The Vishnu temple of Angkor Wat

Posted by Harsh Nevatia Apr 1, 2007

On a television show I recently came across a very interesting question. “Which is the only country in the world to have a Hindu temple on its flag?” The Indian flag does not have a Hindu temple. Nepal is the only Hindu nation so I checked that out the Nepal flag. It has the emblems of the sun and the moon but no temple. It took little time to find that the flag of Cambodia depicts the ancient Hindu temple of Angkor Wat.

The first civilizations in Cambodia were of Indian origin that flourished between the 1st and 15th centuries. The last of these was Khmer kingdom, whose king Jayavarman VII espoused Buddhism. However the temples of Angkor Wat were built by one of his predecessors Suryavarman II in the 12th century as the royal temple. The temple was dedicated to Vishnu. He died before the temple was completed andwork on the temple was suspended. The original name of the temple was believed to be Vrah Vishnolok. Later it was known as Preah Pisnulok after the title of Suryavarman II. Its present name, Angkor Wat, derives from the 16th century. Angkor is believed to be a corruption of the Sanskrit word ‘nagar’ meaning town and Wat is the Khmer word for temple. This is appropriate because Angkor Wat is a temple town. When the the kingdom converted to Buddhism, the temple of Anfkor Wat was occupied by Buddhist monks and continues to be so.

The French explorer, Henri Mouhot, brought the temple to the western world’s notice in the 19th century. He compared it to the temple of Solomon and said that it was the grandest surviving building of any bygone civilization. The temple was restored in the 20th century and is a source of pride to all Cambodians.