkor,
crafted by the Khmer civilization between 802 and 1220 AD, represent one of
humankind's most astonishing architectural achievements. From Angkor the
Khmer kings ruled over a vast domain which reached
from Vietnam to China to the Bay of Bengal. The structures one sees at
Angkor today, more than 100 stone temples, are the surviving remains of a
grand religious, social and administrative metropolis whose other buildings—
palaces, public buildings, and houses—were built of wood and are long since
decayed and gone.

The Land: Conventional theories presume the lands where Angkor stands
were chosen as a settlement site because of their strategic military position
and agricultural potential. Other scholars however, believe the geographical
location of the Angkor complex and the arrangement of its temples was
based on a planet-spanning sacred geography from archaic times. Using
computer simulations it has been shown that the ground plan of the Angkor

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complex—the terrestrial placement of its principal temples—mirrors the stars
in the constellation of Draco at the time of spring equinox in 10,500 BC.
While the date of this astronomical alignment is far earlier than any known
construction at Angkor, it appears that its purpose was to architecturally
mirror the heavens in order to assist in the harmonization of the earth and
the stars. Both the layout of the Angkor temples and iconographic nature of
much its sculpture are also intended to indicate the celestial phenomenon of
the precession of the equinoxes and the slow transition from one astrological
age to another.

At the temple of Phnom Bakheng there are 108 surrounding towers.

The number 108, considered sacred in both Hindu and Buddhist cosmologies,
is the sum of 72 plus 36 (36 being half of 72). The number 72 is a primary
number in the sequence of numbers linked to the earth’s axial precession,
which causes the apparent alteration in the position of the constellations
over the period of 25,920 years, or one degree every 72 years. Another
mysterious fact about the Angkor complex is its location 72 degrees of
longitude east of the Pyramids of Giza. The temples of Bakong, Prah Ko and
Prei Monli at Roluos, south of the main Angkor complex, are situated in
relation to each other in such a way that they mirror the three stars in the
Corona Borealis as they appeared at dawn on the spring equinox in 10,500
BC. It is interesting to note that the Corona Borealis would not have been
visible from these temples during the 10th and 11th centuries when they
were constructed.

Angkor Wat, built during the early years of the 12th century by Suryavaram
II, honours the Hindu god Vishnu and is a symbolic representation of Hindu
cosmology. Consisting of an enormous temple symbolizing the mythic Mt.
Meru, its five inter-nested rectangular walls and moats represent chains of
mountains and the cosmic ocean. The short dimensions of the vast
compound are precisely aligned along a north-south axis, while the east-west
axis has been deliberately diverted 0.75 degrees south of east and north of
west, seemingly in order to give observers a three day anticipation of the
spring equinox.

Unlike other temples at Angkor, Ta Prohm has been left as it was found,
preserved as an example of what a tropical forest will do to an architectural
monument when the protective hands of humans are withdrawn. Ta Prohm's
walls, roofs, chambers and courtyards have been sufficiently repaired to stop
further deterioration and the inner sanctuary has been cleared of bushes and
thick undergrowth. But the temple itself has been left in the stranglehold of
trees. Having planted themselves centuries ago, the tree's serpentine roots
pry apart the ancient stones and their immense trunks straddle the once
bustling Buddhist temple. Built in the later part of the 12th century by
Jayavarman VII, Ta Prohm is the terrestrial counterpart of the star Eta
Draconis the Draco constellation.

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During half-millennia of Khmer occupation, the city of Angkor became a
pilgrimage destination of importance throughout Southeastern Asia. Sacked
by the Thais in 1431 and abandoned in 1432, Angkor was forgotten for a few
centuries. Wandering Buddhist monks passing through the dense jungles
occasionally came upon the awesome ruins. Recognizing the sacred nature
of the temples but ignorant of their origins they invented fables about the
mysterious sanctuaries, saying they had been built by the gods in a far
ancient time. Centuries passed, these fables became legends, and pilgrims
from the distant reaches of Asia sought out the mystic city of the gods. A few
adventurous European travellers knew of the ruins and stories circulated in
antiquarian circles of a strange city lost in the jungles. Most people believed
the stories to be nothing more than legend however, until the French
explorer Henri Mouhot brought Angkor to the world's attention in 1860. The
French people were enchanted with the ancient city and beginning in 1908
conducted an extensive restoration project. The restoration has continued to
the present day, excepting periods in the 70's and 80's when military
fighting prevented archaeologists from living near the ruins.

Orthodox archaeologists sometimes interpret the temples of the Angkor

complex as tombs of megalomaniacal kings yet in reality those kings
designed and constructed the temples as a form of service to both god and
their own subjects. The temples were places not for the worship of the kings
but rather for the worship of god. Precisely aligned with the stars,
constructed as vast three dimensional meditational forms and adorned with
stunningly beautiful religious art, the Angkor temples were instruments for
assisting humans in their realization of the divine.

Jayavaram VII, spoke of his intentions in erecting temples as being “full of

deep sympathy for the good of the world, so as to bestow on men the
ambrosia of remedies to win them immortality….By virtue of these good
works would that I might rescue all those who are struggling in the ocean of
existence.”
Introduction: The stars and destiny-Astrology and Divination in East
Asia. No. 35/2013

The civilizations of India and East Asia are a field of

reflection
The civilizations of India and East Asia are a field of reflection and
investigation around the two facets of the transmission of divinatory
techniques: tradition and innovation.
While we usually only take into account, in matters of astrology and
divinatory arts, a single cultural area, this issue addresses both China and
the Sinicized cultures of Korea, Japan and Vietnam, India and Indianized

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Cambodia, Tibet, heir to India, and Mongolia, largely dependent on Tibet
culturally. This diversification of angles makes it possible to highlight
multiple cultural transfers: Indianized Cambodia takes up Chinese calendric
traditions, just like Tibet, while Mongolia forges an identity from the elements
it receives from Tibet and China. , based on older own concepts. We discover
the political use of divination, notably through the founding of official
institutions, With a lunar-solar calendar, and astrological concepts
derivated from pre-Angkorian civilizations, Hindic influences and the
Reamker (Khmer Ramayana) cosmology, the Cambodian way of computing
time periods and predicting future is a highly elaborated one. divinatory
manuals were written on local paper (kramn) and aimed at clairvoyant
masters.

Sunlight peeks through

the trees behind temple ruins at the Preah Khan of Kompong Svay complex earlier this
year. (Enric Catala)

ASTROLOGY :
Angkor’s ancient architects took solar and lunar movements into account
when designing its temples in order to mark the start of wet and dry
seasons, according to a new paper by an Italian astroarchaeologist.
Published last week on the Cornell University website arXiv.org and authored
by Giulio Magli, a professor of mathematical physics at the Politecnico di
Milano in Italy, the paper tests several longstanding observations about the
importance of the sun’s movements in the Angkorian era using spatial
software and satellite imagery.

The analysis follows a series of papers by Mr. Magli showing similar

awareness of astronomical patterns among the builders of Machu Picchu, the
Parthenon and the Egyptian pyramids.

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The Angkorian kingdom was built around a sophisticated worldview that
“included the sky,” Mr. Magli writes—a worldview “where the cycle of the sun
and that of the dry and the wet seasons were tightly connected.”

Consider, the author continues, the entrances of the temples. Nineteen of

the 31 temples Mr. Magli studied had entrances that were oriented due east
with the remainder positioned very slightly to the north.
Those deviations were no accident, according to Mr. Magli. Temples
positioned at a fraction of a degree to the north were aligned such that the
sun would rise directly over the buildings during the spring and fall
equinoxes.
Angkor’s April 26 and August 17 zenith passages—the points at which the
sun is the highest in the sky—would have been equally dramatic inside the
temple’s towers.
At those moments, the centers of the chambers were lit from above by the
kind of piercing sun ray dramatized in Hollywood, according to U.S.
researchers Edwin Barnhart and Christopher Powell, who first documented
the phenomenon in a 2011 paper.
Mr. Magli also provides a possible answer for the mysterious northeast-facing
orientation of the vast, remote temple complex known as Preah Khan of
Kompong Svay.
“Preah Khan of Kompong Svay is definitively oriented to the Moon rising at
the maximal northern standstill,” Mr. Magli writes. The moon is “quite
relevant both in Hinduism—where it is identified with the God Chandra—and
in Buddhism, since festivals and recurrences associated with Buddha’s life
are timed by the full Moon.”
Mr. Magli also addresses a second striking mystery of Preah Khan: how its
builders managed to construct its inner chamber so that it stood within 800
meters of the same latitude as Angkor Wat—some 100 km away. Angkorian
planners could have used the height of the sun at midday in fixed intervals
to calculate latitude, he notes, but the undertaking would have been
“daunting.”
Not all of Angkor’s many alignments and details serve symbolic purposes,
according to the scholar. Mr. Magli is particularly skeptical of suggestions
that the temples served as astronomical observatories and says he has not
seen proof of “interconnecting, almost esoteric” lines between temples.
Mr. Magli does not explore the role that equinoxes may have played in
Angkorian culture, but Mr. Barnhart and Mr. Powell’s 2011 paper cites earlier
theories that suggest the temples symbolized the Buddhist and Hindu center
of the universe—Mount Meru—and “connected the center of the earth to the
center of the heavens, or zenith point.”
“The sunlight from that zenith point comes down through the holes in these
Mount Meru-inspired temples to illuminate the center of the earth,” their
paper says.
Angkorian Astrological Ingenuity Revealed in New Paper. Ben Paviour .April 26, 2016

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 The Concept of Place
One of the oldest tenets of geography is the concept of place. As a result,
place has numerous definitions, from the simple “a space or location with
meaning” to the more complex “an area having unique physical and human
characteristics interconnected with other places.” There are three key
components of place: location, locale, and a sense of place. Location is the
position of a particular point on the surface of the Earth. Locale is the
physical setting for relationships between people, such as the South of
France or the Smoky Mountains. Finally, a sense of place is the emotions
someone attaches to an area based on their experiences. Place can be
applied at any scale and does not necessarily have to be fixed in either time
or space. Additionally, due to globalization, place can change over time as its
physical setting and cultures are influenced by new ideas or technologies.

Broadly defined, place is a location. The word is used to describe a specific

location, such as the place on a shelf, a physical environment, a building or
locality of special significance, or a particular region or location. The term
can be used for locations at almost any geographic scale, depending on
context.

Although location and place are sometimes used interchangeably,

geographers assign the terms specific and different meanings. New
education standards are now in effect, but in 1984, the National Council of
Geographic Education (NCGE) and the Association of American Geographers
(AAG) broke the discipline of geography into five major themes, which some
continue to use to help teach geography: location, place, human-
environment interaction, movement, and region. Location either refers to the
actual latitude and longitude coordinates (absolute location) of something on
Earth’s surface, or it describes something’s position in reference to
something else (relative location). Place, on the other hand, refers to the
physical and human characteristics of a spot on the map. In other words,
location focuses on where; place focuses on what it is like there.

In ancient times place also included descriptions of a site’s features

and environmental conditions. This way it was easier for people to identify
their destination if they travelled and put into perspective their ideas of a
environment not their own but different. That is why Marco Polo left Florence
to see the world. To see PLACES. Whereas his father was an emissary and a
secret one of the Pope who wanted to try and convert the Mongols to
Christianity.

The physical and human characteristics of a place make it unique.

Physical characteristics include the natural environment, such as landforms,

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elevation, water features, climate, soil, natural vegetation, and animal life.
Human characteristics include the size and density of the population,
the ethnic and religious makeup of the population, language patterns, and
other aspects of the culture. Human characteristics also include the built
environment, such as houses, roads, and other infrastructure.

The study of a place often focuses on creating a better understanding of how

the physical and human aspects of a location interrelate and interact.
Geographers can also use place to compare and contrast different locations.
Geographers can compare the physical and human characteristics of the
Sahara and Antarctica, for instance, to better grasp the characteristics of
each place, how the natural and human worlds interact, and how places vary
across the world. In the case of the Sahara and Antarctica, they are both
intense deserts, but one (the Sahara) is hot while the other (Antarctica) is
cold. Although both are harsh, sparsely populated environments, nomadic
groups have called the Sahara home for thousands of years, but it is only in
recent times that people, mainly researchers, have started exploring and
living in Antarctica.

Let us study for example the rann of Kutch

The Rann of Kutch is located mostly in the Indian state of Gujarat,

specifically Kutch district, for which it is named. Some parts extend into the
Pakistani province of Sindh. The word Rann means "desert".
It covers around 26,000 square kilometres (10,000 square miles). Bigger than 27
European Countries and almost as Big as 6 others over and above these
smaller ones-Vatican City, Monaco, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg,
Moldova, Albania, Belgium,North Macedonia, Turkey,Georgia, Slovenia,
Montenegro, Kosovo, Azerbaijan, Georgia, European Turkey,Belgium,Bosnia
and Herzegovin,Latvia, Croatia,Slovakia,Switzerland,Netherlands, Denmark,
Serbia, Ireland.

The Great Rann of Kutch is the larger portion of the Rann. It extends east
and west, with the Thar Desert to the north and the low hills of Kutch to the
south. The Indus River Delta lies to the west in southern Pakistan. The Little
Rann of Kutch lies southeast of the Great Rann, and extends southwards to
the Gulf of Kutch.
Many rivers originating in Rajasthan and Gujarat flow into the Rann of Kutch,
including the Luni, Bhuki, Bharud, Nara, Kharod, Banas, Saraswati, Rupen,
Bambhan, and Machchhu, Kori Creek and Sir Creek, tidal creeks which are
part of the Indus River Delta, are located at the western end of the Great
Rann.

