Heavenly bodies
When you approach the majestic monument of Angkor Wat, crossing the 190-metre-wide moat via the enormous stone causeway, you see the big picture - and mighty it is: a temple whose outer walls run for almost 4km and whose huge central sanctuary climbs skywards to imitate the sacred Mount Meru, with four lower tower 'peaks' at each corner and a middle summit tower of pine-cone-like beauty soaring 65 metres towards the heavens.
At the main gateway, you marvel at the chutzpah of its ancient Khmer creators, their astonishing imagination and their physical commitment to the construction of this, the largest single-site religious structure in the world.
But wait; before taking the causeway to the sanctuary, turn sideways, to the gopura (portico) walls, which stretch 130 metres north to south, and you can see the Khmers were not all about gigantism; they had an exquisite human touch too. Their love of beautiful detail and their passion for the female form are exemplified by the apsaras: female spirits. Richly ornamented, they dance in stone along the walls, in bas relief, almost life sized, displaying graceful hand gestures. On their heads are elaborate, three-pinnacled diadems; sometimes their hair spills out wildly in whiplash strands. Bare breasted, bare bellied and seductive, they wear sarongs secured by ornate belts from their hips and on their faces are enigmatic smiles.
There are about 1,850 of them in Angkor Wat. They also adorn many other temples that dot the Angkor site. Remarkably, each image is different, unique in face, gesture and dress. Who are these 'drugged dreams fixed into stone', as travel writer Grace Thompson Seton called them in the 1930s in Poison Arrows? Are they simply sexy pin-ups, ancient Khmer style, or something more?
The Khmers, although they are a Southeast Asian people, took the core of their culture from India. The religion of the ancients was a form of Hinduism, their arts were Indian-inspired and their concept of semi-divine kingship was Indian. Their origins were also viewed in the Hindu way, as written in the scriptures; the sacred text of the Vedas contains the Churning of the Ocean of Milk, out of which the apsaras were born. Celestial nymphs dancing at the court of Indra, the Lord of Heaven, they entertained the gods, just men and heroes fallen in battle. Prizes for the good and the great, they were ever-young, ever-beautiful and ever-available: heaven, you might say.
That is the mythology and the apsara images are there to reiterate the Hindu concept of the universe in which all Khmers believed, but there is little doubt the Khmers also relished these figures as examples of their own tastes in feminine beauty. The women are Khmer in physique and physiognomy, and their costumes must represent what the ladies of the court wore at the time. They may represent a Hindu cosmology, but they were obviously the babes of their time and place.
Cambodian history reveals the probable models for the carvings. The king, it seems, collected beautiful girls from around the kingdom, adding thousands of concubines and palace girls to his five wives. Many were dancers whose duties were primarily religious. Historical accounts say a young Cambodian dancer would rise in the middle of the night, put on her ceremonial clothes, elaborate headgear and jewels, and join a torchlight procession to Angkor's Bayon Temple, where she would dance at dawn in a religious rite, her bare feet gliding on rose petals strewn over the stones.
The court traditions - albeit in a downsized form - continued into the early 20th century at Phnom Penh Palace, where King Sisowath lived surrounded by his consorts and dancers, the 20 most beautiful of which were assigned in rotation to his bedchamber. This royal tradition was tragically disrupted and almost destroyed by the brutal Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s, but has since been revived as the apsara dance.
This dance tops the bill in the tourist hotels adjacent to the Angkor site. Although the apsara dance was created in the 1950s by Queen Kossamak, the costumes and movements date from the ancient royal court. Many hotels possess their own dance troupes, who live on the premises, echoing on a small scale the huge ensembles that resided in the palaces and temples of old Angkor.
The heavenly maidens also appear at Angkor Wat in another, more modern, daily ritual. Responding to the combination of the monument's status as supreme national symbol and the allure of the apsaras, Cambodia's brides love to pose for their wedding albums at the temple portico. It is de rigueur, if you can afford it. The bride and three bridesmaids is the usual set-up, and revelation is not the name of the game - no bare belly buttons here, let alone breasts. They are lavishly made up and accoutred in the long skirts and bodices of recent Khmer tradition. Lashings of gold jewellery and gleaming smiles complete the ensemble.
These descendants of the maidens sent to court a millennium ago embody Khmer style and history. Like their predecessors, they represent the beauty of a culture that created the greatest architectural complex and the richest dance tradition in Southeast Asia. Angkor's apsaras, it seems, are alive and well.
