Dispatches from Buddhist Asia #2: Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia
Sunday, March 30th, 2008All things are empty by nature, but some things are emptier than others. Such are the ancient Buddhas and bodhisattvas of Angkor Wat. Generations of travelers have claimed that Angkor Wat and the nearby sites of Angkor Thom, Ta Prohm, and Bayon are among the greatest marvels in the world. They’re right. The size, craftmanship, and sheer imagination of these colossal temples have few rivals. The allure of these temples is something Cambodia is eager to capitalize on, and the nearby city of Siem Reap has grown at a monstrous pace, adding new hotels seemingly by the week.
And yet, amidist the hustle and bustle of a country on the make, and within the impenetrable serenity of the hundreds of softly smiling stone faces of Avalokiteshvara, there is also a sort of emptiness that cuts with a razor’s edge. So many of the old statues sit or stand in mutilation. It’s like a grotesque version of the Heart Sutra come to life: no eyes, no ears, no nose, no hand, no head, no arms, no body. Some of this is the emptiness born of time, as all things return to their component parts. Some of this is the emptiness of neglect: these sites sat abandoned by all but the jungle plants for many centuries. Some too is the emptiness of sectarianism: Hindu kings sometimes effaced Buddha images from all surfaces in attempts to blot out the memory of the rival of the gods; Communists took pot-shots at temples, sometimes from spite, sometimes simply in a drunken haze.
And then there is the emptiness born of greed and desparation. Many of the Buddhas have been beheaded in recent decades by Cambodians and sold illegally to collectors in places such as Tokyo, New York, and Berlin. Corruption abets this flow of treasures from sacred sites away into the unknown private homes of those with money.
If these sites empty out completely some day, Cambodia will have lost an irreplacable part of its history, and the world will have lost something truly special. But for now there is a curious appropriateness to the armless, legless, faceless Buddhas of Angkor. This country has seen horror on a scale scarcely imaginable by many others, and in particular the evil fruit of landmines sprouting from the ground has left many thousands greviously maimed. They stalk Siem Reap on crutches or play music by the temples: men without legs, without arms, without faces. Empty. For them, there are hundreds of handicapped Buddhas, wrapped in brilliant saffron, clouded in incense, daily receiving lit candles before the stumps of their necks. Wounded Buddhas for wounded people, silently proclaiming that they are still here, that Dharma persists, that awakening occurs precisely within the ocean of suffering.
