Monday Blogcrawl

I am currently working on 3 or 4 very exciting projects, all of them keeping on my toes. Here is a collection of links that will interest Cambodia watchers:

Some fabulous popular Cambodian art from languagecorpsasia.blogspot.com.au

• A Western monk living in a cave in Thailand has released a book
• An amateur video of Angkor Wat 
• An explanation of the Vishnu statue in Siem Reap town
• Hillary Clinton is planning to visit Cambodia again
• It's no surprise that boutique hotels are booming in Cambodia 
• Disturbing news of a mysterious neurological condition that is killing children in Cambodia

A Temple Across the River, Phnom Penh

One day my friend Kakkada came and picked me up on his motorcycle and took me on the ferry across the river at Phnom Penh. The captain turned out to be kind of a hunk.

The other side was mostly Vietnamese, and had a Vietnamese Catholic church. I convinced Kakkada to come in - it was his first time on the grounds of a Catholic church and he was fascinated. 
We also visited the local temple, where we met the most adorable monk.

I was interested to find a statue of Ganesha on the temple grounds - this is still reasonably rare in Cambodia.

Kakkada, a trained artist, was amused by the murals inside the temples. He was bothered by the fact that the hands were too big.

Cambodian Buddhist Statuary

People far away often ask me what are the major differences between Vietnam and Cambodia.
Now, to answer that question would require several hefty volumes, but to me, a regular habitue of Buddhist monastic spaces, one of the most significant differences is that between Buddhist statuary in each of the countries.



This is my special interest area, you see, though I have zero training in Buddhist art and iconography. I am merely a keen amateur.
I have long been in love with Khmer Buddhist art, particularly if it is popular or modern.




Of course, it is easy to wax lyrical about the exquisite transcendence of the Buddhist statuary of the Angkorean period. It is without equal. 
But I am talking about the everyday stuff, the statues rendered in cement and plaster, gaudily painted and often left open to the elements in small temples across Cambodia.

These are the images that interest me most, and I think they are possessed of their own special beauty.

Sakyamuni Buddha

Sakyamuni (Thich Ca Mau Ni Phat vn.) is the historical Buddha, and the central figure of worship that unites all of the schools and sects of Buddhism.



All agree on his life and teaching, though there are some minor disagreements on points of his teaching (did he advocate vegetarianism or not?) and his biography (when exactly did he live and die?).




Sakyamuni is normally the central image in the main prayer halls in Vietnamese temples - on very rare occasions the central image might be of Amitabha, and even more rarely Vairocana.



But almost all Buddhist temples in Vietnam feature a statue of Sakyamuni as their main object of worship.