Dharma's Angkor exurb

Dharma's Angkor exurb Having the honour of prefacing the new edition of Prof. Kshitij Patukale's masterpiece *Angkorvat Vishnudham, the Biggest Temple in the World*, I should sketch the reason of Angkor's and Cambodia's importance to Hindu civilization. Most conspicuously, they serve as proofs that Hindu Dharma is not intrinsically confined to the South-Asian subcontinent, and need not remain so in the future. The word Hindū is in origin bound up with the Indian subcontinent. It was a Persian geographical term corresponding to Sindhū, i.e. the Indus river, and meant: anyone living near or beyond the Indus, regardless of creed or sect. Their territory was called Hindustān. When the Muslim conquerors invaded India, they kept the term Hindustān in its purely geographical sense (e.g. on pilgrimage in West Asia, they would identify themselves as being from Hindustan), but gave an additional ideo-cultural dimension to their newly imported term Hindū: "any Indian Unbeliever". Indians gradually interiorized this new term as an overarching name for all recognizably Indian varieties of religion and culture, distinct from the foreign-originated Islamic (soon extended to also embrace Christian) religion and culture. On the one hand, this Hindu religio-cultural continuum was typologically similar to many aspects of foreign religio-cultural landscapes. Thus, the Hindu emphasis on ritualism, even inside its theoretically more otherworldly forms like Vedanta or Buddhism, was in common with practically all pre-Enlightenment cultures worldwide. Its mūrtipūjaka or statue-worshipping aspect was less universal but still very widespread. Its yoga practices were much rarer but still not exclusive to India, see Chinese Daoism. Countries outside India generally didn't need an import from India to acquire such Hindu-like elements, e.g. foreign sun-worship need not be deduced from Hindu sun-worship. Indeed, unlike tourists gawking at the local Indian idiosyncrasies, Jihadis or Missionaries would immediately recognize the underlying "Pagan" commonality. On the other hand, some parts of the world did explicitly embrace Hindu elements, including their local colouring. They imported Hindu lore that had been absent from their own culture, but was found desirable as soon as they encountered it. This could vary in extent, e.g. China imported Buddhism as a system but at once integrated it in an already-existing religio-philosophical culture, leaving many of its outer forms at the entrance door; but Southeast Asia, less steeped in a proud high culture of its own, adopted far more of the Indian language in which they found Indian-originated ideas and narratives couched. This was a repeat of a process that had taken place in India itself. In important respects, many parts of India had adopted the elements now identified as Hindu from smaller centres elsewhere inside India. In its early years, at the dawn of the Ṛg-Veda, the fledgling Vedic tradition was limited to king Bharata's Paurava tribe (descendents of Purū, himself a scion of the Lunar Dynasty) in northern Haryana, between the Sarasvatī and Dṛṣadvatī rivers. It is at his Court that priest Bharadvāja composed the first Vedic hymns. The Pauravas called the region "Ilā's footstep" (after the Lunar dynasty's foremother Ilā, daughter of patriarch Manu Vaivasvata), "the navel of the world", and "the best place on earth", true to people's universal attachment to their motherland. But compared to present-day India, it was an insignificant statelet. In its smallness it was perhaps best comparable to my own country, Belgium. But that was only the beginning. Some of Bharata's successor-kings, like Divodāsa and Sudās, conquered territory around this core area and ultimately made the Bhārata (i.e. belonging to king Bharata) territory as large as Northwestern India: from western Uttar Pradesh to the Afghan border. Sometimes even beyond, so as to include the Afghan region of Kambuja (the region from where the Vedic people imported their horses), though its population was mostly Iranian. The name is known through the Achaemenid emperors Cambyses I and II: on the model of "prince of Wales", they had the title "lord of Kambuja". Please remember that name for later in our story. Then, internal reversals such as the war of succession which became the core of the Mahābhārata, the "great (epic) of Bharata's clan", were to halt this expansion through conquest. But no matter: the Vedic tradition of recited and transmitted poetry, preserved in its purity by a class of priests set apart for it, and soon to be the backbone of an array of auxiliary sciences (Vedāṅgas), gained such a prestige that the neighbouring kings started voluntarily importing it. This way they reckoned they could add lustre to their own dynasties. By the last millennium BCE, kings in far South India gave tax concessions and set urban neighbourhoods or villages (agrahāras) apart for specialists of Vedic recitation and of the concomitant sciences, if willing to settle in their domains. This way, gradually the whole subcontinent became Vedaland, Bhārata. Or at least, the Vedic tradition gained a presence everywhere, alongside existing local traditions. This way, the Vedas ended up becoming the overarching framework that would unite different branches of what would later become known as Hinduism. Thus, the distinctly un-Vedic but now omnipresent tradition of devotion to gods personified in mūrtis ("icons") housed in temples; or the doctrine of karma; or the practice of