Angkor Wat. Note: This video is hosted on: Guba.com Angkor Wat, renowned Hindu temple complex at Angkor, the capital of the Khmer Empire of Cambodia from the early 9th century to the mid-15th century, now a destination for Buddhist pilgrims. Built for King Suryavarman II in the 12th century, Angkor Wat is the most famous temple in Cambodia and is probably the largest religious monument ever constructed.
 Map Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat is famous for having the longest running bas-relief in the world. Beautifully crafted, many of the carvings were once painted and gilded. They decorate the 2-m high, galleried walls having roofed walkways that run along the inside of the protective moat, just outside of the temple complex itself. The reliefs depict historical episodes in the life of King Suryavarman II; scenes from the Hindu epics the Ramayana and the Mahabharata; the exploits of the Hindu gods Shiva and Vishnu with celestial nymphs known as apsarases; and scenes from the daily life of the Khmer people at the time the complex was built. Some of Angkor Wat's bas-reliefs suffered damage at the height of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge movement in the 1960s and 1970s.
Angkor Wat fell to the Cham army from northern Cambodia in 1177, after which the complex proper began to fall into ruin. It was then reclaimed, though not inhabited, by Khmer King Jayavarman VII when he defeated the Chams soon after the beginning of his reign in 1181.
Both Angkor Wat and Angkor Thum, Jayavarman VII's royal city to the north, were altered by subsequent inhabitants. Pillaged by Thai invaders in the 15th century, they were expanded by later rulers of Cambodia, some of whom replaced existing aspects altogether. In the 1400s the Angkor area was abandoned as a political capital for reasons of security and, after the Thai invasion of 1431, was not permanently inhabited as a capital again. Angkor Wat was intermittently inhabited by Buddhist monks, and about 1550 portions of its bas-reliefs were finally completed. It subsequently became a destination for Buddhist pilgrims from all over the world.
Digging for the truth - Angkor Wat. |
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Digging for the truth - Angkor Wat. Video hosted on Youtube. Digging for the Truth is a History Channel documentary television series. The first three seasons of the show focused on host Josh Bernstein, who journeyed on various explorations of historical icons and mysteries. Bernstein is the president and CEO of BOSS (Boulder Outdoor Survival School) and has a degree in anthropology and psychology from Cornell University. The show airs every Monday night at 9:00 EST on the History Channel. The series premiered in January, 2005 and has since become the highest-rated series in the history of The History Channel. The third season premiered on January 22, 2007, with a 2-hour special event on the quest for Atlantis. Bernstein announced on February 20, 2007, that he would be leaving The History Channel and Digging for the Truth, and would, as of April, join the The Discovery Channel as an executive producer and host of a new prime-time series and specials.[citation needed] Hunter Ellis, host of Tactical to Practical and Man, Moment, Machine for The History Channel, has replaced Josh Bernstein as host.Angkor Wat (or Angkor Vat), is a temple complex at Angkor, Cambodia, built for the king Suryavarman II in the early 12th century as his state temple and capital city. As the best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious centre since its foundation—first Hindu, dedicated to Vishnu, then Buddhist. The temple is the epitome of the high classical style of Khmer architecture. It has become a symbol of Cambodia, appearing on its 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, based on early South Indian architecture, with key features such as the Jagati. It is designed to represent Mount Meru, home of the devas in Hindu mythology: within a moat and an outer wall 3.6 kilometres (2.2 mi) long are three rectangular galleries, each raised above the next. At the centre 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 (guardian spirits) adorning its walls. The modern name, Angkor Wat, in use by the 16th century, means "City Temple": Angkor is a vernacular form of the word nokor which comes from the Sanskrit word nagara (capital), while wat is the Khmer word for temple. Prior to this time the temple was known as Preah Pisnulok, after the posthumous title of its founder, Suryavarman II.
Cambodia: HEAVEN ON EARTH STONES IN THE SKY - Angkor Wat. |
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HEAVEN ON EARTH STONES IN THE SKY - Angkor Wat. Video hosted on Youtube. According to Graham Hancock, Angkor Wat and all the temples were conceived by its builders as a symbolic diagram of the universe. The notion of a land that is the image of heaven on which are built cosmic temples with halls that resemble the sky was an idea that took root in Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat consists of a series of five inter nested rectangular enclosures. The short dimensions are aligned with high precision to true north-south, showing no deviation whatever according to modern surveys. The long dimensions are oriented, equally precisely, to an axis that has been deliberately diverted 0.75 degrees south of east and north of west. The first and outermost of the five rectangles that we find ourselves looking down on from the air is the moat. Measured along its outer edge it runs 1300 meters north to south and 1500 meters from east to west. Its ditch, (moat) 190 meters wide, has walls made from closely fitted blocks of red sandstone set out with such precision that the accumulated surveying error around the entire 5.6 kilometers of the perimeter amounts to barely a centimeter. Angkor Wats principal entrance is on the west side where a megalithic causeway 347 meters long and 9.4 meters wide bears due east across the moat and then passes under a massive gate let into the walls of the second of the five rectangles. This second enclosure measures 1025 x 800 meters. The causeway continues eastward through it, past lawns and subsidiary structure and a large reflecting pool, until it rises on to a cruciform terrace leading into the lowest gallery of the temple itself. This is the third of the five inter nested rectangles visible from the air and precision engineering and surveying are again in evidence with the northern and southern walls, for example, being of identical lengths, exactly 202.14 meters. Ascending to the fourth rectangle, the fourth level of Angkor Wats gigantic central pyramid, the same precision can be observed. The northern and southern walls measure respectively 114.24 and 114.22 meters. At the fifth and last enclosure, the top level of the pyramid which reaches a height of 65 meters above the entrance causeway the northern wall is 47.75 meters in length and the southern wall 47.79 meters. According to a study published in the journal Science, these minute differences, less than 0.01 percent, demonstrates an astounding degree of accuracy on the part of the ancient builders.