329
The surface is generally flat and very close to sea level, and most of the
Rann floods annually during the monsoon season. There are areas of sandy
higher ground, known as bets or medaks, which lie two to three metres
above flood level. Trees and shrubs grow on the bets, and they provide
refuges for wildlife during the annual floods.
The people of the Indus civilization appear to have settled in the Rann of
Kutch around 3500 BCE. The Indus city of Dholavira, the largest Indus site in
India, is located in the Rann of Kutch. This city was built on the Tropic of
Cancer, possibly indicating that Dholavira's inhabitants were skilled in
astronomy.
Theories: Many Indologists such as A. S. Gaur and Mani Murali hold the view
that the Rann of Kutch was, rather than the salt marsh that it is today, a
navigable archipelago at the time of the Indus Civilization. The Indus
Civilization was known to have an extensive maritime trade system, so it has
been proposed by Gaur et al. that there were perhaps ports in the Rann of
Kutch.
The climate of the ecoregion is subtropical. Temperatures average 44 °C
during the hot summer months, and can reach highs of 50 °C. During the
winter the temperature can drop to or below freezing.
Rainfall is highly seasonal. The Rann of Kutch is dry for most of the year, and
rainfall is concentrated in the June to September monsoon season. During
the monsoon season, local rainfall and river runoff flood much of the Rann to
a depth of 0.5 metres. The waters evaporate during the long dry season,
leaving the Rann dry again by the start of the next monsoon season.

330
Pic to left an animal called Nilgai group at the Little Rann of Kutch

The Rann of Kutch is the only large flooded grasslands zone in the Indo-
Himalayan realm. The area has desert on one side and the sea on the other
enables various ecosystems, including mangroves and desert vegetation. Its
grassland and deserts are home to forms of wildlife that have adapted to its
often harsh conditions. These include endemic and endangered animal and
plant species.
The history of the Rann of Kutch began with early neolithic settlements. It was
later inhabited by the Indus Valley Civilization as well as
the Maurya and Gupta empires of India. But it was destined to be a desert.
Centuries ago, the Rann of Kutch was part of the sea until an earthquake
turned the exposed sea bed into a sprawling desert. Today, it is a vast
expanse of arid land, devoid of habitation, stretching out to the Arabian Sea,
which is just 10 kms away.

Destiny of a person and a Place

Just as a person has a destiny a place too has a destiny. A man who in his
childhood served teas in his father’s tea shop and slept on the footpaths
adjacent to the road is today the Prime Minister of India.

What is it called when something is destined to happen?

If something is inevitable, it will definitely happen, like death or tax season.

Inevitable comes from the Latin word inevitabilis, which means unavoidable.
If you say something is inevitable, you give the sense that no matter what
scheme you come up with to get around it, it's going to happen sooner or
later. Rudyard Kipling crystallized it well in his "The Man Who Would Be
King" which is an 1888 short story by Rudyard Kipling concerning two
ambitious British ex-soldiers, who from ordinary soldiers become kings of
afabled land called Kafiristhan near the Afghan mountains, only to loose it
all in the end and die.All this because of their destiny to become kings and
loose it all by way of their own actions and mistakes.
Similary, why was the Rann of Kutch a desert. Because of destiny. Because
the rate of evaporation of water is lesser than the rate of precipitation. It is
one of the largest salt deserts in the world covering a staggering 7500
square km of the area.
Similarly the place where Angkor wat temple were built
Where is Angkor Wat located exactly?

331
Cambodia
Angkor Wat, temple complex at Angkor, near Siĕmréab, Cambodia, that
was built in the 12th century by King Suryavarman II (reigned 1113–c. 1150).
The vast religious complex of Angkor Wat comprises more than a thousand
buildings, and it is one of the great cultural wonders of the world.Angkor
Wat/Coordinates
13.4125° N, 103.8670° E

This article in The Planet Earth says:

Radar Reveals Hidden Remains at Ancient Angkor

Remnants of ancient temples from prehistoric civilizations have been

discovered at Angkor, Cambodia, by researchers using highly detailed maps
produced with data from an imaging radar.

Angkor is a vast complex of some 1,000 temples covering about 100 square
miles of northern Cambodia. The Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AIRSAR)
developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, California,
has revolutionized the way archaeologists view the way the city developed in

332
ancient times. [CLICK IMAGE FOR MORE PICTURES]

Little is known of the prehistoric occupation of the fertile Cambodian flood

plain. However, at its height the city probably housed a million people. Its
now-famous temples were built in the time from the eighth to thirteenth
century AD. They were accompanied by a massive hydrological system of
reservoirs and canals.

Lo
st in the forest. Today, much of the civilization of Angkor is hidden beneath
a dense forest canopy. It is inaccessible due to poor roads, military land
mines and political instability.

The new radar has enabled scientists to detect a circle of prehistoric mounds
and undocumented temples far to the northwest of Angkor. The site's
topography is highlighted by the radar, focusing attention on previously
neglected features, some at the very heart of the city.

Radar maps not only bring into question traditional concepts of the urban
evolution of Angkor, but reveal evidence of temples and earlier civilization

333
either absent or incorrect on modern topographic maps and in early
twentieth century archaeological reports.

The radar images make apparent many features that are not readily
identifiable on the ground. Scientists can see differences in vegetation
structure and some features that are obscured by vegetation cover.

Angkor Wat. In December 1997, the radar was used to survey a small
mound on the perimeter of the famous 12th century AD temple, Angkor Wat.
The mound had been noticed first in a radar image.

Previous archaeological accounts, from 1904 and 1911, noted only two
temples at Angkor Wat and did not mention the circular form of the mound.
The 1997 radar images led to four to six temple remains, including pre-
Angkorean structures. They suggested the 12th century site actually had
been occupied some 300 years earlier.

Ancient beauty. Angkor's beauty is seen in its temples, but the greatness
of the Khmer city lies in the multitude of water-related constructions. The
Khmer kings nominally dedicated temples to Hindu and Buddhist deities, but
the underlying significance was veneration of ancestral spirits, ensuring
fertility of the land.

Management of water was essential, both for flood control during monsoon
rains and water conservation during dry seasons. Management included the
construction of moats, dikes, canals, tanks and reservoirs. The largest of
reservoir, dated to the 12th century AD, and is five miles long. Its function
remains is debated by archaeologists.

The new detailed topographic maps have revealed many more hydrological
features and highlighted how they function in the rituals and daily life of the
Khmer people.

Interferometry. The technique known as radar interferometry combines

two images to create a three-dimensional topographic map. Through
interferometry, researchers can construct a map of the area surrounding
Angkor that is more accurate than most maps of the United States. The map
shows clearly both natural and human-engineered water management
features at the site.

Angkor is situated on the edge of the Tonle Sap lake. That unique body of
water doubles in size during the rainy season. The maps give new insights
into the human impact on the lake's ecosystem, from the ancient Khmer to
the present day, showing how the Earth has changed in that region.

334
 Space shuttle radar. The Angkor radar images were taken in
late 1996 as part of the AIRSAR Pacific Rim Deployment. They
were a follow-up to the 1994 study of Angkor in which a
Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C/X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar
(SIR-C/X-SAR) collected data from aboard NASA's space shuttle
Endeavour.

Like SIR-C/X-SAR, AIRSAR transmited and receiveed three radar

Endeavour frequencies in both horizontal and vertical polarizations. While
both systems use C-band and L-band radio wavelengths, AIRSAR has the
added benefit of P-band, a longer radio wavelength that can penetrate below
the forest canopy. In addition, AIRSAR can be flown in a mode called TOPSAR
that allows it to measure topography and create three-dimensional images of
the surface.

AIRSAR flies on a NASA DC-8 aircraft that is managed at NASA's Dryden

Flight Research Center, Edwards, California. AIRSAR is managed by Jet
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a division of the California Institute of
Technology, for NASA's Office of Earth Science, Washington, D.C.

NASA's Office of Earth Science manages NASA's internationally coordinated

effort to study natural and human-induced changes in the Earth's land,
oceans, atmosphere, ice and life.

The AIRSAR flight over Cambodia was funded by the Government of

Thailand. Ground verification was made possible by the Minister of State for
Culture and Fine Arts, Territorial Management, Urban Planning and
Construction; and the Cambodian Authority for the Protection and
Management of Angkor and the Region of Siem Reap.

Everyone works to develop their vision, and fulfill their distinct and particular
place of destiny. The hallmark of every potential human being is to think
about destiny. For each and every person there is a great destiny, but it has
to be unleashed here on earth! Every person is a person of greatness.
Sometimes we wait and perhaps not doing or doing our everyday things
reach fullest potential here on earth. The Power of Place: Geography,
Destiny, and Globalization's Rough Landscape all have destinies. The land
waits for the destiny to be fulfilled. Our ancestral house in our town was
broken down 200 years after our ancestors bought it to construct amulti
storied complex of apartments that mad us very righ. Our destiny was linked
to that of our land but the land had to wait for 200 years and I had to wait for
45 years( I did the project at the age of 45).

The world is not as mobile or as interconnected as we like to think. Not only

opportunities but land resources are unequally distributed. Some have land
some don’t . Tgis creates unequal availability of opportunity--geography

335
continues to hold billions of people in its grip. We are all born into natural
and cultural environments that shape what we become, individually and
collectively. From our "mother tongue" to our father's faith, from medical
risks to natural hazards, where we start our journey has much to do with our
destiny.
The environments are tremendously varied. Hundreds of millions of farmers
in the river basins of Asia and Africa, and tens of millions of shepherds in
isolated mountain all live their lives much as their distant ancestors did,
remote from the forces of globalization.
Humans and land come together to redefining “place”so as to make its
power even more potent than it has been. The stars of both have to
correspond

Bird's eye overview of Angkor Wat and surrounding area near Siem Reap,
Cambodia. Shows Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Preah Khan, Eastern Baray,
and Western Baray.

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Is Angkor Thom part of Angkor Wat?
Angkor Thom (two miles north of Angkor Wat) is moated walled city that
covers nearly four square miles and is laid out in a square with each side
measuring around for centuries was the seat of the Khmer government,
whereas one can suppose that Angkor what as it is called today was a
Mandir(temple) 1000 years ago.In Angkor Wat: An introduction, Roland
Fletcher,Damian EvansChristophe Pottier and Chhay Rachna, 2015 argue
that the temple of Angkor Wat, was but a single element in a large dispersed
city. LiDAR, ground-penetrating radar and targeted excavation demonstrate
that recent research has transformed our understanding of Angkor Wat and
its surroundings.

The Khmer empire was a state of Southeast Asia that lasted from about AD 802 to 1431. It
enjoyed its greatest prosperity from the 11th to the 13th century. The Khmer empire ruled much
of what is now Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam.

337
The empire is named after the Khmer ethnic group of its rulers. The Khmer built their capital at
Angkor (in present-day Cambodia). Therefore, the empire is sometimes called the Angkor
empire. Indian culture and religion (Hinduism and Buddhism) influenced the Khmer. After the
neighboring Tai peoples captured Angkor in the 15th century, the Khmer empire crumbled. The
region subsequently underwent four centuries of foreign invasions, civil war, and widespread
depopulation. Modern Cambodia emerged from the Khmer empire.
The Khmer were known for their building skills. They constructed large temples, many
dedicated to the Hindu gods Shiva and Vishnu. These temples include Angkor Wat in present-
day Cambodia. It was originally dedicated to Vishnu, although it was soon converted (and is still
in use as) a Buddhist temple. It is one of the world’s largest religious structures. The Khmer also
built impressive roads, canals, and bridges.

EARLY KINGDOM
In 790 a Cambodian prince named Jayavarman II rose to power in eastern Cambodia. Over the
next 10 years, he extended his power northward. He united the smaller kingdoms to form one
large state. In 802 Jayavarman was installed under Hindu rites as god-king (universal ruler). This
event marked the start of the Khmer empire. Jayavarman established a series of capitals, the last
near Angkor. Angkor served as the Khmer empire’s capital for 600 years.
Jayavarman died in 835. His successors were often powerless or caught up in succession
rivalries. Revolts were frequent, as were foreign invasions. However, some kings had a more
lasting impact than others. Those who ruled in periods of peace were better able to undertake
building programs and public works. Like their counterparts in medieval Europe, Cambodian
kings were far removed from ordinary people. The people primarily thought of the king in
religious terms. He ensured the fertility of the soil and the well-being of the kingdom through
rituals. In exchange for his protection, the people had to serve occasionally in the military. They
also had to provide free labor for Buddhist and Hindu religious foundations and for local elites.
Of note during this time was Indravarman I. He ruled from 877 to about 890. He constructed a
large reservoir and several temples, including the Bakong. The Bakong was shaped roughly as a
step pyramid. It was the first Cambodian temple to be built primarily of stone rather than brick.
This so-called “temple mountain” became the model for the many larger royal temples at
Angkor. They served as monuments to their patrons as well as their tombs.

10TH–11TH CENTURIES
Indravarman’s son and successor was Yasovarman I. He ruled from about 890 to about 910. A
variety of Buddhist and Hindu sects flourished during his reign. Yasovarman officially
established the capital at Angkor (originally called Yasodharapura). He made Angkor’s city wall
2.5 miles (4 kilometers) long on each side. Yasovarman had his temple mountain, now called
Bakheng, built on a hill that overlooked the city. He also had a large reservoir constructed
nearby. For such an ambitious building program, the king needed numerous laborers.
After Yasovarman’s death, there were several decades of warfare and disorder until
Rajendravarman II began his rule in 944. He set in motion a period of peace and prosperity that
lasted nearly a century. After his death in 968, Jayavarman V succeeded him. Jayavarman ruled
until about 1000. He had the rose-colored sandstone shrine of Banteai Srei built on the outskirts
of the capital. In Angkor itself, he began work on the temple mountain now called Ta Keo. It was
completed under his successor, Suryavarman I.

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Suryavarman I ruled from about 1004 to about 1050. He extended the Khmer empire westward
into present-day Thailand. There he constructed the large mountaintop temple known as Preah
Vihear. During his reign, the number of cities under Angkor’s rule grew from roughly 20 to
nearly 50. In addition, foreign trade increased, along with tighter central bureaucratic control.
However, the years after Suryavarman’s death were filled with turmoil.
SURYAVARMAN II
At the end of the 11th century, a new dynasty began to rule at Angkor. It lasted for more than a
century. Its most powerful monarch took the name of Suryavarman II, although he probably was
not descended from the earlier king of that name. Suryavarman II ruled from 1113 to about 1150.
He was a strong military campaigner. He expanded the empire to include much of what is now
Thailand. He also avenged earlier attacks on Angkor by armies launched from the neighboring
kingdom of Champa, in what is now south-central Vietnam. However, his campaigns against the
Vietnamese kingdom Dai Viet were mostly unsuccessful.