meditation and asceticism for the pursuit of Liberation; all became part of an integrated Hindu continuum presided over by the Vedas. And through the conduit of an all-India Vedicized culture, other cultural strands such as the ascetic traditions from Greater Magadha (of which Jainism and Buddhism remain extant) likewise gained an all-India presence. And even there it didn't stop. In Central Asia, starting with historical Kambuja, we find a deep Indian influx going back to the Harappan age, with implements and jewelry of undeniably Indian origin, and with archaeological attestations of Vedic motifs as far as Kazakhstan and Russia. Śaiva and especially Bauddha Dharma were to spread there, to the point of becoming dominant in some regions. Unfortunately this heritage was comprehensively destroyed in the Islamic invasions, or only remains as ruin, like the Bamian Buddhas. But in the region neighbouring India from the opposite side it has largely continued till today. As far as the record reaches back, a first known contact with Southeast Asia was established when in the last century BC the South-Indian young man Kaundinya landed in a country that soon became known as Kambuja Deśa. He lives on in the local Khmer language as Preah Thong, his consort Somā as Neang Neakii (together they feature in a giant statue in Sihanoukville). He is considered as the founder of a pre-Angkor kingdom called Funan. There are different stories woven around his place in history, see the present book, but there is a near-consensus about his foundational role in the emergence of a Cambodian state. More formally, the Khmer state dates from 802, when Jayavarman II, a prince from an obviously already Hinduized Java, took power and declared himself cakravartin, "universal ruler". Locally, starting with an inscription from arguably 944 inside the Angkor complex that is the topic of this book, the name Kambuja (whence Kampuchea, Cambodge, Cambodia) is explained through a story of sage Kambu. This was reportedly a Śaiva hermit who fell in love with a heavenly nymph (apsarā), Mīrā. Together they became the progenitors of Cambodian royalty, who were henceforth known as Kambu-ja, "born from Kambu". But this seems to be a case of folk etymology, a concept that requires a little excursus if we want to do justice to it. In ancient culture, and even more so among nomads and migrants, language was the principal canvas of art and entertainment. Unlike sculptures or architecture, you could take it with you everywhere. Hence in ancient literary utterances, we find plenty of language play, such as puns and invented etymologies inserted to embellish or enliven the narrative. One that has always struck me and that I keep hearing regularly from assorted ācāryas, is that the word gu-rū comes from a word gu, "dark", and rū, "light", hence meaning: one who takes you "from darkness to light". In reality, gurū means "heavy", reason why it became the name of Jupiter as the heaviest planet. It is related to Latin gravis, "heavy", and thence English gravity and grave, "weighty, serious". Gurūs are therefore "heavy men", i.e. important, non-ignorable. Another case is the curious explanation of the Vedic river-name Vipāśa, the current Beas. A later story was made up about Vedic sage Vasiṣṭha who, grieving over the murder of his sons, decided to commit suicide, tied himself with ropes and threw himself into this river. But the river somehow loosened his ropes and left him safely on the riverside. This should explain the (much older) river-name, by analysing it as vi-pāśa, "out of the noose", "unbound". Often deep philosophical concepts have their origins in mere puns and folk etymologies. To start with an example from outside India: the Bible. When the Egyptian but Hebrew-born prince Moses had become a fugitive and found asylum among the Midianite Beduins, he watched a desert plant catch fire (a natural phenomenon: its ethereal vapours started burning in the midday heat). From this "burning bush" he heard a voice saying: "I am what I am." This presence was henceforth named YaHWeH, analysed in Hebrew as a present participle of the verb "to be": "he who is", "the being one". Later, theologians would use this name as proof of God's existence: God is the one who, given the testimony of his name, necessarily is. But this is only correct if a mistake against Hebrew grammar is taken in stride; its real etymology appears if the word is analysed in the closely related Arabic, the language of the Beduins. There, it is the present participle of a verb meaning "to move in the sky", and can mean (1) the wind blowing over the desert and causing sandstorms; (2) a bird swooping down to catch its prey; and (3) the stars making their nightly movement through the firmament. All three are images of God's role in human life. Moses took this divine imagery, mixed it with the fledgling monotheism in vogue at the Egyptian court, and thus created the god Yahweh who went on to become central in Jewish and then Christian and Islamic religion. All for a mere etymological misunderstanding. In India, no one has done more for identifying the crucial role of puns and folk etymology than Shrikant Talageri. The following four examples have been borrowed from his book The Rigveda and the Avesta (2008) or from personal communication with him. After a conflict had developed between the Vedic Paurava tribe and the proto-Iranian Ānavas (descendents of Purū's brother Anu), the latter rejected their common deity, storm-god Indra. They demonized him as Aṅgra