The Draco-Angkor correlation
The principal monuments of Angkor model the sinuous coils of the northern constellation of Draco. There seems to be no doubt that a correlation exists: the correspondence between the principal stars of Draco and at least fifteen of the main pyramid-temples of Angkor are too close to be called anything else.
Cycles of the Ages
A detailed survey of Angkor Wat published in Science magazine in July 1976 reveled that even the causeway incorporates cosmic symbolism and numbers encoding the cycles of time. After establishing the basic unit of measure used in Angkor as the Khme hat (equivalent to 0.43434 meters) the authors of the survey go on to demonstrate that axial lengths along the causeway appear to have been adjusted to symbolize or represent the great world ages of Hindu cosmology: These periods begin with the Krita Yuga or golden age of man and proceed through the Treta Yuga, Dvarpara Yuga and Kali Yuga, the last being the most decadent age of man. Their respective durations are 1,728,000 years; 1,296,000 years; 864,000 years; and 432,000 years. It therefore cannot be an accident that key sections of the causeway have 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. We propose, conclude the authors, that the passage of time is numerically expressed by the lengths corresponding to yugas along the west-east axis. Angkor wats dominant feature is its long and massive east-west axis which locks it uncompromisingly to sunrise and sunset on the equinoxes. In addition, the temple is cleverly anchored to ground and sky by markers for other key astronomical moments of the year. For example, reports Science: It is interesting to note that there are two solstitial alignments from the western entrance gate of Angkor Wat. These two alignments (added to the equinoctial alignment already established) mean that the entire solar year was divided into four major sections by alignments from just inside the entrance of Angkor Wat. From this western vantage point the sun rises over Phnom Bok (17.4 kilometers to the north-east) on the day of the summer solsticeThe western entrance gate of the temple also has a winter solstice alignment with the temple of Prast Kuk Bangro, 5.5 kilometres of the south-east.
 Map Cambodia Ethnic Cambodians, or Khmer, constitute 90 percent of the population. About 5 percent of the country's inhabitants are of Vietnamese origin, and 1 percent are Chinese. Seminomadic tribal groups concentrated in the mountainous northeast make up the remaining 4 percent of the population. Cambodia's official language is Khmer, or Cambodian, which belongs to the Mon-Khmer family of languages (see Austro-Asiatic Languages). French was formerly an important secondary language in the country, but English gained considerable ground in the 1990s. Other languages spoken include Vietnamese and an assortment of South Chinese dialects.
Eighty percent of Cambodia's people live in rural areas, where their principal occupation is subsistence farming on family-operated holdings. In rural Cambodia, most houses are built of palm leaf and bamboo and are often raised on stilts for protection from annual floods. A rural village (phum) consists of a group of houses, usually clustered around a Buddhist monastery, or wat. In the cities, life for the poor resembles life in the countryside, but sanitary conditions are worse and violent crime is much more frequent. Wealthy and middle-class Cambodians value material possessions, which reflect their social standing. In the 1990s hundreds of extravagant villas were built for members of the political and commercial elite.
Most rural Cambodians wear simple clothing and have few material possessions. Women usually dress modestly in cotton shirts and ankle-length skirts, reserving their multicolored, locally woven silks for religious festivals. A cotton garment called a krama is worn by both men and women as a head covering, as a loincloth (for bathing), and as a carrying bag. Urban Cambodians usually wear Western-style clothing. Rice and fish form the basis of the Cambodian diet. Cambodian families are large, but infant mortality, especially from intestinal disorders, remains high. Women head a large proportion of family units because many men were killed in the warfare of the 1970s and 1980s. In most families, females manage the household economy. Women also constitute the majority of vendors at local markets. Traditionally, boys became monks for a few months during their adolescence, but this practice is fading.
Recommended book : Survival in the Killing Fields - Ngor & Warner. |
 Killing Fields ISBN 1-84119-793-9 Constable & Robinson Ltd.
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