HTML clipboardWhy was it so easy for the indigenous people to
adopt the gods the Indians had brought with them to Southeast Asia? It may well
be imagined that the prosperity of the Indians with their methods was ascribed
to divine protection, and that the Khmers and the Chams accordingly began to
establish them in their temples. Moreover these foreign gods could readily find
a place beside the local deities, as they had already done in India, within what
was doubtless a very similar cosmology. Thus particular devotion was accorded to
the gods Shiva and Vishnu, and also to the Buddha. Shiva, however, is the
dominant figure, as he was long considered by the kings as supreme protector of
their empire. It is thus to him that most of the temples are dedicated, and he
in turn had to ensure the prosperity of the kingdom.
The proliferation of sects which flourished in India does not feature in
the land of the Khmers, however. As in other domains, the Khmers were the
assiduous pupils of their first masters, and do not seem to have sought to delve
deeper into doctrines which perhaps remained somewhat alien to them, nor indeed
to dispute them by proposing new ones. It is for this reason that only one or
two sects of each of the Shivaite or Vishnuite 'religions' are known. Similarly
it is probable that Buddhism, of which much less is known, was not broken down
into numerous sects, although besides Mahayana Buddhism of (the 'great vehicle')
which was more widespread, or at least more visible now, there is some early
evidence for the existence of simpler followers of 'primitive' Buddhism.
The temples as seen today give only a sketchy idea of the total number of
shrines which bejeweled the land of the Khmers, many of which must have
disappeared over the centuries. They are in durable materials, and, as such,
they imply considerable wealth on the part of their builders. They were far from
being the only Hindu shrines in the Khmer countryside, as others were built by
the less wealthy in perishable materials. The inscriptions reveal that sometimes
there were years of delay before enough funds were available for a stone or
laterite shrine for a divinity, and doubtless, some never saw the light of day
because the means were lacking.
A member of Vietnam Travel Promotion Group (VTP Group)
Booking Office (See
map): 5th floor, An Gia Building, 631 Kim Nguu Street, Hai Ba Trung District, Hanoi,
Vietnam
Telephone: (84-4) 39877543 Fax: (84-4) 36362661
Online contact
