PHIMAI : PRESENCE OF THE PAST

PHIMAI : PRESENCE OF THE PAST
By David Knapp

Phimai is a quite dustry town banking slowly in the Northeastern sun about 50 kilometers northeast of Korat. At the end of an 11 kilometer spur road from the Friendship Highway, it is not on the way to anywhere.

A thoundsand years ago, though, when the Moorish invaders of Spain were the only noticeably civilized people in Europe, Phimai flourished as a major stopping place on the Khmer highway from Angkor to Sri Thep in the modern province of Phetchabun.

Shortly after the Thais began their insurrection against Cambodian control around 1250AD, the khmer empire began a rapid decline from power and glory.

Phimai’s importance faded with Khmer strength.

For the last eight hundred years or so, the only changes that have come to the sandstone sanctuary that stands in the center of the town have been those brought by rain, sun and wind.

For perhaps two hundred years be fore that, unknown workmen carved a changing population of Indian deities from the dark stone; unlike the Khmer capital at Angkor, Phimai was not important enough to justify a new temple complex for each new royal fashion in religion, so Vishnu, Siva and the Buddha all dwelt together.

Today, under the guidance of French archaeologists, Thai hands have restored the central part of the sanctuary to something like its original condition.

Around the main prasada, though, the ruins are still in ruins, and their spell is somehow stronger. Massive lintels, long roofless, thrust against the sky, while maidens bound forever to shattered blocks of stone peer through the tall grass.

Here demons struggle endlessly at the entrance to a narrow passage, while close by the Buddha sits in ever-tranquil meditation; Siva , his face long split off, rides motionless upon his bull, ill at ease in arrow of numbered fragments.

From the hollws at the corners of the raised causeways, and from inside the high-walled corridors, one cannot see the modern Phimai nor hear the rumble of buses and cries of icecream vendors.

In the silent heat of the afternoon, the dancing bodies and inward-smiling faces of the Khmer figures still live, gently taunting the visitor with their knowledge of the mysteries beyond mantra and mandala, to which the people of Phimai have been strangers for nearly a millennium.

DATA : FROM > Standard bangkok magazine June 22, 1969