There is a temple within the city walls which, when as well known, may prove to be a grander and more splendid temple than Nakhon Wat itself. When Mr. Thomson visited the place, it was so overgrown with jungle that he could not make out its plan or even count its towers. Garnier could only form a diagram of its plan (plate 21), but he gave two views—one a woodcut in the text (page 67), the other a lithograph in his atlas. It is understood, however, that M. Delaporte has cleared out the place, and made careful plans and drawings of the whole, so that in a short time we may expect to know all about it. It is a rectangle, measuring about 400 ft. by 433 ft., and its general appearance may be gathered by imagining the effect of Nakhon Wat with fifty-two towers instead of nine, and the whole perhaps more richly and elaborately ornamented than even that temple. It certainly appears to be older—probably it belongs to the 11th or 12th century; and its sculptures are consequently better in execution, though whether they are equal in design we have yet to learn.
The most remarkable feature in the design is, that each of the towers is adorned by four great masks. One of the smaller of these is shown in the next woodcut (No. [378]), and gives an idea of the style of their decorations, but cannot of the larger towers, nor of the effect of a great number of them grouped together, and dominated by one in the centre 60 ft. in diameter, and of proportionate height.
The question still remains, to what deity, or for what form of worship, was this strange temple erected? We know of nothing like it elsewhere. It certainly is not Buddhist, nor Jaina, nor, so far as known, is it Hindu. Neither Siva nor Vishnu, nor any of the familiar gods of that Pantheon, appear anywhere. It may turn out to be otherwise, but at present there seems no escape from the hypothesis that it was dedicated to Brahma. We have no temple belonging to this god in India Proper, but he does appear with the other two in sculptures at Hullabîd, and in other places, completing the trinity. His images are found much more frequently in Java than in India, though I am not aware that any temple has yet been found in the island dedicated to him. In Cambodia, however, he plays a most important part in all the local traditions. When, for instance, the sovereign who married the Snake-king’s daughter got tired of his father-in-law, he set up an image of the four-faced Brahma over the gates of the city, which so terrified the old man that he fled to his dark abode cursing his ungrateful children. Such an image does still exist over the principal gate of the city; but the Chinese traveller, who visited the place in 1295,[647] calls it a five-faced image of Buddha! The traveller was a Buddhist, and, as before mentioned, saw his own religion everywhere, and that only in every temple and in every place.
378. One of the Towers of the Temple at Ongcor Thom. (From a Photograph by Mr. J. Thomson.)
All the traditions collected by Bastian, and the numerous images of Ta Phrohm or Brahma found by the French at Mount Kromi and elsewhere, fully bear out this assignment of the temple to Brahma. But if it should eventually prove to be correct, what a wide door it opens for speculation, and what a flood of light it would throw on many questions that are now perplexing us. Is it that a worship of Brahma really existed in the north-west, in the original seats of the immigrant races before they passed into India, and that it was left to vegetate there while the settlers adopted the more fashionable religious of Siva and Vishnu in the countries of their adoption? If this were so, a later migration may have taken place by a northern route through Yunan, taking with them the older form of the faith and planting it in this far-off land.
It was not by accident that the knowledge either of Brahma or of these strangely classical forms of art were imported into this country. We cannot yet explain how all this happened, but we see enough to feel sure that in a very few years the solution will be possible—perhaps easy. It would indeed be a triumph if we could track Brahma back to the cave where he has been so long hidden, and connect his worship with some of the known religions of the world.
Rather more than a mile to the eastward of the city is another first-class temple, called Ta Proum, or Paten ta Phrohm, the residence of Phrohm or Brahma.[648] It is a square, measuring about 400 ft. each way, and, so far as can be made out from M. Mouhot’s plan, was of the same class as Nakhon Wat; but, as Lieutenant Garnier says, it is so ruined that its plan can hardly be made out,[649] and it is so choked with vegetation, that in a few years not one stone of it will remain upon another.
About twenty miles further eastward is another temple of the same class, but much more perfect, called Melea, and at seventy miles a third, called Preacan. These were only imperfectly explored by the first French expedition, but have been thoroughly investigated by the second,[650] and we may hope soon to have plans and all the details necessary to enable us to speak with confidence with regard to this curious but most interesting group of temples. They are evidently very numerous, and all most elaborately adorned, and, it need hardly be added, very unlike anything we have met with in any part of India described in the previous chapters of this work. They certainly are neither Buddhist, Jaina, nor Hindu, in any sense in which we have hitherto understood these terms, and they as certainly are not residences or buildings used for any civil purposes. It is possible that, when we become acquainted with the ancient architecture of Yunan, or the provinces of Central and Western China, we may get some hints as to their origin. At present I am inclined to look further north and further west for the solution of the riddle; but, till we are in possession of the results of the French expedition, it is premature to speculate.