Preah Vihear: An Introduction to the World Heritage Monument

Whether it comes from their natural background, their historic significance or their obvious status of spiritual landmark, there are few places more inspiring than Preah Vihear, the temple-monastery long disputed between Thailand and Cambodia, nowadays recognized as an intrinsic part of the ancient Khmer culture and as a UNESCO World Heritage monument.

The author, a distinguised Sanskritist and Asian art historian, revisits the works by French explorers and archaelogists such as Etienne Aymonier and Henri Parmentier, corrects them when needed, and expands the archaelogical approach to Preah Vihear in order to develop a very well-documented, and profundly intimate vision of the vihear as an open air theatre, background for the cosmogonic performance of Shiva "the wandering, non-conforming and pre-historic Yogi".

His vast knowledge of Indian culture, and of the Khmer apportation to the Shivaist traditions, illuminates the role of the "temple in the clouds" within the development of the Angkorean dynasties, and the symbolic, religious high status it has always retained in spite of its apparent "remoteness".

We found particularly fascinating his considerations on one aspect that has always puzzled Western researchers: the intimate relation between ascetism and performing arts. According to him, the mountaintop situation does not only induce to insulation, self-removing from the world: it is an exalted place where cosmic forces can converge.

Notes the author: "It is obvious that Shiva dances at the peak of Preah Vihear to destroy the evil forces threatening the Angkor Empire (...) Shiva says of himself: "I am the originator, the god abiding in supreme bliss. I, the yogi, dance eternally"." Shiva Nataraja, or Natakhesvara (kamrateng an ta ram in Khmer) usually translated by the King of Dancers, literally means the Lord of Theatre: "Both at Angkor and Preah Vihear, the north Indian version of the ten-armed Shiva was popular." But above all, he remarks, "the Khmers were consummate dancers in the Mekong Valley long before the arrival of Indians in the region. Dance is their intrinsic skill, their second nature."

Correcting Aymonier's earlier map, the author remarks the southernmost source of water is not a rectangular man-made basin but a natural cavity collecting water.

All architectural elements are directed toward the centrality of the dancing Shiva, asserts the author.