© Hu Xiao Fang/Shutterstock.com© Hu Xiao Fang/Shutterstock.com

Suryavarman II was also renowned as a religious reformer and temple builder. He had the temple
of Angkor Wat, the world’s largest religious structure, built. The temple was dedicated to the
Hindu god Vishnu. Some of the temple’s bas-reliefs (sculptures) depict events in the well-known
Indian epics Mahabharata and Ramayana. Others show Suryavarman himself holding court.
Suryavarman also sponsored the construction of several other temples in the style of Angkor
Wat.
JAYAVARMAN VII
Suryavarman II’s successor was Yasovarman II. He ruled from 1160 to 1166. During his short
reign, workers completed several temples begun under Suryavarman. In 1166 Yasovarman was
in Thailand heading a military campaign. Upon his return to Angkor, one of his officials staged a
coup. Shortly thereafter, a Cambodian prince returned to seek the throne. His name was
Jayavarman VII, and he would eventually rule from 1181 to about 1220. However, when he first
arrived, a usurper had already seized the throne. For the next 10 years, Jayavarman waited as the
ruler lost control and the Cham peoples from neighboring Champa invaded and occupied
Angkor. In 1177, heading an army of his own, the prince attacked Angkor and defeated the
Cham forces. To stop further Cham attacks, he annexed Champa.
When his campaign against the Cham was over, Jayavarman worked to bring Cambodia under
his control. He expanded the Khmer empire to its greatest territorial extent. In 1191 Jayavarman
finally settled in Angkor. He soon began an extensive program of building and public works. He
built a number of new temples and rebuilt the capital of Angkor. He also rebuilt and extended the
system of highways. In addition, he constructed more than 100 rest houses along these roads and
built more than 100 hospitals. Hundreds of thousands of people were involved in the projects.

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© Connor Bros./Shutterstock.com© Connor Bros./Shutterstock.com
Jayavarman was a fervent Buddhist. However, like most other Cambodian kings, he also
tolerated and patronized Hinduism. His temple, the Bayon, reflects this diversity. The statues
include many Hindu gods and the Buddha. The bas-reliefs show scenes of ordinary life,
providing a picture of 12th-century Cambodians at work, rest, and play. The clothing, tools,
houses, and oxcarts in the bas-reliefs closely resemble those found in the Cambodian countryside
today.
DECLINE OF THE KHMER EMPIRE
After Jayavarman’s death about 1220, most of the monument building at Angkor stopped. Little
by little, the Khmer empire began to shrink. Jayavarman’s campaigns had stopped Champa from
being a threat to Angkor. However, by the early 13th century, new kingdoms in what is now
northern Thailand and some Tai principalities in the south gained power. They were able to
throw off Khmer domination. In the mid-13th century, Tai armies even raided Angkor. However,
Angkor remained a crowded and wealthy city for the next 200 years.
About the same time, the majority of the population converted to a school of Buddhism called
Theravada. The mass conversion potentially undermined the state and encouraged a more
individualistic attitude. Some historians believe that this event contributed to the decline and
gradual abandonment of Angkor. Others think that the Tai military campaigns contributed to the
collapse of Angkor. Yet other historians theorize that serious environmental damage may have
undermined the region’s vital irrigation system.
Regardless of the underlying causes of the decline, historians agree on several facts. The Tai
attacked Angkor in 1369, 1389, and 1431. In 1351 a Tai kingdom was founded at Ayutthaya,
near present-day Bangkok, Thailand. The court modeled itself culturally on Angkor. It is likely
that sometime in the mid-14th century the prosperous Tai court attracted the elite from Angkor.
Commercial possibilities in the south probably drew many of the Khmer who remained at
Angkor. By the 16th century, a smaller Khmer kingdom had replaced Angkor. It earned its
wealth primarily from trade.

Hindu iconography can be found throughout many of the temples in the park, which have
provided historians with evidence of the Kingdom’s religious history. These include Khmer
versions of Ganesha and Hanuman, as well as bas relief carvings depicting scenes from
the Ramayana, which is called the Reamker in Cambodia and still features heavily in traditional
performances.
Cambodia’s Hinduism can be traced back to the Funan Kingdom which ruled between 100BC
and 500AD. During this period, kings worshiped Vishnu and Shiva. When the Khmer Empire
came to power, Hinduism remained the dominating religion until Jayavarman VII (reigned 1181-
1218).

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However, the gradual shift to Buddhism had started, with Jayavarman VII sending his son to Sri
Lanka for 10 years to be ordained as a Buddhist monk and study Theravada Buddhism. This,
combined with Buddhist missionaries travelling from Siam, Burma, Cambodia and Sri Lanka
helped influence the change to the widely spread Theravada Buddhism that continues to be
practiced in Cambodia today.
While Hinduism is no longer the ruling religion in Cambodia, its influences remain. The Royal
Palace in Phnom Penh houses a sword said to have been presented to the royal family by Hindu
deity, Indra. The National Museum of Cambodia is also home to a series of Hindu statues.

KHMER RELIGION . The majority of Khmer, the dominant ethnic population of Cambodia,
identify themselves as practitioners of Theravāda Buddhism. As in other contemporary Southeast
Asian cultures with strong Theravadin identities, the Buddhism practiced in Cambodia is
characterized by two trends. Although the Theravadin history of Cambodia is understood by
most Khmer to extend back to ancient times, the self-conscious construction of Cambodia as a
Theravadin nation is largely a modern development. Khmer Buddhism is (and has long reflected)
a complex interweaving of local and translocal religious ideas, movements, rituals, practices, and
persons. This history includes, first, the blurring of clear distinctions between Theravāda,
Mahāyāna, and Tantric historical development in Cambodia, and second, the incorporation of
Buddhist values into local spirit cults and healing practices. As Buddhist scholars have only
recently begun to recognize, the older normative presentation of a monolithic "Theravāda"
tradition dominating Southeast Asia is largely a scholarly fiction.
Buddhism in Cambodia during the past two millennia has been marked by numerous
transformations as it was blended, in different forms, with local and Hindu-influenced cults; as
diplomats, missionaries, monks, and traders imported new interpretations, monastic lineages, and
practices; and as Buddhism rose and fell from official patronage. There are striking continuities
in Khmer religious history as well: the political potency of religion in various Khmer kingdoms,
states, and regimes; the intertwining in all periods of Buddhist, Brahmanic, and spirit cults and
practices; and, at least since the widespread popularization of Theravāda Buddhism after the
fourteenth century, the important role of Buddhist ideas and values in the moral vocabulary and
ritual practices of Khmer people.

Based on Pali scriptures, many Khmer Buddhists have understood their national religion to
originate in the Aśokan missions of the third century bce. Archeological evidence, however,
suggests a somewhat later introduction of Buddhism, possibly as early as the second century ce,
when Khmer-speaking peoples were congregated in small chiefdoms referred to in Chinese
records as Funan. Buddhism was likely introduced into the Khmer regions by Indian merchants,
explorers, and traveling monks, but the extent to which this movement should be regarded as a
full-scale "implantation" has been debated. The theory of the importation and spread of
Buddhism and other Indian ideas and cultural forms into Southeast Asia has been
termed Indianization by scholars. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a historical
account of the "origin" of Southeast Asian cultural forms through the mode of a dominant Indian
civilization was widely accepted by colonial scholars of Cambodia, presumably because of its
resonance with dominant colonial views of race and civilizational development. By the 1930s,
the work of the French Indologist Paul Mus (soon joined by other historians) began to call into
question the extent to which the Khmer and other Southeast Asian cultures were shaped by
Indian influence, arguing instead that Indian forms had been easily absorbed in Southeast Asia

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because they complemented existing indigenous ideas and practices, and that the cultural
influences moved both ways, not just one way.
More recently, a consensus has emerged among many historians that Indians probably never
established a political and economic process akin to modern-era colonization by Europeans in
Southeast Asia; nor is there thought to have been a large movement of Indian settlers to
Southeast Asia. Rather, aspects of the language, arts, literature, and philosophical, religious, and
political thought of Indians were assimilated and reinterpreted by Khmer and other Southeast
Asian peoples during the first centuries ce, possibly through a combination of trade, diplomatic,
and religious contacts both with India and Indians directly and also through trade and court
relations with Southeast Asian neighbors. Among the most important borrowings from India for
the Khmer was the introduction of Sanskrit writing and literature. Archeological evidence from
the pre-Angkorian (seventh to ninth centuries) and Angkorian (ninth to fourteenth centuries)
periods shows that the Khmer utilized both Sanskrit and Khmer for inscriptions: they used
Sanskrit for expressive literary purposes, such as extolling the virtues of the gods, and Khmer for
more documentary purposes, such as listing donations of slaves to temples. Sanskritist Sheldon
Pollock has suggested that the attraction of Sanskrit as a cosmopolitan language was aesthetic; it
provided a powerful medium for imagining the world in a larger, more complex, and translocal
way. By the middle- or post-Angkorian period (fifteenth to nineteenth centuries), the use of
Sanskrit for literary purposes had been replaced by the vernacular, which had developed its own
cosmopolitan idiom. For the Khmer, this process of the thorough transformation of the Indian
literary imagination is evident in the celebrated Khmer rendering of the Rāmāyaṇa, known in
Khmer as the Rāmakerti (pronounced "Ream-ker"), the Glory of Rām. The Khmer adaptation of
the Indian epic transforms the hero, Rām, into a bodhisattva, reflecting Khmer ethical and
aesthetic concern with the biography of the Buddha. The Rāmakerti appears as a frequent theme
in Khmer art in temple murals and paintings and in bas reliefs on the galleries of Angkorian
temples. It has also been reenacted in elaborate traditional dance forms, composed as narrative
poetry, and retold in many oral versions, including shadow puppet plays known as spaek
dhaṃ and lkhon khol performances used ritually as spirit offerings.

From the second century onward, historical evidence suggests that Buddhist and Brahmanic
practices coexisted and became intertwined with local animist traditions and spirit beliefs in the
Khmer regions. Chinese records indicate that Khmer court rituals during the Funan period
included the worship of Śiva-liṅgam, suggesting devotion to Śiva, as well as evidence of local
spirit cults. The transregional movements of Buddhist missionaries and pilgrims may well have
introduced Buddhism into Southeast Asian courts. Chinese histories reveal that Chinese monks
en route to India by sea visited sites in Southeast Asia, and likewise that a Buddhist monk from
Funan named Nāgasena traveled to China in the sixth century. At Oc-Eo, a port city of the Funan
era, archeologists have discovered Buddha images associated with the Mahāyāna tradition.
Epigraphic records of religious life began to appear in the seventh century, during the period
referred to as pre-Angkor, when the Khmer regions were apparently dominated by a group of
chiefdoms or kingdoms referred to in Chinese sources as Chen-la. These inscriptions, primarily
composed in Khmer and Sanskrit, suggest that the pre-Angkorian rulers were for the most part
devotees of Śiva or Viṣṇu. Contemporary historians warn against over-interpreting this evidence
to suppose that an Indian-like "Hinduism" was in existence. Rather, drawing on persuasive
linguistic evidence, Michael Vickery has pointed to the practice among pre-Angkor Khmer of
attributing Indian names to their own indigenous deities.

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These inscriptions also suggest the simultaneous practice or at least the presence of diverse
religions, including Buddhism, which was tolerated and to different degrees supported by most
pre-Angkorian rulers. Buddhism was apparently practiced alongside or synthesized into the
activities of indigenous cults with some Indian features. These sources also reveal that pre-
Angkorian Buddhist influences were drawn from India, China, Sri Lanka, and other parts of
Southeast Asia, such as Dvaravati and Champa, with more than one form of Buddhism in
evidence. Numerous Avalokiteśvara figures, as well as a reference to the name Lokeśvara in an
inscription from 791 (found in present-day Siemreap), indicate Mahayanist influence. Yet some
early Pali inscriptions from the pre-Angkor period have also been found along with Sri Lankan
and Dvaravati style Buddha images showing Theravadin presence.

The end of the pre-Angkor period was a period of political and economic expansion and
centralization in the Khmer region. As kings enlarged their territories, the Khmer political
linking of king and deity began to emerge, a concept referred to in Sanskrit inscriptions
as devarāja, which may have grown out of older indigenous traditions linking rulers and local
deities of the earth. This association developed more fully during the Angkor period, starting
with the kingship of Jayavarman II (802–854). While the ideological details of the devarāja cults
remain unclear—whether or to what extent kings understood themselves as embodied deities or
as supplicants to or patrons of particular deities remains contested—scholars have surmised that
the considerable political and economic influence wielded by Angkorian kings was inseparable
from their close ties to cycles of agricultural production and fertility, their roles as moral
exemplars and protectors and patrons of religious life. These dimensions of kingship were
manifested in the building projects undertaken by the Angkorian kings, in reservoirs, images, and
mountain temples such as Angkor Vatt, the fabulous religious monument constructed by
Sūryavarman II (1113–c.1150) and dedicated to Viṣṇu.

Most of the early Angkorian kings were Saivites or devotees of Harihara, a Khmer deity
incorporating aspects of both Śiva and Viṣṇu. But Mahāyāna Buddhism was also in evidence and
became increasingly connected with royal patronage and political power during the Angkorian
period. Yasovarman, regarded as the founder of Angkor (889–900), dedicated hermitages
to Śiva, Viṣṇu, and the Buddha; Rājendravarman II (c. 944–968), Jayavarman V (c. 968–1001),
Sūryavarman I (1001–1050), and Jayavarman VI (1080–1107) all patronized Buddhism in
addition to other religious cults. Mahāyāna Buddhism came to the forefront, however, toward the
end of Angkorian predominance, during the reign of Jayavarman VII (1181–c.1218). Historian
David Chandler has suggested that Jayavarman VII may have developed an interest in Mahāyāna
Buddhism during a stay in Champa, where Mahāyāna Buddhism was flourishing. Influenced by
Buddhist ideas, Jayavarman VII followed a period of bloody warfare in his reign by constructing
public works, such as rest houses, hospitals, and reservoirs, as well as the temples Ta Prohm and
Preah Kan to honor his parents in combination with the goddess of wisdom, Prajñāpāramitā, and
the Bodhisattva Lokeśvara (symbolizing compassion). He also erected the Bayon temple in the
center of his capital containing the central image of the Buddha, with four-faced images of
Lokeśvara on its towers and exteriors, an image that has been widely associated in modern times
with Cambodian identity and with a widespread romantic fascination with Angkor. This image
has sometimes been interpreted as a likeness of Jayavarman VII as well, possibly representing a
further reinterpretation of the earlier devarāja concept, now connecting king and bodhisattva.

