The main entrance approaches the wat on the west, crossing by an immense stone causeway over a deep, wide moat and under a lofty gateway guarded by colossal stone lions hewn, pedestal and all, from a single block. The structure rises in three quadrangular tiers, of thirty feet, one above the other, facing the four points of the compass, on a cruciform platform. Out of the highest central point springs a great tower one hundred and eighty feet high, and four inferior corner-towers rise around. It has been suggested that Mount Menu, the centre of the Buddhist universe, with its sacred rock-circles, is symbolized, the three platforms representing earth, water and wind. Flights of steep stairways, each step a single block and some having fifty or sixty steps, lead from terrace to terrace. Long galleries with stone floors, stone roofs, and walls having a surface smooth as polished marble, covered with elaborately chiseled bas-reliefs, are flanked by rows of monolithic pillars whose girth and height rival noble oaks. The centre compartments are walled in, and the remaining two-thirds of the space consists of open colonnades. The inner walls of these open galleries have blank windows; seven stone bars, uniform in size and beautifully carved with the sacred lotus, form a sort of balcony to each window.
The bas-reliefs have thousands of nearly life-size figures, representing scenes from the great Indian epic Ramayana—battle-scenes, processions of warriors, and the struggle of the angels with the giants for the possession of Phaya Naght, the snake god. The majority of these are executed with care and skill, and form one of the chief attractions of the wat. Specimens of the more beautiful, and also casts of the inscriptions, have been transported to the Cambodian Museum of Paris, but, unfortunately, M. Mohl, the celebrated Orientalist entrusted with the task of deciphering these unknown characters, died before reaching any satisfactory conclusion. Scholars seem inclined to regard the inscriptions as derived rather from the Pali or Sanskrit than the Malay or Chinese language.
Mr. Thomson, the English traveler, with his photographs, has best introduced these wonderful ruins to English readers. Mr. Frank Vincent’s very readable account of his visit to these ruins in company with Dr. McFarland, in 1871, also gives us much valuable information and reproduces some of the English photographs. Dr. McFarland states that “this wonderful structure covers an area of over ten acres—that the space enclosed within the temple-grounds is two hundred and eight acres, and the space within the walls of the city is over two thousand acres. The temple is built entirely of stone. These stones were brought a distance of about thirty miles, and must have required the labor of thousands of men for many years. There is no such thing as mortar or cement used in the building, and yet the stones are so closely fitted as in some places to appear without seam. These ruins, together with the beautiful little lakes that dot the plain and the remnants of splendid roads that once traversed the country, show that those formerly inhabiting this valley were a powerful race.”
And as we in turn ponder and gaze on these evidences of an unknown civilization a spell falls upon our imagination. We seem to see these forsaken altars thronged by devotees, and through the valley are busy cities adorned with stately palaces, astir with the human life of a powerful, opulent kingdom. But vainly do we conjecture how ruins of such solidity, so stupendous in scale, of elaborate design and excellent execution, could have lain forgotten through centuries in this lonely forest-district of an almost unknown portion of the globe; nor can the sloth and ignorance of the present semi-civilized inhabitants offer any trustworthy solution of the problem. They reply, “We cannot tell,” “They made themselves,” “The giants built them,” or refer to a vague local tradition of an Egyptian king, turned into a leper for an act of sacrilege, as the reputed founder of the wat.
The present good condition of the ruins of Nagkon Wat is largely due to the late king of Siam, who gave them in charge of the small religious brotherhood now living in little huts under the very shadow of the gray walls.
Travelers describe Nagkon Wat as “a rival of Solomon’s temple” and “grander than anything left us by Greece or Rome,” “occupying a larger space than the ruins of Karnac,” “imposing as Thebes or Memphis, and more mysterious.”
But the credit of what might be called the rediscovery of these wonderful remains amidst the forest solitudes of Siamrap is due to M. Mouhot, after these remnants of a lost past had for ages been forgotten by all the world outside of their immediate vicinity. The innumerable idols and thousands of bats hanging from the ceilings would seem to have held undisturbed possession for centuries.
Fergusson’s opinion, that this shrine was devoted to the worship of the snake god (see Tree and Serpent Worship), is not in accord with the views of Garnier, Thomson and others, who agree that it must have been erected in honor of Buddha. Dr. Bastian, president of the Berlin Geographical Society, thinks, with Bishop Pallegoix, that the probable date of the building—at least its commencement—was the grand event from which the civil era of Siam dates—viz. the introduction of the sacred Buddhist canon from Ceylon in the seventh century. The general appearance of the worn stairways, and the dilapidated condition of the city, slowly mouldering under the destructive encroachments of a tropical jungle, would seem to indicate great age. Yet the mediæval narrative of Cambodian travel by a Chinese officer, late in the thirteenth century, recently translated by M. Remusat, contains no allusion to this great temple, which has induced some to conclude that the building belongs to a later period. In 1570 A. D. a Portuguese refugee from Japan refers to these “ruins” and the inscriptions thereon as being in “an unknown tongue.”
III. THE THIRD BASIN—VALLEY OF THE MEKONG.
The hill-country which separates the valley of Siam from that of the Mekong (or Mekaung)—known in its lower course as the Cambodian River—is of moderate elevation and the boundary-lines not well defined.