Angkor Wat : time, space, and kingship

Bringing the principles of 12th-century Khmer temple architecture to the modern world, this text finds that the key to understanding the temple lies in the measurement system used by its original builders. By translating metres into cubits, the author uncovered a highly sophisticated system of philosophical and religious principles expressed in the temple measurements themselves. The measurements connect the temple to the stars and the cosmos, bridge the gap between human and divine realms, help unite the king and his deity - in short, they define how time, space, kingship and divinity exist inseparably from each other.

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For nearly a quarter of a century, Mannikka worked to unravel the logic and symbolism that guided construction of Angkor Wat, the famed 12th-century Hindu temple in Cambodia. Portico by galley by apartment, she links the temple's dimensions to the heavens and to Southeast Asian history. The book, a cross between doctoral dissertation and love letter, has a structure that reflects the temple-as you read the book, you figuratively walk through the building, aided by 209 illustrations (12 in color) and by Mannikka's poetic tributes to the ruin's stones and corridors. The author hopes her book will help form a general paradigm for use in analyzing other temples, but many of her techniques could apply to secular structures whose origins have been obscured by time. Mannikka's growth as a scholar is another subtext, and her honest assessment of what she had to learn to fully appreciate her subject is refreshing ("In 1972," she writes, "my knowledge of astronomy was limited to the shape of the Big Dipper"). Historians, architects and those interested in Eastern religions will compose the main audience for the book, but it is also an object lesson in how to stay with a project for the long haul despite the pressures of a hit-and-run research academy. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Magnificently illustrated and richly detailed, this book describes the art and architecture of the 12th-century Buddhist temple complex of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. By themselves, the elaborate descriptions, elegant drawings, and beautiful black-and-white and color photographs of architectural features and Khmer art make this book an invaluable reference work for specialists in Asian art history, archaeology, architecture, and religion. The introductory chapter provides the most coherent treatment of the historical and cultural setting of Angkor Wat found in English-language publications, but the author goes beyond material description and historical synthesis to offer a fascinating interpretation of Angkor Wat as a precisely constructed "sacred environment," built according to certain Indian- and Chinese-influenced but uniquely Khmer philosophical and religious principles. Transforming Western metric measurements into what are likely to have been indigenous spatial units, the author demonstrates that in temple architecture, orientation and spatial relationships reflect sophisticated knowledge of astronomical phenomena and complex cosmological notions. Historians and anthropologists should find Mannikka's analysis of considerable appeal in examining the ideological underpinnings of kingship in Southeast Asia. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. L. L. Junker; Vanderbilt University

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