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During the eleventh to thirteenth centuries, as inhabitants of the Southeast Asian maritime
regions were adopting Islam, people in mainland areas, including Cambodia, were turning to
Theravāda Buddhism. Although there is a generally acknowledged acceptance among scholars of
the "ascendancy" of Theravāda Buddhist ideologies and practices during this period, it is not
exactly clear why or how. Victor Lieberman explains the popularization of Theravāda Buddhism
after about 1400 in connection to expanding trade and prosperity moving from coastal to inland
regions. He suggests that Theravāda Buddhism became associated with this movement and that it
perhaps provided a larger, more cosmopolitan and universal vision of the world for its new
adherents. Given the syncretic nature of Khmer religion in general, it is likely that Theravadin
ideas and practices continued to intermingle with other Buddhist forms. As the dominant
political and economic influence of Angkor waned and the kingdoms of Pagan and Sukothai (in
present-day Burma and Thailand) replaced it as regional powers, trade, diplomatic, and other
cultural contact with these Theravadin kingdoms spread Theravadin ideas to Khmer-speaking
people. A Khmer prince, possibly a son of Jayavarman VII, is supposed to have been among a
group of Southeast Asian monks who traveled to Sri Lanka to study Buddhism at the end of the
twelfth century and ordained in the Mahaviharin order, a lineage that was carried back and
established in Pagan. During the next two centuries, Theravāda Buddhism became assimilated
into all levels of Khmer society and synthesized with older Brahmanic and spirit practices, such
as agricultural and life-cycle rites, worship of qnak tā (local spirits), spirit mediumship, alchemy,
and healing practices.

During the post-Angkorian or "middle period," the population and agricultural centers of the
Khmer region gradually shifted southward. While Khmer religion retained its syncretic
character, Theravadin forms and idioms dominated. Cultural historian Ashley Thompson sees
this movement reflected in the appearance of wooden Theravadin vihāras built adjacent to
Angkorian Brahmanic stone temples, and in the shift in iconography from images of deities such
as Śiva, Viṣṇu, and Harihara to images of the Buddha. Pali replaced Sanskrit as the language of
inscriptions and literature along with Khmer, and much of the classical Khmer literature was
composed during this time. Along with the development of Buddhist interpretations of
the Rāmakerti, Khmer art and literature began to assume Theravadin ideas of the relationship
between Buddhist virtue and kingship, and merit-making and karma; they also developed an
emphasis on the cosmic biography of the bodhisattva perfecting virtues in his different rebirths
on the path to buddhahood, and a cosmology and ethical orientation reflecting notions of rebirth
and moral development in the three-tiered world of the Trai Bhūm. A sixteenth-century
inscription translated by Thompson, for example, refers to the merit produced by a royal couple,
the king's subsequent rebirth in Tuṣita Heaven, and his resolve to become an arahant at the time
of the Buddha Maitreya.

.Anne Hansen (2005)https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacs-

transcripts-and-maps/khmer-religion

DESTINY or FATE of ANGKOREAN LAND SAGA

A person's destiny is everything that happens to them during their life, including what will
happen in the future, especially when it is considered to be controlled by someone or something
else. We are masters of our own destiny.What is the true meaning of destiny?

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Definition of destiny

1. something to which a person or thing is destined : fortune wants to control his own destiny.
2 : a predetermined course of events often held to be an irresistible power or agency felt that
destiny would determine their future. Human nature is created so that you can choose your
destiny. In order to know your destiny you must realize that your life is in a constant state of
change. The key to deciding your destiny is to be one of the few who know where you are going
and exactly how to get there.

Fate and destiny are both words dealing with a predetermined or destined
future. That's why they are so easy to mix up. However, while fate is
concrete and determined by the cosmos, destiny depends on your choices in
life.
Difference Between Fate and Destiny: Meaning & Use
The universe has an order. No matter how hard you try, you can’t get away from it. However,
while fate is set by outside forces, destiny involves choice. Explore fate and destiny in-depth to
learn other differences between them. Use examples and fun memory tricks to remember fate vs.
destiny.

What Is Fate?
Fate and destiny can easily become intertwined because both of these terms deal with the future.
People also use them interchangeably in conversation. Likewise, the definition of the word can
vary slightly based on who you ask. To keep things clear, it’s always best to ask the dictionary.
By definition, fate is those outside forces establishing the preordained path of your life despite
what you do. Given its definition, it should come as no surprise ‘fate’ comes from the
Latin, fatum, meaning has been spoken.
Fate Example
Need an example of fate? Imagine you get on a bus to go to work and it gets a flat tire, which
leads to you missing your job interview. These events were beyond your control. That’s fate.
A simple way to think of fate is to think of the three Fates (Atropos, Clotho, and Lachesis).
In Greek mythology, they were the three women spinning strings that determined a person’s
cycle of life. You can’t control the Fates!
Fate in a Sentence
Still, having a hard time understanding fate? See how fate is used in a sentence.
 You can’t change your fate.
 Fate threw them together.
 Fighting your fate is an impossible battle.

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  Fate can be cruel.
 Sometimes, it’s hard to accept your fate.
What Is Destiny?
Fate is outside of your control. However, you can shape destiny with your choices. Why?
Because destiny is your future. Coming from the Latin term destinare, which means intended or
firmly established, destiny hasn’t already been determined. Therefore, the changes that you make
will affect your destiny in life.
Example of Destiny
Destiny is all about your traits determining your future. And, you have the choice to change your
destiny by choosing differently. For example, if you’re a saver and work hard all your life,
you’re destined to be wealthy. The different qualities that you possess contribute to your future
path.
An interesting way to visualize destiny is to think about walking a path. However, your choice to
take a fork in the road changes your path.

Here I will try to explain the two with the help of 2 outstanding books that come to my AID
readily.
Land of Destiny by Jesse Donaldson
This is a short, interesting book about the history of real estate in Vancouver, Canada, focusing
on speculation (beginning even before the arrival of the railway), housing and rental shortages,
the history of rent control, and the players. Land here was used by people who linked their
destiny to the up-coming boom in land use and retail to boost their fortunes. Thus the 2 destinies
were linked. Here the book says that much of the linkage were unfair to some who got exploited.
That is true with all land deals.

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If I am a king and my kingdom is invaded by someone else who defeats me and takes away my
land. My destiny is ruin but that of the land may not be. The conquerer may build a magnificent
Palace onto my land?

In The Land of Canaan and the Destiny of Israel-Theologies of Territory in the Hebrew Bible,
David Frankel looks at the biblical overtures of the land that is today Zion. The territorial
dimension” of the Hebrew Bible!

The Canaanites were the inhabitants of ancient Canaan, a region that roughly corresponds to
present-day Israel and the Palestinian Territories, western Jordan, southern and
coastal Syria, Lebanon, and continued up to the southern border of Turkey. They are believed to
have been one of the oldest civilizations in human history.
History
The Levant was inhabited by people who referred to the land as ca-na-na-um as early as the mid-
third millennium BCE. When the ancient Greeks later traded with the Canaanites, this meaning
of the word seems to have predominated, as they referred to the Canaanites
as Phoenikes (Phoenicians), which may derive from the Greek-language word "phoenix"
(transl. "crimson" or "purple"). More recently, the term "Canaanite" has been used for the
secondary Iron Age states of the Levantine interior that were not ruled by Aramean peoples, a
separate and closely-related ethnic group which included the Philistines and
the Israelite kingdoms of Israel and Judah
To what extent does the religion promoted by the Hebrew Bible require that Israel live its
communal life in the national homeland? The Land of the Canaan? To what extent must the
people of Israel take hold of and settle in the “entire land of Canaan” for them to fulfill their
destiny? Might the land be shared with other peoples, or must non-Israelites be expelled and
subjugated, or at least kept at a safe and isolated distance?

Frankel asks these questions and others of the Hebrew Bible as a whole and of the biblical texts
individually. The Zionists believe that the Land of Israel is theirs from ancient times( Canaan) .
They say the land is blessed.
But much blood has been spilled because some others also lay claim to the land.

The land is a Lover with 2 suiters.

This brings ius to the “territorial dimension” of the Hebrew Bible. Frankel’s analysis shows that
behind the present form of several biblical texts lie earlier versions that often displayed
remarkably open and inclusive conceptions of the relationship between the people of Israel and
the land of Canaan. However the law of the gun will negate other efforts to consummate the
sharing of the land with others.

First Hindu temple and then Buddhist shrine: The wavering fortunes of the land on which
the temple sits are remarkable.Angkor Wat is an enormous Buddhist temple complex located
in northern Cambodia. It was originally built in the first half of the 12th century as a Hindu
temple. Spread across more than 400 acres, Angkor Wat is said to be the largest religious
monument in the world. The city of Angkor served as the royal centre from which a dynasty of

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Khmer kings ruled one of the largest, most prosperous, and most sophisticated kingdoms in
the history of Southeast Asia. From the end of the 9th century until early in the 13th century,
numerous construction projects were undertaken, the most notable of which was Angkor Wat. It
was built by Suryavarman II . Construction is believed to have spanned some three decades. All
of the original religious motifs derived from Hinduism, and the temple was dedicated to the
gods Shiva, Brahma, and Vishnu. The five central towers of Angkor Wat symbolize the peaks
of Mount Meru, which according to Hindu mythology is the dwelling place of the gods. The
mountain is said to be surrounded by an ocean, and the complex’s enormous moat suggests the
oceans at the edge of the world. A 617-foot (188-metre) bridge allows access to the site. The
temple is reached by passing through three galleries, each separated by a paved walkway. The
temple walls are covered with bas-relief sculptures of very high quality, representing Hindu gods
and ancient Khmer scenes as well as scenes from the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.

After the Cham people of modern-day Vietnam sacked Angkor in 1177, King Jayavarman
VII (reigned 1181–c. 1220) decided that the Hindu gods had failed him. When he built a new
capital nearby, Angkor Thom, he dedicated it to Buddhism.

Thereafter, Angkor Wat became a Buddhist shrine, and many of its carvings and statues of
Hindu deities were replaced by Buddhist art. In the early 15th century Angkor was abandoned.
Still Theravada Buddhist monks maintained Angkor Wat, which remained an important
pilgrimage site and continued to attract European visitors. Angkor Wat was “rediscovered” after
the French colonial regime was established in 1863.

HOW THE LAND was linked to the FORTUNES OF AN EMPIRE

In 1177 and again in 1178, the Cham invaded the Khmer Empire. In 1177, Champa King Jaya
Indravarman IV launched a surprise attack on the Khmer capital by sailing a fleet up
the Mekong River, across Lake Tonlé Sap, and then up the Siem Reap River, a tributary of the
Tonle Sap. The invaders pillaged the Khmer capital of Yasodharapura and put
king Tribhuvanadityavarman to death. Also in 1178, when he was in his mid 50s, Jayavarman
came to historical prominence by leading a Khmer army that ousted the invaders, which included
a naval battle depicted on the walls of the Bayon and Banteay Chmar. Returning to the capital,
he found it in disorder. He put an end to the disputes between warring factions and in 1181 was
crowned king himself.

Early in his reign, he probably repelled another Cham attack and quelled a rebellion of the vassal
Kingdom of Malyang (Battambang). He was greatly helped by the military skill of refugee
Prince Sri Vidyanandana, who also played a part in the subsequent sacking and conquest
of Champa (1190–1191). His conquest of Champa made it a dependency of the Khmer Empire
for thirty years. Jayavarman expanded Khmer control of the Mekong Valley northward
to Vientiane and to the south, down the Kra Isthmus.

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 Bronze replica of one of the twenty-three stone images King
Jayavarman VII sent to different parts of his kingdom in 1191. The Walters Art Museum.

Over the 37 years of his reign, Jayavarman embarked on a grand program of construction that
included both public works and monuments. As a Mahayana Buddhist, his declared aim was to
alleviate the suffering of his people. One inscription tells us, "He suffered from the illnesses of
his subjects more than from his own; the pain that affected men's bodies was for him a spiritual
pain, and thus more piercing." This declaration must be read in light of the undeniable fact that
the numerous monuments erected by Jayavarman must have required the labor of thousands of
workers, and that Jayavarman's reign was marked by the centralization of the state and the
herding of people into ever greater population centers.
Historians have identified many facets in Jayavarman's intensive building program. In one phase,
he focused on useful constructions, such as his famous 102 hospitals, rest houses along the roads,
and reservoirs. Thereafter, he built a pair of temples in honor of his parents: Ta Prohm in honor
of his mother and Preah Khan in honor of his father.
Finally, he constructed his own "temple-mountain" at Bayon and developed the city of Angkor
Thom around it.He also built Neak Pean ("Coiled Serpent"), one of the smallest but most
beautiful temples in the Angkor complex, a fountain with four surrounding ponds set on an
island in that artificial lake
Ta Prohm
In 1186, Jayavarman dedicated Ta Prohm ("Ancestor Brahma" or " Eye of Brahma") to his
mother. An inscription indicates that this massive temple at one time had 80,000 people assigned
to its upkeep, including 18 high priests and 615 female dancers
Angkor Thom and Bayon
Angkor Thom ("Grand Angkor" or "Angkor of Dham(ma)") was a new city centre, called in its
day Indrapattha. At the centre of the new city stands one of his most massive achievements—the
temple now called the Bayon, a multi-faceted, multi-towered temple that mixes Buddhist and
Hindu iconography. Its outer walls have startling bas reliefs not only of warfare but the everyday
life of the Khmer army and its followers. These reliefs show camp followers on the move with

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animals and oxcarts, hunters, women cooking, female traders selling to Chinese merchants, and
celebrations of common foot soldiers. The reliefs also depict a naval battle on the great lake, the
Tonle Sap.
Upon coming to the throne, Jayavarman VII had began the process of building a new royal city
(Angkor Thom) and state temple (Bayon) in the late 12th century because he understood, like
Khmer rulers before him, that the capital would serve as the political and religious center of his
kingdom.

