14 Alternative Narratives beyond Angkor

In the 1470s BE,¹ Jayavarman IV relocated the capital of the Khmer Empire 75 miles / 120 kilometres northeast of Angkor, the world heritage site that served as the seat of power for most of the empire's centuries-long existence. For the decade and change that Jayavarman IV ruled, Koh Ker grew to a full-fledged capital city with a multitude of structures across 30 square miles / 80 square kilometers. Though this pales in comparison to Angkor at its peak (which occupied roughly 400 square miles / 1,000 square kilometers), Koh Ker only enjoyed its privileged position for roughly a score before the king after Jayavarman IV's successor returned leadership southwest. As Angkor hosted the empire's affairs for the following centuries, the tropics reclaimed Koh Ker.^2,A Its short-lived political career, though certainly fascinating to anyone interested in Southeast Asian history, fails to capture or account for the aesthetic radicality of the city. The Khmer Empire, though still young during Jayavarman IV's reign, had already developed the foundations for an architectural language that would grow to immortalize their kingdom. Numerous monuments prophesied the architectural ultimatum still centuries away: Angkor Wat. As an early anomaly — an attempt to deviate the empirical trajectory — Koh Ker appears startlingly out of place against the body of Khmer temples seen today. The realignment reverted after a couple kings, and Koh Ker's story would be lost to history and the jungle had it not left its potential, deviant lineage in stone.^B

¹ Cambodia uses the Buddhist calendar today, which I employ here. As Siddhartha Gautama saved humanity approximately 543 years before Jesus Christ, the respective calendar adds a few centuries. The Gregorian equivalent is 928 – 941 CE.

² Future kings would continue to add sporadically to Koh Ker, but its activity diminished significantly after Jayavarman IV's initial clamor.

^A

The forest floor and fallen stone. The temple ruins and trees. Photo by author.

^B

A line of totems upon a wall. Some have toppled. Photo by author.

At the heart of Koh Ker sits Prasat Thom, a temple complex whose central axis terminates in a seven-tiered pyramid that might look more at home in Mesoamerica than Indochina.^B Its hesitantly logarithmic angle follows a proportionality unlike anything in the region. Where other Khmer temples sit upon a stoic plinth before plunging into the sky with central or quincuncial towers, Prasat Thom's pyramid rises steadily to its peak. A central tower once finished the pyramid with a vertical flourish (though not enough of one to undo the geometric unorthodoxy below), but its collapse has removed the ubiquitous motif that identifies Khmer architecture within the broader spectrum of Hindu and Buddhist architectures: the pinecone-esque tower. Across Asia, Mount Meru's sacred peak gives typological form to a variety of temple aesthetics — shikharas to Khmer's west, pagodas to its north. The loss of the pyramid's pinnacle tower removes the immediate Khmer identifier for this holy summit, and the remaining stepped structure offers little else to associate with other elements of traditional Hindu and Buddhist architectures.³ Again, crossing the Pacific promises formal rationalization, but this superficial reading of Koh Ker's spectacular centerpiece leads nowhere beyond suggestions of immanent structures outside any one tradition. But the city's alienness has grown since this initial, inexplicable deviation from Angkor's trajectory.

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The pyramid of Prasat Thom. Photo by author.

³ Other stepped pyramids do crop up across Southeast Asia. Dhammayangyi Temple in Myanmar and Borobudur in Indonesia both fit this bill, but neither's geometry come close to the purity of Prasat Thom's pyramid.

The jungle is Koh Ker. Remote and unattended, sanctuaries spill over with trees whose roots have entwined the middle-aged masonry.^D Time has not been kind to Cambodian relics, yet Koh Ker stands more ruinous than most. Numerous lesser temples appear in the area, their scattered arrangement — if ever it had logic, so sporadic the city is compared against the orderly Angkor — made incomprehensible by the winding dirt road that connects them. The little that still stands after centuries of complacency survives on wooden crutches.^E Koh Ker freezes an anomalous moment long lost to time in time: spaces not of now, but longer of then. The precarious quantum nature works alongside the transcendent order of Koh Ker's forms. The sequence of each sanctuary's approach, entry and inhabitance steadily pulls inward, collapsing the scale of space from universe to sanctuary to lingam like a divine matryoshka doll. The sanctuary embodies the shrine it contains, reconciling the earthly forms of both with those of the gods they represent. This harmonious relation to nature (one which overgrowth abets) delivers the rich spiritual atmosphere one expects from temples, ruins and old-growth forests. Koh Ker happens to be all three, arguably at their best.

^D

Root systems take over temples as they turn to trees. Photo by author.

^E

Scaffolds and supports bolster much of what remains uproght. Photo by author.

Koh Ker is a two hour drive from Siem Reap, where most visitors to the area stay. After all, the city sits at the gates of Angkor. Trekking the long way to Koh Ker early in morning ensures that encounters will be few and far between, but this is likely to be the case at any time. Its spectacle, Prasat Thom, simply cannot compete with the majesty of Angkor Wat, and its remoteness compounds this fact. Only nearing a week in Siem Reap might one cave to take the concierge up on that offer he's made since he overheard Koh Ker mentioned in passing. His son (presumably, though he never speaks) drives the long route to the jungle full of backroads between the stray sanctuaries of Koh Ker.^F The remnants of another historical political enterprise — the Khmer Rouge — litter the forest floor, prepared to send it violently toward the sky. This reiterates the distance between Koh Ker and Angkor, the counterpoint of their experiences: iconoclast vs identity, pyramidal vs mountainous, overgrown vs well-trodden. At the end of the week, Koh Ker is well worth the visit, but at the end of the day and the end of the empire, it fails to escape Angkor.

^F

The roof collapses, and the earth swells. Photo by author.