The Hindu : Angkor: a temple town awaits Indians

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jun 02, 2003

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

Angkor: a temple town awaits Indians

By C. Raja Mohan

SIEM REAP June 1. While the nation squabbles over a non-existent temple in Ayodhya, here is a temple town that celebrates the glorious legacy of Hindu and Buddhist civilisations but is woefully short of Indian visitors. The Angkor Vat, at once beautiful and awesome, ranks with the pyramids and the Taj Mahal in the cultural inheritance of the world.

Travellers from everywhere arrive here in hordes to marvel at the dancing `Apsaras' and legends from the `Ramayana', `Mahabharata' and `Bhagavata' carved in great detail on the imposing Angkor Vat and scores of other temples dotting the massive complex spread over 200 sq. km. in north-western Cambodia.

The Indian middle class today has begun to travel abroad in large numbers. South East Asia is indeed a favourite destination. But few Indians show up at Angkor, whose Sanskrit root is simply `nagar' or holy city. The rare exceptions are from the upper class Indian diaspora.

There are few countries in the world that wear the legacy of Hinduism and Buddhism as comfortably as Cambodia does. For six centuries from early ninth to mid-fifteenth, here was a Cambodian empire that adopted Hinduism, enriched its myths through local culture and created a unique cosmology.

``No one should die before seeing Angkor'', said the British novelist, Somerset Maugham, when he visited Angkor in the late 1950s. That should apply specially to Indians who are rich enough to travel abroad.

* * *

The Indian Government has put in an impressive effort here to restore the ruins of Angkor, which has become an important source of hard currency for Cambodia.

Yet there has been no serious effort in New Delhi to get a slice of the tourist boom around Angkor. Cambodia hopes to soon draw a million tourists every year.

To service them it has opened up an international airport at Siem Reap near Angkor, and visas are available on arrival. Fabulous boat rides on the Tonle Sap river from Phnom Penh to Angkor is another option.

Travel and stay in a country that is just opening up to large scale international tourism is rather cheap even by South East Asian standards. Hotels are being built at every corner of Siem Reap, where the new prosperity cannot be missed.

Although there is some talk of big Indian hoteliers coming here, there is no sign of it yet. For now, there is just one small restaurant serving Indian food. For the bolder elements of the Indian travel industry, here is a boom waiting to be harvested at Siem Reap. A little publicity, some Indian hotels and a shopping mall, should be enough to attract thousands of Indian tourists to Angkor.

All that will happen only when India wakes up to the value of its cultural legacy abroad and the kind of money it is spinning. Investment in tourism could easily become the cutting edge for a larger Indian economic presence in Cambodia. Is the Union Tourism Minister, Jagmohan, listening?

* * *

After restoring key parts of the main temple at Angkor, the Archaeological Survey of India is now all set to begin work on Ta Prohm, or the temple for ancestor Brahma. (The word `Ta' is derived from `tatha' or grandfather in many south Indian languages.)

Ta Prohm is the source of the popular worldwide image of Angkor ruins-of fabulous temples entwined in the trunks, roots and branches of overgrown trees. Left untouched by archaeologists so far, Ta Prohm recreates for every visitor the wonder that must have struck explorers who stumbled on to the Angkor ruins in the 16th century.

On a quiet evening at Ta Prohm, the scene of ruin is also a state of beauty. No one can escape an extraordinary delight tinged with a deep sense of regret. Nature here is both the destroyer and healer, tearing asunder the monument and holding it together at the same time.

``The temple is held in a stranglehold of trees. Stone and wood clasp each other in grim hostility, yet all is silent and still, without any visible movement to indicate their struggle-as if they are wrestlers suddenly petrified, struck motionless in the middle of a fight. The rounds in this battle were not measured in minutes, but by centuries.'' So wrote an observer about Ta Prohm.

* * *

Stepping into this extended struggle at Ta Prohm, then, is the Archaeological Survey of India. Given the unique state Ta Prohm is in, its restoration will be a challenge unlike any other for the ASI.

The ASI's work at Angkor Vat has come under some criticism from Western quarters for the methodology of restoration and the material used. Some of it is surely linked to professional jealousies among archaeologists.

The ASI is now believed to be upgrading its technology of restoration for the prestigious project at Ta Prohm. The entire world will be watching how the ASI rises to the occasion at Ta Prohm.

A measure of transparency and a willingness to discuss its plans for Ta Prohm with the international community of archaeologists are essential for the ASI to come out of this project with an enhanced professional reputation.

(Concluded)

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Angkor: a temple town awaits Indians