BIG CITY
Angkor Thom or Big/great city, alternatively Nokor Thom located in present-day Cambodia,
was the last and most enduring capital city of the Khmer Empire. It was established in the late
twelfth century by King Jayavarman VII. It covers an area of 9 km², within which are located
several monuments from earlier eras as well as those established by Jayavarman and his
successors. At the centre of the city is Jayavarman's state temple, the Bayon, with the other major
sites clustered around the Victory Square immediately to the north. The site is one of the major
tourist attractions of southeast Asia.

Angkor Thom is the transform name from another alternative name of Nokor Thom bwhich is
believed to be the correct one, due to neglect of calling it in incorrect pronunciation. The
word Nokor is literally derived from Sanskrit word of Nagara (Devanāgarī: नगर), which
means City, combining with Khmer word Thom, which means Big or Great so as to form Nokor
Thom then being altered to current name of Angkor Thom.

Bayon

Angkor Thom was established as the capital of Jayavarman VII's empire, and was the centre of
his massive building program. One inscription found in the city refers to Jayavarman as the
groom and the city as his bride.

Angkor Thom seems not to be the first Khmer capital on the site, however. Yasodharapura,
dating from three centuries earlier, was centred slightly further northwest, and Angkor Thom
overlapped parts of it. The most notable earlier temples within the city are the former state
temple of Baphuon, and Phimeanakas, which was incorporated into the Royal Palace. The
Khmers did not draw any clear distinctions between Angkor Thom and Yashodharapura: even in
the fourteenth century an inscription used the earlier name. The name of Angkor Thom—great
city—was in use from the 16th century.

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The last temple known to have been constructed in Angkor Thom was Mangalartha, which was
dedicated in 1295. Thereafter the existing structures continued to be modified from time to time,
but any new creations were in perishable materials and have not survived.
The Ayutthaya Kingdom, led by King Borommarachathirat II, sacked Angkor Thom, forcing the
Khmers under Ponhea Yat to relocate their capital southeast to Phnom Penh.
Angkor Thom was abandoned some time prior to 1609, when an early western visitor wrote of
an uninhabited city, "as fantastic as the Atlantis of Plato".It is believed to have sustained a
population of 80,000–150,000 people.
The Poem of Angkor Wat composed in Khmer verse in 1622 describes the beauty of Angkor
Thom.
Angkor Thom is in the Bayon style. This manifests itself in the large scale of the construction, in
the widespread use of laterite, in the face-towers at each of the entrances to the city and in
the naga-carrying giant figures which accompany each of the towers.

South gate of Angkor Thom along with a bridge of statues of gods and demons. Two rows of
figures each carry the body of seven-headed naga./Faces on Prasat Bayon

The city lies on the west bank of the Siem Reap River, a tributary of Tonle Sap, about a quarter
of a mile from the river. The south gate of Angkor Thom is 7.2 km north of Siem Reap, and
1.7 km north of the entrance to Angkor Wat. The walls, 8 m high and flanked by a moat, are each
3 km long, enclosing an area of 9 km². The walls are of laterite buttressed by earth, with a
parapet on the top. There are gates at each of the cardinal points, from which roads lead to the
Bayon at the centre of the city. As the Bayon itself has no wall or moat of its own, those of the
city are interpreted by archaeologists as representing the mountains and oceans surrounding the
Bayon's Mount Meru. Another gate—the Victory Gate—is 500 m north of the east gate; the
Victory Way runs parallel to the east road to the Victory Square and the Royal Palace north of
the Bayon. It is around 30 minutes from central Siem Reap.

The faces on the 23 m towers at the city gates, which are later additions to the main structure,
take after those of the Bayon and pose the same problems of interpretation. They may represent
the king himself, the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, guardians of the empire's cardinal points, or
some combination of these. A causeway spans the moat in front of each tower: these have a row
of devas on the left and asuras on the right, each row holding a naga in the attitude of a tug-of-
war. This appears to be a reference to the myth, popular in Angkor, of the Churning of the Sea of
Milk. The temple-mountain of the Bayon, or perhaps the gate itself, would then be the pivot
around which the churning takes place. The nagas may also represent the transition from the
world of men to the world of the gods (the Bayon), or be guardian figures. [9] The gateways
themselves are 3.5 by 7 m, and would originally have been closed with wooden doors. The south
gate is now by far the most often visited, as it is the main entrance to the city for tourists. At each

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corner of the city is a Prasat Chrung—corner shrine—built of sandstone and dedicated to
Avalokiteshvara. These are cruciform with a central tower, and orientated towards the east.
Within the city was a system of canals, through which water flowed from the northeast to the
southwest. The bulk of the land enclosed by the walls would have been occupied by the secular
buildings of the city, of which nothing remains. This area is now covered by forest.

Most of the great Angkor ruins have vast displays of bas-relief depicting the various gods,
goddesses, and other-worldly beings from the mythological stories and epic poems of ancient
Hinduism (modified by centuries of Buddhism). Mingled with these images are actual known
animals, like elephants, snakes, fish, and monkeys, in addition to dragon-like creatures that look
like the stylized, elongated serpents (with feet and claws) found in Chinese art.

But among the ruins of Ta Prohm, near a huge stone entrance, one can see that the
"roundels on pilasters on the south side of the west entrance are unusual in design."

What one sees are roundels depicting various common animals—pigs, monkeys, water buffaloes,
roosters and snakes. There are no mythological figures among the roundels, so one can
reasonably conclude that these figures depict the animals that were commonly seen by the
ancient Khmer people in the twelfth century.

The south gate of Angkor Thom is 7.2 km north of Siem Reap, and 1.7 km north of the entrance
to Angkor Wat. The walls, 8 m high and flanked by a moat, are each 3 km long, enclosing an

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area of 9 km². So that means that the land was adjescent was the defect in the Vastu of the
structure? Is that why another City was built nearby, the first converted to Buddhism but half
hartedly because it was actually abandoned.

FLIP FLOP TO HINDUISM

The Bayon was the last state temple to be built at Angkor, and the only Angkorian state temple
to be built primarily to worship Brahma, though a great number of minor and local deities were
also encompassed as representatives of the various districts and cities of the realm. Originally a
Mahayana Buddhist temple, the Bayon was the centrepiece of Jayavarman VII's massive
program of monumental construction and public works, which was also responsible for the walls
and nāga-bridges of Angkor Thom and the temples of Preah Khan. Ta Prohm
and Banteay Kdei.

From the vantage point of the temple's upper terrace, one is struck by "the serenity of the stone
faces" occupying many towers. //Tête présumée du roi Jayavarman VII. Ta Prohm (?) (Angkor).
Style du Bayon, fin XIIe siècle. Grès. H. 42 cm ; L. 25 cm. ; P. 31 cm. P 430. Musée Guimet,
Paris
The similarity of the 216 gigantic faces on the temple's towers to other statues of the king has led
many scholars to the conclusion that the faces are representations of Jayavarman VII, himself.
Scholars have theorized that the faces belong to the bodhisattva of compassion
called Avalokitesvara or Lokesvara. Others have argued that the faces, arranged in four,
resemble those of Brahma. The two hypotheses need not be regarded as mutually exclusive.
Angkor scholar George Coedès has theorized that Jayavarman VII stood squarely in the tradition
of the Khmer monarchs in thinking of himself as a "devaraja" (god-king), the salient difference
being that while his predecessors were Hindus and regarded themselves as consubstantial
with Shiva and his symbol the lingam, Jayavarman VII was a Buddhist.

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 V
The History of Angkorean Astronomy
Angkor Wat

Photo courtesy of www.andybrouwer.co.uk

Background:
One of the most spectacular structures of astronomical significance that has ever been built is the temple
of Angkor Wat in what is now Cambodia.

Angkor Wat is the most famous temple at Angkor, a former capital of the Khmer empire. It was built by
King Suryavarman II in the 12th century, and is as immense as it is beautiful. Surrounded by a
rectangular moat 1.5 kilometers (0.9 mile) long and 1.3 kilometers (0.8 mile) wide, the structure itself
consists of two rectangular walls enclosing three nested rectangular galleries that culminate in a central
spire surrounded by four smaller towers. The straight lines of its moat, walls and galleries are oriented
along the north-south, east-west directions, and unlike most temples in the area its entrance faces west,
being approached by way of a long bridge that spans the moat.

The origins of the temple lie in what may be the world's oldest religious text, the Rigveda, one of the
four Veda Samhitas of Hindu literature. This text describes the gods of heaven and earth, including the
earthly god Vishnu, "The Preserver." It is to Vishnu that Angkor Wat is consecrated, and with more than
mere symbolic intent. Hindu temples were built to be earthly abodes for the gods. The central sanctuary
was the most sacred place, directly inline with the vertical axis of the central spire that provided the
connection between the realms of heaven and Earth. The surrounding architecture of the temple would

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then mirror Hindu cosmology, being essentially a mandala in stone—a diagram of the cosmos itself.
Furthermore, the Khmer civilization had by the time of Angkor Wat's construction incorporated the idea
that a king would, after his death, be transmuted into one of the gods. Hence, it was at Angkor Wat that
Suryavarman II, after his death, was believed to reside as Vishnu.

Astronomical significance:
Astronomy and Hindu cosmology are inseparably entwined at Angkor Wat. Nowhere is this more evident
than in the interior colonnade, which is dedicated to a vast and glorious carved mural, a bas-relief
illustrating the gods as well as scenes from the Hindu epic the Mahabharata. Along the east wall is a 45-
meter (150-foot) scene illustrating the
Photo courtesy of www.andybrouwer.co.uk
"churning of the sea of milk," a creation myth
in which the gods attempt to churn the elixir of immortality out of the milk of time. The north wall depicts
the "day of the gods," along the west wall is a great battle scene from the Mahabharata, and the south
wall portrays the kingdom of Yama, the god of death. It has been suggested that the choice and
arrangement of these scenes was intended to tie in with the seasons—the creation scene of the east wall is
symbolic of the renewal of spring, the "day of the gods" is summer, the great battle on the west wall may
represent the decline of autumn, and the portrayal of Yama might signify the dormancy, the lifeless time
of winter.

Photo courtesy The architecture of Angkor Wat also has numerous

of www.andybrouwer.co.uk astronomical aspects beyond the basic mandala plan that is
common to other Hindu temples. As many as eighteen
astronomical alignments have been identified within its walls. To mention but three of them: when
standing just inside the western entrance, the Sun rises over the central tower on the spring (vernal)
equinox; it rises over a distant temple at Prasat Kuk Bangro, 5.5 kilometers (3.4 miles) away, on
the winter solstice; and on the summer solstice it rises over a prominent hill 17.5 kilometers (10.9 miles)
away.

Finally, some researchers have claimed that the very dimensions of many of the structures at Angkor Wat
have astronomical associations. These associations emerge from consideration of the unit of length that
was in use at that time, a unit known as the hat or "Cambodian cubit." There is some question as to how
long a hat was, and indeed its definition may not have been uniformly applied; but a value of 43.45
centimeters (17.1 inches) for the length of a hat is suggested by the structures themselves.

Using this value, archaeologists discovered numerous dimensions of the temple that seem to have
astronomical and cosmological significance—for example, the following:

 The dimensions of the highest rectangular level of the temple are 189 hat in the east-west
direction and 176 hat in the north-south direction. Added together these give 365, the number of
days in one year.

 In the central sanctuary, the distances between sets of steps is approximately 12 hat. There are
roughly 12 lunar cycles, or synodic months (from full Moon to full Moon, say—the basis for our
modern month) in one year.

 The length and width of the central tower add up to approximately 91 hat. On average, there are
91 days between any solstice and the next equinox, or any equinox and the next solstice.

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Because of its orbit around the Earth, the Moon's apparent
position in the sky relative to the background stars will appear
to shift from night to night. Since it takes the Moon just over 27
days to complete one orbit (known as its sidereal period), it will
during this time appear to move through 27 successive regions
of the sky. In Hindu cosmology, these regions were known as
the naksatras, or lunar mansions. In some contexts there were
27 lunar mansions, while in other contexts an
additional naksatra containing the star Vega was included,
giving 28 lunar mansions.

 The central tower at Angkor Wat contains nine inner

chambers. If you total the dimensions of all of these
chambers it equals 27 hat in the north-south direction
and 28 hat in the east-west direction, corresponding to
the possible number of lunar mansions. Also, the
libraries have lengths measured along their interiors of
16 hat in the east-west direction, and either 12 or
11 hat in the north-south direction, depending upon
whether or not the doorways are included. Added Photo courtesy
together, these also give either 28 or 27 hat. Finally, the of www.andybrouwer.co.uk
north-south width of the libraries measured from the
exteriors of the walls is again 28 hat.

Hindu cosmology recognizes four time periods, or Yugas, that are represented in the dimensions of the
temple:

 The length of the Kali-Yuga, our current time period, is 2 x 603 years, or 432 thousand years. The
width of the moat that surrounds the temple, measured at the water level, is approximately
432 hat.
 The length of the Dv apara-Yuga is 4 x 603 years, or 864 thousand years. The distance from the
entrance to the inner wall is 867 hat.

 The length of the Treta-Yuga is 6 x 603 years, or 1,296 thousand years. The distance from the
entrance to the central tower is 1,296 hat.

 The length of the Krita-Yuga is 8 x 603 years, or 1,728 thousand years. The distance from the
moat bridge to the center of the temple is 1,734 hat.

Rarely in history has any culture given rise to a structure that so elaborately and expansively incorporates
its concept of the cosmos. Angkor Wat stands as a striking and majestic monument in honor of the
Universe and our place in it.

Return to Index

References:
Kelley, D., and E. Milone, Exploring Ancient Skies: An Encyclopedic Survey of Archaeoastronomy,
Springer, New York, 2005.

