Page:Angkor from Siamese pov - Damrong - 1925.pdf/10

 government and more generally the religion of the Administrators. For this reason, each having its own sphere of action, the two religions had no cause for antagonism. The case of Siam to-day may be cited as an example, though much modified in many respects. With the ancient Khmer the case was probably the same. A king would resort to Buddhism for spiritual matters, whilst he would strictly follow the precepts of Hinduism in affairs temporal, such as in Coronation Ceremonies, or those connected with Swinging and the Commencement of Ploughing, the like of which you have most likely seen here year by year. In the Hindu monument of Bayon, I noticed a statue of a Bodhisattva, and in Buddhist places were also to be found statues of Vishnu riding on his Garuda, in just the same way as you can see them on the gable of the Chapel of the Emerald Buddha in the Grand Palace at Bangkok. All these tend to show that the two religions flourished side by side; whether the priest belonged to the cult of Vishnu or Siva, or was a member of the Buddhist Sangha, the injunction to his congregation must have converged upon the same theme — respect and loyalty to the Sovereign, who in one case would have been an incarnation of the Deity, and in another a Bodhisattva, i.e., a future Buddha. The connection between the Sovereign and the Deity can be further illustrated by the fact that at Angkor Wat, which was built in honour of a Vishnuite King, who after death became deified and known as Parama Vishnuloka, there was once a statue of Vishnu in the main sanctuary representing the monarch. Whilst treating of the subject of the dead, I beg to digress for a moment in order to mention a monument which I saw, called the Bàkse&#774;i Čàṃkro&#774;&#768; — (Plate IX).

This is not a very important monument; but it struck me at once as being very similar to the place for setting up the mortal remains of royalty in this country. It was in the form of tiers — three in number — one upon the other, with an urn on top, such as you may have already seen in Bangkok yourselves. A fact which may, however, not be generally known among you, is that it is the custom here for the dead body of a prince to be clothed in the traditional apparel of a divine being and to be then placed in the urn, which is thus