Mainyu, "destructive spirit". The latter word is one of Indra's regular epithets, the former is a pun on the priestly clan ensuring his worship, the Aṅgiras ṛṣis. Conversely, the hereditary priestly clan employed by the Avestan Kavi dynasty, of which everybody knows the priest and poet Zarathuštra, had as family name Spitama. To this the Avestan concept Spenta Mainyu alludes, "bounteous spirit”, usually translated as “holy spirit". Both Aṅgra and Spenta Mainyu were to remain cornerstones of Zoroastrian theology. Something entirely different and more recent: why does Draupadī have five husbands? Her given name was Kṛṣṇā, the dark one”; Draupadī was her patronym, "daughter of Drupada". He was the king of Pañcāla (western Uttar Pradesh), so she was also known by the ethnonym Pāñcālī, on the same pattern as Kaikeyī from Kekeya and Gāndhārī from Gandhāra. Now, this name seemed obviously linked with the numeral pañca, "five", hence it got understood as "Mrs. Five". And then poetic imagination did the rest. Or consider the theonym Dattātreya. This is a deity made up of the fusing of the Trimūrti/Trinity of Brahma, Viṣņu and Śiva. In fact, it is properly analyzed as a given name plus a patronym: "Datta, son/scion of Atri". But the part -treya got linked with the numeral tri-, "three", and the trinitarian theological implication followed. Alright, this was a long detour to prepare for the correct explanation of Kambuja. The suffix -ja, "born (from)", is a normal part of Sankrit words or names, like Padmaja, "born from a lotus", the lotus itself being nicknamed Paṅkaja, "born in the mud". Or the philosopher's name Rāma-anu-ja, "born after Rāma", i.e. Rāma's younger brother. So Kambuja got interpreted as "born from Kambu",-- a Kambu who got invented just to make sense of this name. In reality, it was just a transposition of a geographical term from India: the name of the Afghan region Kambuja, which was outside but in close touch with the Subcontinent, now transferred to another such region. The reason for this transfer is as yet obscure: there is no known way in which Cambodia played the same role as Kambuja; it was no provider of ace horses, for instance. Perhaps a leading Hindu settler had been a 1st- or 2nd generation migrant originating there, and he wanted to commemorate his country of provenance, as migrants tend to do. Thus, the Afghan river Harahvaitī (now Arghandab, a tributary of the Helmand) reproduces in Iranian pronunciation the Haryana river name Sarasvatī, clearly the work of westward Iranian migrants. The name was taken from this new location even further west, but now as the ethnonym Harahvaita, becoming Hrvati, better known as Croats. They took over the Slavic language of their new Serbian neighbours, but retained a sense of their ancient Scythian-Iranian tribal identity. In this Scythian-Iranian westward migration the river-name Rasā, “moisture”, a western tributary of the Indus, was similarly transferred in its Iranian form Rahā to the Oxus or Amu Darya which forms Afghanistan’s northern border, and again to Russia’s Volga river. Another reason why name transfers take place is illustrated by the nearby Thai city of Ayutthaya. It reproduces the name Ayodhyā to buttress the local kings' claim on the name Rāma, a political consequence of their embracing the Rāmāyaṇa epic. Less well-known is that the Indian name Ayodhyā itself was already a reused name. Rāma’s capital was actually a young city, founded by his grandfather Aja. He was a scion of the Solar Dynasty started by Manu’s son Ikṣvāku, which had been calling its capital Ayodhyā since time immemorial,-- but before Aja, who seems have lived in the 20th century BCE, it must have been another city. (The good side is that finding the Solar Dynasty’s elusive original capital remains a tantalizing challenge for discovery-oriented archaeologists.) While we have to leave the question of the reasons for “Kambuja” partly open, we have to focus briefly on the reasons for “Angkor”. This is a Khmer derivative of nokor, “kingdom”, which in turn has a Sanskrit origin: nagara, “city”. It was the Khmer designation of the city called in Sanskrit Yaśodharapura, built by king Yaśovarmaṇ on a hill next to the preceding capital Hariharālaya. It was abandoned in 1431, politically in favour of the rivalling power centre Ayutthaya, now in Thailand, and demographically of the nearby city Longvek. In its 6 centuries of life, the city perfected an impressive temple structure, Angkor Wat (“temple”), of which the people involved may not have realized that it was the biggest in the world. This was in keeping with the size of the city, which recent researches have found to have been the biggest of its time, worldwide. But since all the secular buildings were made of perishable materials, the unforgivingly hot and humid climate cleared them away and the only remains left standing are the giant temple structures. To the invocation of their greatness, I have nothing to add: this book is more than complete. I only want to put on record my regrets over the conflict between Bauddha and Vaiṣṇava sects that have marred Angkor’s history somewhat. Then again, with a temple complex for Viṣṇu being repurposed as a temple exclusively for the Buddha yet staying fully intact, the damage was, all in all, quite limited. The sects’ common commitment to dharma has kept them from taking their quarrels too far. If only all the religious conflicts in world history had remained this restrained. Mumbai, 4 January 2024 Dr. Koenraad ELST, Orientalist