Krupp, E.C., Skywatchers, Shamans & Kings: Astronomy and the Archaeology of Power, John Wiley &

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Sons, Inc., New York, 1997.https://www.planetquest.org/learn/angkor.htm above article from
PlanetQuest:

In The Lost Horoscope of Cambodian Astrologers,

François Bizot(In Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident Volume 35, Issue 1, January 2013,
pages 171 to 197) points out that in Cambodia, the kingdom is conceptualized as a sacred space
where Mount Meru rises from the center of the Zodiac, with the world being but a huge stage for
the battle between the forces of good and evil through the intermediary of the planets with which
they are aligned. In this perspective, astrologers handed down the vestiges of a horoscope based
on the archetypical episodes of the Indian work, R?m?ya?a. This is because owing to the imprint
of their exploits on the material world, the heroes of that celebrated epic are thought to influence
the destiny of human beings. This paper shows that somewhat unexpectedly, the system of signs
and aphorisms employed here does not derive from the adaptation of the epic by the local
Buddhist tradition known as R?maker. Rather, the original Indian poem, whose origins are lost in
the mists of time, provided the frame of reference for this system of divination.

Tech used to prove Angkor’s link to sun,Erin Handley |

A new study of Angkor Wat (pictured) and surrounding temples in Siem Reap has revealed that
many of the temple’s orientations were planned with astrological alignment in mind. Hong
Menea
An Italian professor has set about the task of verifying with angles and axes what has long been
theorised about Cambodia’s iconic Angkor Wat – that the temples took their cues from the sky.
Giulio Magli, professor of archaeoastronomy at Politecnico di Milano, used modern technology
to test age-old thought in a bid to prove the clear orientation of buildings to the west was
“connected with the temple’s symbolism and the management of power by the Khmer kings”.
“I only believe in what I can measure,” Magli told the Post, explaining his motivation to map
precisely the orientation of the temples.
Using previously unavailable Google Earth satellite data, geographic information system (GIS)
data from the Greater Angkor Project and by reconstructing the ancient sky with software called
Stellarium, he traced the phenomenon of the sun disappearing vertically behind the temple at
equinoxes.
He described the phenomenon as a “heirophany” – a manifestation of the divine – that created a
connection between the temple and the heavens, while island temples built in barays (water
reservoirs) aligned later kings with those who went before in a symbolic legitimisation of their
rule.
“To me this cultural heritage is very important; that these buildings have explicit messages
encoded in the astronomical content,” he said.
He found all 31 monuments align east-west, within a margin of 5 degrees, but his research also
hinted that another, peripheral state temple in Cambodia – Preah Khan of Kampong Svay,
roughly 100 kilometres east of Angkor in Preah Vihear province – had “a very clear
astronomical solution”, involving not the sun, but the moon.
In his report, Archaeoastronomy in the Khmer heartland, published last week on the Cornell
University Library open-access site arXiv.org, he also dismissed the idea that any of the temples
functioned as precise “calendars in stone”.

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Apsara Authority spokesperson Chau Sun Kerya said these new findings added to past
researchers’ discoveries about the links between the construction of the temples, astronomy and
patterns of the sun.
“They showed evidence that on 23 or 24 March, every year, the sun is exactly above of the
central tower of Angkor Wat temple,” she said in an email.
“The Angkor Wat temple is built by King Suryavarman II, and Surya means ‘sun’.”
https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/tech-used-prove-angkors-link-sun

ASTROLOGY at ANGKOR

Asger Mollerup, in Planetary clustering and navagraha at Banteay Srei,

found an inscription at Prasat Banteay Srey, 15 km north of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, which
dated the inauguration of this Shivaite sanctuary to coincide with a planetary alignment. A
planetary clustering or planetary alignment is when the five planets visible to the naked eye are
observable at dawn or dusk above the eastern or western horizon. The five planets form together
with the sun, the moon, Rahu and Ketu the Indian concept the Navagraha.

A close gathering of the five planets is an impressive celestial event and has been described in
ancient Indian and Chinese records and calculations. Appendix III, pgs. 226-233 in Ancient
Khmer Sites in North-eastern Thailand. Khorat, Buriram and the Angkor - Phimai route. But
more than that It points a finger at the use of Astrological Good and Bad days and auspicious
times and moments by the ancient Khmer kings in their important functions and actions( if not
the mundane ones and that too) of this Shivaite sanctuary to coincide with a planetary alignment.

A planetary clustering or planetary alignment is when the five planets visible to the naked eye
are observable at dawn or dusk above the eastern or western horizon. The five planets form
together with the sun, the moon, Rahu and Ketu the Indian concept the Navagraha. A close
gathering of the five planets is an impressive celestial event and has been described in ancient
Indian and Chinese records and calculations.

In my paper 9 Graha Puja performed at Bantey Sarai( near Angkor Wat) 1200 years ago based
on Asger Mollerup’s findings I had concluded that aThe Navagraha Pooja, which is a time tested
vedic ritual to enable the performer to attain success in his life path and enable him to be the
benefactor of good things and deeds was most probably also performed at that instance and at
thet site to call upon the Hindu Gods and the 9 plants to bless the event of inauguration as well as
the future of the Temple and its benefactors( the Royals)

The pooja is worship of 9 planets on the natal chart of the person as well as in the
heavens( skies) that control our deeds desires and results and outcomes of the same. The pooja
creates a favorable ambience in the context of the present and future of the persons performing
and guide them to success.

Every scientific theory starts as a hypothesis. A scientific hypothesis is a suggested solution for
an unexplained occurrence that doesn't fit into a currently accepted scientific theory. In other
words, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a hypothesis is an idea that hasn't been

358
proven yet. If enough evidence accumulates to support a hypothesis, it moves to the next step —
known as a theory — in the scientific method and becomes accepted as a valid explanation of a
phenomenon.

Ancient Indians and mathematicians developed many such hypotheses and made observations to
either accept or reject their hypotheses. They regularly measured things such as in which part of
the sky the so called navagrahas were to be seen, tracked down their movements such as
trajectory, degree etc. They noted down these and performed mathematical calculations. If you
have certain good number of observations, as per statistics you may use the outcomes of the
calculations to either accept or reject your hypothesis. Note that theories evolve and change over
time. They are not set in stone. As new evidence comes out theories often change. Among many
other things, ancient Indians had developed algebra to perform calculations. The picture below is
of Aryabhata, the person who created the number zero. He was born in 476 AD. His
contributions include Place value system and zero, Approximation of π, Trigonometry,
Indeterminate equations, Motions of the solar system, Eclipses, Sidereal periods,
Heliocentrism. For his explicit mention of the relativity of motion, he also qualifies as a major
early physicist.

The most important aspect of this is that the ancient Indians knew that the grahas moved
in elliptical paths. This is also mentioned in the Rig Veda.

They knew about more than 9 grahas ( the Navgrahas mentioned are used for Astrology
and not for Astronomy)

The earliest astronomical text —named Vedānga Jyotiṣa, written somewhere around 1st
millennium BCE, also details astronomical calculations, calendrical studies, and establishes rules
for empirical observation. As per one historian, Twenty-seven constellations, eclipses, seven
planets, and twelve signs of the zodiac were also known at that time.
Our ancient seers first confirmed the existence of planets and their influence on human life
through Divya Drishti. Later, Indian astronomers(Bhaskara, Varahamihra, Aryabhatta)
developed mathematical correlations to find distant objects. Varahamihra developed Surya
Siddhanta that becomes the pioneer text of Indian astronomy.

The below answer is a bit philosophical concept, but trust me it will really inspire you.

The tool of confirmation

According to Indian philosophy, the confirmation can be done in 3 ways

4. Katchi pramana - Visual confirmation

5. Anumana pramana - Confirmation by logics
6. Agama pramana - Confirmation by seers through Divya Drishti or Yoga katchi
Source: Saiva Sidhanta

Let us look into each one of these.

Katchi pramana - Visual confirmation

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The visual confirmation may give literal meaning as confirmation through eyes, but visual
confirmation actually means that confirmation through sensory organs. Humans have 5 sensory
organs viz eyes(seeing), ears(hearing), nose(smelling), tongue (tasting) and body(touching) and
we use one or more than one of the sensory organs at a time to confirm the object or a situation.
For example, the shape of an object can be confirmed by seeing.

The process of Visual confirmation

We may generally think that our sensory organs will do the confirmation by itself. But the five
sensory organs are just an instrument to capture the data and send it to another source to confirm.
There are 4 more inner instruments that will help in the process of confirmation. They are

5. Manash - Mind
6. Buddhi - Intellect
7. Cittam - Pure intellect
8. Ahankara - Ego or identity
Source: Saiva Sidhanta
The sensory organs are external instruments and these four(Manas, Buddhi, Cittam and
Ahankara) are termed as inner instruments.

Let us look into the process of visual confirmation

When the sensory organs capture the data(through eyes or ears etc), it will send them to Manas.
The Manas is the silo of memory. These memories are from various sources such as Karmic
memory(memories from our past birth), evolutionary memory - memory gain through evolution
(for ex: calf immediately after birth know how to suck the milk), sensory memory, etc. So the
mind will process the data sent by sensory organs and list out the options from its memory. For
example, if you see an object(say a table). The sensory organ(in this case eyes) will capture the
solid form and will send it to Manas. The Manas will list down the options(table, chair, door etc)
from its memory. The buddhi will collect the information from Manas, and it will confirm the
object using intellect.

What is the limitation of this process?

This process may look flawless, but there is a huge limitation in this process. The limitation of
buddhi is that it will use the intellect according to the ahankara(identity) ie; if you have an
identity or belief about something then your intellect will work according to your belief. For
example, if you believe in God then your intellect will filter out the information that is
supportive to the belief of God.

Secondly, each of these sensory organs has certain limitations. Our eyes can physically see only
up to a certain distance, ears can hear the sound with certain frequency. So the visual
confirmation is not the best source of confirmation.

Anumana pramana - confirmation by logics

There are certain things that we can confirm through logic. Say if you see lightning then you can
confirm that you will hear thunder in few secs. If you see a smoke then you can confirm there

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was a fire. This logical conclusion will not give correct results in all the situation and hence this
confirmation is also not the best source of confirmation.

Who is the true seeker?

The 5 external sensory organs and 4 internal instruments we discussed so far are just instruments,
who is the real seeker of the information from the outside world? The answer is Atma or soul.

The soul gets the data from the external world through 5 sensory organs and it is processed and
confirmed through 4 internal instruments.

What if the seeker is able to seek without instruments? - Divya Drishti

We just said that the true seeker is the soul and these internal and external sensory organs are just
instruments in collecting and processing the data similar to what a computer does it for us.

Our ancient seers with the power of deep meditation were able to directly interact with the
universe without the internal and external sensory organs and that is called Divya Drishti. The
Divya Drishti don’t have any physical limitation, and hence the soul can visualize the distance
objects(planets) and its influence without any internal and external sensory organs.

The distinction of faraway objects

With the power of Divya Drishti, our ancient seers were clearly able to visualize the distant
objects including its proximity to Earth. Thus there were able to clearly identify the objects that
can influence life on Earth and the objects that have negligible influence in life on Earth. Thus
the Indian astrology ignored the distant planet Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto but they included the
north and south nodes ie; Rahu and Ketu.

The nine planets (Nava Graha) according to ancient Indian Mythology are
Surya - Sun
Chandra - Moon
Mangala - Mars
Budha - Mercury
Brihaspati/Guru - Jupiter
Shukra - Venus
Shani - Saturn
Rahu & Ketu.

So, clearly these are not the planets that we have today, at-least not all of them. There was no
need for any Scientific technology to see any of these because they are all directly visible to
naked Eye. Though, now a days Saturn is bit tricky to find (because of light pollution), it is still
one of the brightest objects in the night sky and is clearly distinguishable from other stars. It
would be even more brighter and more clearly visible several hundred years ago.
Their definition of a Planet is different from what we have now. They just categorized
everything that's not a Star as a planet. As Sun appears different from other stars (bigger and
brighter), they thought that it qualifies to be a planet, a special entity.

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Rahu and Ketu are the weird outliers in this aspect. They are not actual bodies in space, but are
simply the points of intersection of Earth and Moon's orbits. These are noticeable during Eclipses
and they decided to group them as Planets too.

So, As you can see there is not really much thought put in to this. Earth is no where to be found
in this list because they just took it for granted. They didn't realize we are another entity floating
in the space. Even Neptune, Uranus are missing from this list. They are not visible without the
aid of powerful Telescopes (which are absent then) and hence they didn't exist in the Indian
mythology.

Therefore to answer your question, there is no scientific technology involved in this. They just
grouped the 9 things that are visible in the sky and each of that is called a Graha (planet).
Indians did not find that there are 9 planets orbiting the Sun. They only knew of 6. Budha
(Mercury), Shukra (Venus), Bhumi (Earth), Mangal (Mars), Brihaspati (Jupiter), and Shani
(Saturn).

They knew that Earth orbited the Sun. This is evident from the values used for the calculation of
epicycles of the other planets and the use of the orbital period of Sun in these calculations.

They believed that the solar system extended upto and slightly beyond the orbit of Saturn.

As to how ancient man figured out about planets as distinct from stars.

By observing the north sky it becomes evident pretty soon that there is a diurnal motion of the
dome of the sky.

Over thousands of years of observing the night sky, our ancestors must have figured out that
although everything in the sky moves around from East to West over the course of the night,
Mars, Jupiter and Saturn has a secondary motion in the opposite direction over the course of
larger periods of time.

Figuring out that Mercury and Venus are two objects rather than four (2 morning objects and 2
evening objects) must have been the next eureka moment in ancient astronomy.

This much could be achieved by meticulous observation over very many years and by reasoning.
Mathematics developed along with astronomy so some knowledge of trigonometry helped too.

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In the meanwhile observation of moon was important for religious and administrative
applications. By the time of Surya Siddhanta and Bhagavata purana the phenomena of the phases
of the moon and of the eclipses was understood in their modern sense. The fact that the orbit of
moon was inclined with respect to the ecliptic was understood as well.

This knowledge of Earth casting a shadow can be extended to planets and that is how Surya
Siddhanta explains occultations.

However, we see in the Surya Siddhanta that the diameter of the orbit of the outer planets were
figured out correctly. This I believe could only be achieved by applying some form of parallax
measurements.

Navagraha are nine heavenly bodies (as well as deities) that influence human life on Earth
in Hinduism and Hindu astrology. The term is derived from nava ("nine") and Graha (planet,
seizing, laying hold of, holding).

