https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_Wat

​Angkor Wat 
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The Temple as Event

Sometimes we distinguish between stones and people, as if stones are dead and people are alive. But all are pulsating with energy; all are bursting forth with vitality of different kinds: physical, psychological, or symbolic. All are happenings in their way. Process philosophy is an invitation to see all things - temples included - as events. When we enter a temple, we are events entering an event. When we leave, we leave something behind in the temple, and the temple leaves something behind in us. Not only humans, but even stones, have memories. The universe is a network of memories, some of which are solid like stones and some of which are spiritual like the feelings Cambodians have for Angkor Wat. The key, in visiting a temple, is to hear the memories, to feel their presence. And if we chat with friends while at the temple, our chatting creates a memory, too, not only for us but also for the temple. A temple is always in process, adding new events to its history. The gods and goddesses are in the memories.

- Jay McDaniel

UNESCO Videos

Angkor Wat: Wikipedia

​Angkor Wat: A Process Approach
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We often think of buildings as physical structures which people may or may not occupy. The purpose of this page is to consider one type of building – a temple – and think of it as an ongoing event, extending through time, made of stones, meanings, memories, and interactions among people. My example is Angkor Wat, one of many temples in the city of Angkor, Cambodia. It was originally built as a Hindu temple in the early 12th century by the Khmer Empire, but gradually transformed into a Buddhist temple complex over the following centuries. Angkor Wat is one of the largest religious monuments in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

Angkor Wat is many things. It is a living temple used by local Cambodians, an archaeological site, a gallery of art objects, and a tourist destination. Together they form an ongoing event that is itself a network of events. Angkor Wat is an event of events of events. 

Its materials components are sandstone, laterite, brick, and volcanic stone. Considered in themselves, even apart from human use, the stones are momentary pulsations of energy gathered into the unity of physical blocks. Each pulsation is itself an event, a happening, with vitality of its own, and the stone itself is an aggregate-expression of such events with its own unique energy. When rendered into images, something is added to their natural energy. They become artistic and symbolic events.

And yet, of course, the temple itself is not the stones alone. It is the meaning of the stones, the memories and images bring to them, the other forms of life that inhabit its region. The meanings of the Angkor Wat event will depend on how it is differentially felt by Cambodians, conservationists, art historians, tourists, and spiritual seekers. Meanings are relational, too.

One of the most fundamental of these meanings is what it has meant, and still means, for Cambodians. Their history is built into the meanings.

A process approach to Angkor Wat will approach this temple with humility, knowing it belongs to the people of Cambodia. We will listen to their stories about it to gain perspective. We will also listen to the stones, the structures, and the visual imagery. They, too, have stories to tell or energies to feel. 

In our time listening to religious architecture can occur in person or digitally. The key is to remember that sacred places have voices of their own, all different. Listening to temples begins with an emptying of the heart, a bracketing of ego-preoccupations, so that something new can enter. Angkor Wat is a form of newness.

​- Jay McDaniel

National Geographic Video
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Angkor Wat - A Scholarly Discussion
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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the largest and arguably the most astonishing religious structure on Earth, built for Suryavarman II in the 12th Century in modern-day Cambodia. It is said to have more stone in it than the Great Pyramid of Giza, and much of the surface is intricately carved and remarkably well preserved. For the last 900 years Angkor Wat has been a centre of religion, whether Hinduism, Buddhism or Animism or a combination of those, and a source of wonder to Cambodians and visitors from around the world.

With

Piphal Heng
Postdoctoral scholar at the Cotsen Institute and the Programme for Early Modern Southeast Asia at UCLA

Ashley Thompson
Hiram W Woodward Chair of Southeast Asian Art at SOAS University of London

And

Simon Warrack
A stone conservator who has worked extensively at Angkor Wat
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Producer: Simon Tillotson

Angkor Wat. Siem Reap, Cambodia, 1116-1150 (photo: Benjamin Jakabek, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Photo by Laurentiu Morariu on Unsplash

Aerial view, Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia, 1116-1150 (photo: Peter Garnhum, CC BY-NC 2.0)

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