The Navagraha are

29.Surya: the Sun

30.Chandra: the Moon
31.Mangala: Mars
32.Budha: Mercury
33.Bṛhaspati: Jupiter
34.Shukra: Venus
35.Shani: Saturn
36.Rahu: Shadow body associated with the ascending (or north) lunar node
37.Ketu: Shadow body associated with the descending (or south) lunar node
38.
Muthuswami Dikshitar, a Carnatic music composer from southern India composed
the Navagraha Kritis in praise of the nine planets. Each song is a prayer to one of the nine
planets. The sahitya (lyrics) of the songs reflect a profound knowledge of
the mantra and jyotisha sastras.
Navagraha temples devoted to Navagraha—the nine (nava) major celestial bodies (Grahas)
of Hindu astronomy.These temples are made of stones and are very beautiful. These celestial
bodies are
named Surya (Sun), Chandra (Moon), Mangala (Mars), Budha (Mercury), Brihaspati (Jupiter), S
hukra (Venus), Shani (Saturn), Rahu (North Lunar Node) and Ketu (South Lunar Node). Many
temples in South India contain a shrine dedicated to the Navagrahas. However, the term
Navagraha temples refers to a cluster of nine separate temples, each an abode of one of the
Navagrahas.

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The Temple as a Mandala- Avittathur Mahadeva Temple
That the Angkor temples were Mandalas is well known . Most large and “rich” temples in
ancient India were also built methodically and with the use of large resources and therefore
the temples were designed as per the VASTU principles
Chola Temples-The Navagraha temples in Tamil Nadu are a cluster of Navagraha Temples
dating from the Chola dynasty. During the Chola dynasty near Kumbakonam in Tamil Nadu
many temples were built. The Angkor Wat is a reflection of the Chola Religio-cultural traditions
albit on a grander scale .
As per Hindu legend, Sage Kalava was suffering from serious ailments along with leprosy. He
prayed to the Navagrahas, the nine planet deities. The planets were pleased by his devotion and
offered cure to the sage. Brahma, the Hindu god of creation, was angered as he felt that the
planets have no powers to provide boons to humans. He cursed the nine planets to suffer from
leprosy and were sent down to earth in Vellerukku Vanam, the white wild flower jungle - the
modern time Suryanar Kovil. The planets prayed to Shiva to relieve them off the curse. Shiva
appeared to them and said that the place belonged to them and they would have to grace the
devotees worshipping them from the place.

Each temple is located in a different village, and is considered an abode of one of the
Navagrahas. However, eight among these temples are dedicated to Shiva. The Surya temple is
the only one dedicated to the Graham. In fact, it is dedicated entirely to the worship of the Sun-
God and the other navagrahas, the former being the object of worship as the principal deity and
the latter as attendant deities. It was built around the 11th or 12th century. The other temples
were built earlier, ranging back to 7th-9th century.
31. Surya Navagrahastalam -- Sooriyanar Kovil (Thanjavur District)
32. Chandra Navagrahastalam -- Thingalur (Thanjavur District)
33. Angaarakan Navagrahastalam -- Vaitheeswaran Kovil (Mayiladuthurai district)
34. Budha Navagrahastalam -- Thiruvenkadu (Mayiladuthurai district)
35. Guru Navagrahastalam -- Alangudi(Thiruvarur District)
36. Sukra Navagrahastalam -- Kanjanur (Thanjavur District)
37. Shani Navagrahastalam -- Thirunallar (Karaikal)

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 38. Raahu Navagrahastalam -- Thirunageswaram (Thanjavur District)
39. Ketu Navagrahastalam -- Keezhperumpallam (Mayiladuthurai district)
40. Angineeshwar temple -- Birth place of Lord Sanieeswarar and Lord Yematharmar,
Kodiyalur, Thirumeyachur, Thiruvarur District.

Even today an ethnographic study conducted in Phnom Penh and nine provinces, involving
five survivors and eight of their family members, 34 bereaved relatives of nine people who had
been killed, 31 villagers, and 48 key informants including monks, female Buddhist devotees, lay
officiants, mediums, and traditional healers shows that People consulted astrological
practitioners, monks, and healers for diagnosis using methods that drew on stories in the
Dhammapada and the Jataka stories.

Risk and vulnerability to mishap were believed to arise from the intersection between
astrological misfortune, and the person’s zodiac house at a given time. Where indicated,
whether by monks or healers, or by common knowledge, people sought ritual interventions to
banish their bad karma. The cultural framing of risk and vulnerability in Cambodia seems to be
based on ancient Vedic astrology and contributes to the understanding of astrology in
contemporary Buddhist societies. There are implications for the development of culturally
responsive strategies to effectively communicate with communities about their risk and
1
vulnerability to mishap, and disaster.

When one person keeps struggling for one roof throughout the life and other one has palaces to
live and also builds empire on pieces of land, there must be some fundamental difference
between these two sets of people. Whether you are rich or poor, becoming a property possessor
may be a herculean task for many. If you are rich and have a very strong bank balance, do not
think that buying a home or land will be a cakewalk for you, though you can hire better than the
best realtor. The money-minded and avaricious realtor will rather befool you and will try to rob
money from you deceitfully. And, you may end up buying a disputed property, whatsoever. On
the contrary, if you are poor, do not think that you will not own property as you cannot afford the
high fee of a realtor. Then, who can come to your rescue under these two cases? The Week,
spoke to one of the best astrologers in India who gave very useful insights on this subject. Here
are the excerpts:

In Vedic Astrology, the fourth house governs all the aspects related to real estate and
immovable property. With the aid of the fourth house, you can enjoy many benefits of buying
any kind of property.Which planet is responsible for land?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
JOURNAL OF RISK RESEARCH 2020, VOL. 23, NO. 9, 1135–1157
https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2020.1778770
Krʊəh: astrology, risk perception, and vulnerability to mishap and disaster in Cambodia Maurice
Eisenbruch
Fourth House of Angkor Lands?

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We know nothing about Angor or its land as compared to what we have found,
The astrological implications and the dates and time of the commencement of construction

How do you build a house from start to finish in TODAY’s Scenrio?

It can be done in two phases:

1. Phase I- Pre Construction.
2. Phase II- Building Construction Steps.
Each Phase has its own steps of construction.
What is the First step in Building Construction?
The first step in the construction of the building is Site Preparation and Leveling. The site to be
constructed must be prepared for construction before the work is executed along with cutting and filling
to maintain the plain.
What are the steps in the building construction process?
A. Pre-Construction Steps
1. To Acquire Land or Plot
2. To Seek Technical Help
3. Prepare Estimation and Budget
4. Permission from Authorities
5. Approach a Builder
6. Superstructure Design
B. During Building Construction Steps
1. Site Preparation and Levelling work
2. Excavation and PPC
3. Foundation Plinth Beam or Slab,
4. Superstructure Column construction
5. Brick Masonry Work
6. The Lintel Over Door Window Gaps
7. Floor Slab or Roof Structure
8. Door Window Framing and Fixations
9. Electrical and Plumbing
10. Exterior Finishing
11. Terrace and Roof Finishing
12. Internal Finishes 1
3. Woodwork and Fixture Fittings.
What Is Building Construction Process?
The process of constructing the different elements of a building on a construction site is called the
building construction process. The building construction has different stages like planning, designing, site
preparation, foundation plinth construction, column, beam, and slab construction, plastering, and finishing
work.
Process of Building Construction
1. To Acquire Land or Plot
2. Prepare Estimation and Budget
3. Approach a Builder
4. Site Preparation and Levelling work
5. Foundation Plinth Beam, column, Slab,
6. Brick Masonry Work
7. Floor Slab or Roof Structure
8. Electrical and Plumbing

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9. Exterior Finishing
10. Internal Finishes
Building Construction Steps
1. To Acquire Land or Plot
2. Prepare Estimation and Budget
3. Approach a Builder
4. Site Preparation and Levelling work
5. Foundation Plinth Beam, column, Slab,
6. Brick Masonry Work
7. Floor Slab or Roof Structure
8. Electrical and Plumbing
9. Exterior Finishing
10. Internal Finishes
Building Construction

The process of constructing the different elements of a building on a construction site is called the
building construction process. The building construction has different stages like planning, designing, site
preparation, foundation plinth construction, column, beam, and slab construction, plastering, and finishing
work.The process is not different today, keep aside the terminology.Had we known of the time and
place we would have been able to find the planatery positions and been able to locate the 4
th Planet Position. But that is not to be.

As per Vedic astrology, the Lord of the fourth house and Lagan and its Lord are vital factors that
delineate the destiny of your property possession. Besides, other planets, such as Jupiter, Venus,
and Moon, play a dominating role. The fourth house in the natal chart indicates the place or
home you presently reside in. The Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra beautifully defies the
significance of your house in regards to the acquisition of non-ambulatory assets. Among all the
planets, Mars is the natural significator for land, and Venus a beautiful house.
The first house in your natal charts sheds light on your identity, attitudes, manners, etiquettes,
etc. So, you will be choosing a house that corresponds to your views and personality. The second
house indicates your wealth and savings. If you want to buy a house, you should have a good
amount of money. The fourth house indicates your place of residence. The eleventh house
indicates your income and gain. This will help you figure out when you will have a sufficient
amount of money to buy a house.

Mars and Sun are the planets that will enable you to buy a house in your forties. Jupiter can help
you buy a house in your mid-thirties. Ketu and Saturn together may help you buy a house after
you cross the age of 44 or 52 years. Rahu and Venus together or Moon by itself can help you buy
a house at an early age of your life. Now, you must be curious to know the best time to buy
property in astrology. When the fourth house’s lord lies in the fourth house, the ascendant’s lord
is also there while being aspected by a benefic. If the tenth house’s lord and the fourth house’s
lord form a quadrant or a trine, you will be living lavishly in a house with a fenced wall.

When the fourth house’s ruler has a beneficial connection with the ninth house’s ruler, you may
inherit your father’s property. If the fourth house’s lord is well-positioned in the second house,
you may inherit property from your maternal family. When the fourth house ruler is benefic and
robust in the seventh house, you may acquire land or house after marriage. Remember that the
Bukhti or the Mahadasha of the fourth house ruler is the right time for you to buy a property.

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When the fifth house’s lord lies in conjunction with or is aspected by the second and eleventh
houses’ rulers, you may sell your property and get a remunerative price for it. The planets that lie
in exalted positions in the fourth house provides you with many houses or non-ambulatory
assets.

Mars- Among all the planets, Mars is the natural significator for land, and Venus a beautiful
house.:rs is the karaka planet for immovable assets. It is the planet which gives a good house.
Saturn: Saturn is the planet which gives lands, old houses i.e. repurchased house. Venus: Venus
is another planet which gives a lavish house.

Although Mars is a prime indicator for your house ownership in astrology, its presence in the
fourth house may make your house susceptible to fire. Moon in the fourth house increases your
chances of buying a home. Ketu and Sun will give you a weak hose, whereas Jupiter in the fourth
house will give you an impregnable and strong home. Sun lying in the fourth house indicates that
you will own a straw hut. If the fourth house is governed by Saturn or Rahu, you are likely to get
an old house. Mercury and Venus will give you a beautiful house. If the fourth house planets are
exalted or if Venus and Moon get into the fourth house, you will be an owner of a multi-storeyed
house.

There are certain times when you may face problems related to property. Some astrological
factors signify a loss of property. When the fourth house’s ruler lies in the third house and some
other related planetary positions, you may be at risk of buying property. Some malefic planets
aspect the fourth house. If the fourth house’s lord lies in the sixth, eighth or twelfth houses, it
affects the Lagna lord. Your case may also deteriorate if the fourth house's lord is weak and is
conjunct with the Sun.

It will be more correct to say that one will own or not a home as per astrology. That means
astrology not only helps you buy a house but also enables you to live unitedly with your family
in it. With the help of a native’s horoscope, a qualified astrologer has the capabilities to
differentiate between these two attributes of the native’s life. An individual has always been
conspicuous by the houses he built for himself as owning or making a house gives him or her
complete satisfaction. Bhav in the native’s horoscope/the fourth house has been allotted for the
property possession of the native.

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 VI
The Solar City of ANGKOR Featuring the solsticeof June 21 2023
The Angkor Wat equinox is a solar phenomenon considered as a hierophany that happens twice
a year with spring and autumn equinox, as part of the many astronomical alignments indicative
of a "fairly elaborate system of astronomy"and of the Hindu influence in the construction of the
vast temple complex of Angkor Wat, in Cambodia.The sunrise on Angkor Wat during the
equinox is such that someone standing in front of the western entrance on the equinox is able to
see the sun rising directly over the central lotus tower. [3] In fact, it would be more correct to
describe the phenomenon as the exact match of the shadow formed by the sunrise on Angkor
Wat's central prang and the western entrance bridge.
An ancient Khmer New Year
The spring equinox, which receives such a special treatment at Angkor Wat, evidently marked
the onset of the calendar year. However, gfew know that during the thirteenth century, many
years after the reign of Suryavarman II, the Khmer New Year was moved to the fifth lunar
month, Chate, which corresponds to mid-April, in order for farmers to have more time to
celebrate once the dry season was over. The astrological New Year that was celebrated before
then occurred when the constellation of Aries or Ram appeared. This phenomenon occurred on
the vernal equinox on March 21, but because of the precession of the equinoxes, the sun at the
vernal equinox is not seen in the constellation of Pisces and enters Aires around April 13 or 14.
The solar alignment of equinox at Angkor Wat is attracting a growing number of tourists, in a
new trend of tourism connected to solar phenomena, also seen in such places such
as Luxor and Vezelay Abbey.In 2022, Angkor Wat ranked No. 1 as the best place in the world to
watch sunrise and sunset, in part because of the Angkor Wat equinox phenomenon.

ARCHITECTURE

Cambodia is a nation whose ancestor

understand clearly about the astronomy and build many temple precisely to the stars and planets on the cosmos.
Each year on 21st March and 21st September the Sun will rise on top of the middle tower of Angkor Temple which
represents the head of the Draco star system. Note that Cambodia is one of the derived dragon nation, as our first

369
queen called Dragon Queen Sometime called Soma means The Moon. The term Ying-Yang Moon-Sun Dragon-Lion
Lady-Man is how the name of our queen exists. Queen Soma : Queen of the MOON Neang Neak: DRAGON Queen
Cambodia is the mother nation: LADY Like most celestial cities, Angkor Wat contains many
astronomically inspired symbols and alignments. Angkor Wat was built by Suryvarman II,
literally the Sun-King, during his reign for 1113 to 1150 with "astronomical and cosmic
rhythm" It was dedicated as a tribute to Vishnu, a solar deity according to the Rigveda.
In fact, it appears that the most of the vast complex of Angkor Wat was determined by the
equinox. In the bas-relief at Angkor Wat, the position of the churning pivot would correspond to
the position of the spring equinox. The 91 asuras in the south represent the 91 days from equinox
to winter solstice, and the 88 northern devas represent the 88 days from equinox to summer
solstice. In fact, there are either 88 or 89 devas in the scene, 89 if the deva atop Mount Mandara
is counted with the others. There are 88 or 89 days from the spring equinox, counted from the
first day of the new- year, to the summer solstice.
In fact, the solar alignment is not limited to Angkor Wat, but includes many other temples of the
Khmer civilization, as it connects Angkor Wat with other temples on the Ancient Khmer
Highway from the West Mebon to the Preah Khan of Kompong Svay.]
An eternal reminder of Suryavarman II's ascension to the throne
Scholars theorize that Suryavarman II was crowned sovereign in Angkor Wat during the
equinox. The temples' calibrated use of equinox sunrises to highlight the central tower and the
bas-relief of the churning of the ocean of milk would have served as an eternal reminder of this
king's "ringing in a new golden age."
A solar city
While Angkor is also known as an hydraulic city since Bernard Philippe Groslier, the Angkor
Wat equinox manifests how Angkor was also a solar city. According to Eleanor Manikka,
"measurements of the temple recorded data, fixed solar and lunar alignments, defined pathways
into and out of sanctuaries, and put segments of the temple in precise association with rays of
sunlight during the equinox and solstice days".[11] Accordingly, the gigantic representation of the
churning of the sea actually works as a calendar: it positions the two solstice days at the extreme
north and south, counts the days between them, and measures 54 units for the north- and
southbound arcs of the sun and moon, emulating the symbolism on the bridge or in the western
entrances, which repeat the 54/54-unit pairs several times.
The stunning vision of the sun as it comes up over the tower transforms the previously abstract
solar symbolism into a living experience. For a rare moment, the observer actually sees the
calendrical function of Angkor Wat in action.

— Eleanor Mannikka, Angkor Wat: Time, Space, and Kingship, page 94

On 21st June, the Sun does not set below the horizon at the arctic circle.

 21 June is the day on which summer solicit occurs in Northern Hemisphere.

 In summer solicit the hemisphere experience the longest day of the year.
 At the pole, it results in continuous daylight throughout the day.
 Thus, on 21 June the sun does not set below the horizon in the arctic circle in the north
pole region.

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  The summer solstice occurs in the southern hemisphere between 20 � 23 December.

According to the Ministry of Tourism, the sunrise aligns with the central spire of Angkor Wat on
March 20-23 each year – most precisely on March 21, when the vernal equinox occurs.

PHNOM PENH – March 23, 2023

Nearly 9,000 visitors – including 2,226 international tourists – gathered at

Angkor Wat on March 21 to view the spring equinox sunrise, according to a
senior official of the Siem Reap provinical tourism department.
A total of 8,726 people visited Angkor Wat to see the sunrise over the central
spire of the temple, at the same time as Cambodia’s torch lighting ceremony
for the 32nd Southeast Asian Games and 12th ASEAN Para Games.

“There were 6,500 domestic tourists and 2,226 foreign visitors,” he said.

Thourn Sinan, chairman of the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA)

Cambodia Chapter, was happy to see the large crowds of tourists there,
describing the scence as a positive sign for the recovery of tourism in the
province. He said he expects that there will be even more visitors following

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the event and natural phenomenon.According to the Ministry of Tourism, the
sunrise aligns with the central spire of Angkor Wat on March 20-23 each year
– most precisely on March 21, when the vernal equinox occurs.The ministry
noted that the equinox occurs twice per year, in March and in September. It
called on all tourism associations, relevant institutions, journalists, visitors
and the general public to help publicise the event and encouraged people to
take pictures and post them on social media to help promote its “Visit
Cambodia 2023” campaign under the slogan of “Every Day is a Wonder”.

Im Sokrithy – an archaeologist and head of the Department of Research,

Training, and Communication at the APSARA National Authority’s (ANA) –
said the equinox simply means that the duration of day and night was equal
due to the position of the Earth in its orbit around the sun.

Sokrithy said that the alignment of Angkor Wat with the equinox sunrise was
not a coincidence and reflected the advanced knowledge of astronomy and
the precise building techniques possessed by the Khmer Empire.

He noted that in the bas-relief at Angkor Wat, the 91 asuras in the south
represent the 91 days from autumn equinox to the winter solstice, while the
88 northern devas represent the 88 days from spring equinox to summer
solstice.

What is the schedule for Angkor Wat?

Most Angkor temples are open daily from 7:30am to 5:30pm. However, three temples have
extended hours to allow for sunrise and sunset visits: Angkor Wat: The famous sunrise location
is open from 5am to 5:30pm.

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 Today also INTERNATIONAL YOGA DAY

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Siem Reap, Cambodia — Sunrise, Sunset, and Daylength,
June 2023/Sun & Moon Today
Sunrise & Sunset
Moonrise & Moonset
Moon PhasesEclipsesNight Sky

Daylight
05:38 – 18:33/ 12 hours, 55 minutes

Current Time: 21 Jun 2023, 20:18:16

Sun Direction: 303.14° WNW↑

Sun Altitude: -23.20°

Sun Distance: 152.028 million km

Next Solstice: 21 Jun 2023 21:57 (Summer)

Sunrise
Today: 05:38↑ 66° East

Sunset Today: 18:33↑ 294° Northwest

2023 Sun Graph for Siem Reap

21 Jun
Night:
00:00 - 04:19
19:53 - 00:00
Total:
08:26

Astronomical Twilight:
04:19 - 04:47
19:24 - 19:53
Total:
00:57

Nautical Twilight:
04:47 - 05:15
18:57 - 19:24
Total:
00:55

Civil Twilight:

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 05:15 - 05:38
18:33 - 18:57
Total:
00:47

Daylight:
05:38 - 18:33
Total:
12:55

Solar Noon/Midnight:
12:06
00:06

June 2023 — Sun in Siem Reap

Astronomical Nautical
2023 Sunrise/Sunset Daylength Civil Twilight
Twilight Twilight

End
Star
Jun Sunrise Sunset Length Diff. Start End Start End
t

05:36 18:5
↑ (67°) 18:28 ↑ (293°)
1 12:51:34 +0:19 04:18 19:46 04:46 19:18 05:13 12:02 (81.4°)
1

05:36
↑ (67°) 18:28 ↑ (293°)
2 12:51:52 +0:18 04:18 19:46 04:46 19:19 05:13 18:51 12:02 (81.2°)

05:36
↑ (67°) 18:28 ↑ (293°)
3 12:52:10 +0:17 04:18 19:47 04:45 19:19 05:13 18:52 12:02 (81.1°)

05:36
↑ (67°) 18:29 ↑ (293°)
4 12:52:27 +0:16 04:18 19:47 04:45 19:19 05:13 18:52 12:02 (81.0°)

05:36
↑ (67°) 18:29 ↑ (293°)
5 12:52:43 +0:15 04:17 19:48 04:45 19:20 05:13 18:52 12:02 (80.9°)

05:36
↑ (67°) 18:29 ↑ (294°)
6 12:52:58 +0:15 04:17 19:48 04:45 19:20 05:13 18:52 12:03 (80.7°)

05:36
↑ (66°) 18:29 ↑ (294°)
7 12:53:12 +0:14 04:17 19:48 04:45 19:20 05:13 18:53 12:03 (80.6°)

05:36
↑ (66°) 18:30 ↑ (294°)
8 12:53:25 +0:13 04:17 19:49 04:45 19:21 05:13 18:53 12:03 (80.6°)

05:36
↑ (66°) 18:30 ↑ (294°)
9 12:53:38 +0:12 04:17 19:49 04:46 19:21 05:13 18:53 12:03 (80.5°)

05:37
↑ (66°) 18:30 ↑ (294°)
10 12:53:49 +0:11 04:17 19:49 04:46 19:21 05:13 18:54 12:03 (80.4°)

11 05:37 18:31 ↑ (294°) 12:54:00 +0:10 04:18 19:50 04:46 19:22 05:13 18:54 12:04 (80.3°)

375
 Astronomical Nautical
2023 Sunrise/Sunset Daylength Civil Twilight
Twilight Twilight

End
Star
Jun Sunrise Sunset Length Diff. Start End Start End
t

↑ (66°)

05:37
↑ (66°) 18:31 ↑ (294°)
12 12:54:09 +0:09 04:18 19:50 04:46 19:22 05:13 18:54 12:04 (80.2°)

05:37
↑ (66°) 18:31 ↑ (294°)
13 12:54:18 +0:08 04:18 19:50 04:46 19:22 05:13 18:55 12:04 (80.2°)

05:37
↑ (66°) 18:31 ↑ (294°)
14 12:54:26 +0:07 04:18 19:51 04:46 19:23 05:14 18:55 12:04 (80.1°)

05:37
↑ (66°) 18:32 ↑ (294°)
15 12:54:32 +0:06 04:18 19:51 04:46 19:23 05:14 18:55 12:04 (80.1°)

05:37
↑ (66°) 18:32 ↑ (294°)
16 12:54:38 +0:05 04:18 19:51 04:46 19:23 05:14 18:55 12:05 (80.0°)

05:38
↑ (66°) 18:32 ↑ (294°)
17 12:54:43 +0:04 04:18 19:52 04:46 19:23 05:14 18:56 12:05 (80.0°)

05:38
↑ (66°) 18:32 ↑ (294°)
18 12:54:47 +0:03 04:18 19:52 04:47 19:24 05:14 18:56 12:05 (80.0°)

05:38
↑ (66°) 18:33 ↑ (294°)
19 12:54:49 +0:02 04:19 19:52 04:47 19:24 05:14 18:56 12:05 (80.0°)

05:38
↑ (66°) 18:33 ↑ (294°)
20 12:54:51 +0:01 04:19 19:52 04:47 19:24 05:15 18:56 12:06 (79.9°)

05:38
↑ (66°) 18:33 ↑ (294°)
21 12:54:52 < 1s 04:19 19:53 04:47 19:24 05:15 18:57 12:06 (79.9°)

Rise 05:38 66°ENE-Meridian/12:06-0°N/Set-18:33/ 294°WNW/ 12:06/Altitude-80°Heading↑0°NPositionDay

05:39 05:1
↑ (66°) 18:33 ↑ (294°)
22 12:54:52 < 1s 04:19 19:53 04:47 19:25 18:57 12:06 (79.9°)
5

05:39 05:1
↑ (66°) 18:34 ↑ (294°)
23 12:54:51 −0:01 04:19 19:53 04:48 19:25 18:57 12:06 (79.9°)
5

05:39 05:1
↑ (66°) 18:34 ↑ (294°)
24 12:54:49 −0:02 04:20 19:53 04:48 19:25 18:57 12:06 (80.0°)
6

25 05:39 18:34 ↑ (294°) 12:54:46 −0:03 04:20 19:53 04:48 19:25 05:1 18:57 12:07 (80.0°)

376
 Astronomical Nautical
2023 Sunrise/Sunset Daylength Civil Twilight
Twilight Twilight

End
Star
Jun Sunrise Sunset Length Diff. Start End Start End
t

↑ (66°) 6

05:39 05:1
↑ (66°) 18:34 ↑ (294°)
26 12:54:42 −0:04 04:20 19:54 04:48 19:25 18:58 12:07 (80.0°)
6

05:40 05:1
↑ (66°) 18:34 ↑ (294°)
27 12:54:37 −0:04 04:20 19:54 04:49 19:25 18:58 12:07 (80.0°)
6

05:40 05:1
↑ (66°) 18:34 ↑ (294°)
28 12:54:31 −0:05 04:21 19:54 04:49 19:26 18:58 12:07 (80.1°)
7

05:40 05:1
↑ (66°) 18:35 ↑ (294°)
29 12:54:24 −0:06 04:21 19:54 04:49 19:26 18:58 12:07 (80.1°)
7

05:40 05:1
↑ (66°) 18:35 ↑ (294°)
30 12:54:16 −0:07 04:21 19:54 04:49 19:26 18:58 12:08 (80.2°)
7

* All times are local time for Siem Reap. They take into account refraction. Dates are based on the Gregorian calendar. Today is highlighted.

The June solstice (summer solstice) in Siem Reap is at 21:57 on Wednesday, 21 June 2023. In terms of
daylight, This day is 1 hour, 34 minutes longer than the December solstice. In most locations north of the
equator, the longest day of the year is around this date.The earliest sunrise is on 1 June or 2 June.

The sun will rise on the central peak of Angkor Wat on 21 March
2024

Khmer Times

377
The time that all tourists have always been waiting for had arrived,
the sun rose on the central peak of Angkor Wat on 21 March 2024.

378
This amazing event at Angkor Wat has always attracted thousands
of national and international tourists who want to see the event and
capture this great moment as a souvenir. Researchers call this
event the Equinox when night and day are equal.
National and international tourists were invited to enjoy this event
on 21 March 2024.It should be noted that every year, the Equinox
occurs twice, the dry season (Vernal Equinox) occurs in March and
the rainy season (Autumnal Equinox) occurs in September.

SIEM REAP – The second equinox of the year, when the sun rises on
the top of Angkor Wat’s central tower, will take place for the second
time between September 21 and 23.
This event occurs in March (the dry season) and in September (the rainy
season). The dates can be predicted by the APSARA Authority, and the
duration may vary depending on natural factors.
The equinox is when day and night are of equal length. Normally one is
longer.
In 2024’s dry season, the Angkor Equinox took place on March 21 and 22 this
year. The Siem Reap Provincial Administration said about 10,000 tourists
attended the first day of the Angkor Equinox on March 21, 2024, with over
2,000 of them being international visitors.All the pages I've found seem to be focused

379
on the Spring (sunrise) Equinox. All I've found for the Fall one is that the time is 19:43 on Sept
22nd. So I assume this is sunset. Some sites also say between 21st to 23rd.

380