Wat Phou: a miracle waiting to happen.

Wat Phou: A miracle waiting to happen

CHAMPASSAK WAS ANIMATED despite the sweltering heat of mid-morning. Women dressed in sarong-like skirts and white blouses converged on the community hall that overlooks the palm-shaded river meandering through the town. The women of Champassak had been cooking for several days now; enough rice, fish, pork and poultry to feed the whole town and its guests. Many of the men were inside the hall awaiting the arrival of a group of visitors from Vientiane. They had seen the orange dust cloud in the wake of the vehicle bearing the visitors long before it came to a halt in front of the community hall. The group of men and women who emerged--Laotian, American, Indian, Bulgarian and English--had all been waiting for this moment: their first glimpse of Wat Phou, the legendary temple that had been built in this remote corner of Laos in the days of the Khmer Empire.

While the elders led the visitors into the community hall, an orchestra struck up an undulating rhythmic song played on traditional instruments: flutes, clarinets, xylophones with bamboo cross-pieces, drums, cymbals, and the khen, a hand-held pipe organ that is the national instrument. In a large room about 70 men sat around a centrepiece in the form of a tree made from banana leaves and flowers and surrounded by symbolic foods. The baci ceremony, marking the importance of the occasion, was about to start. While a lay priest intoned benedictions and prayers, the hosts tied cotton strips around the wrists of their guests, symbolizing good health, prosperity and happiness.

At the banquet that followed the baci, women served steaming dishes of fish, pork and chicken and the staple of all Laotian meals--sticky rice. There were toasts in lau lao, the potent locally-brewed rice liquor, followed by speeches dedicated to the purpose of this gathering: the restoration of Wat Phou.

Built by the Khmer kings on the slopes of the mountain that emerged from the forest surrounding this small provincial town, Wat Phou is in ruins. Champassak was celebrating the fact that it was about to be saved from the tidal wave of vegetation in which the heavenly dancers of its bas-reliefs were drowning. The visitors represented years of effort by the Government of Laos and the international community to save this national treasure, efforts that had now culminated in UNDP and UNESCO agreeing to finance and assist in the renovation work, and in the establishment of a museum in Champassak to house some of Wat Phou's more vulnerable artefacts.

Two hundred years older than Angkor Wat in Kampuchea, Wat Phou was built in the second half of the fifth century. At that time it was a centre of kingly power on the lower Mekong River, one of a collection of principalities stretching along the coast but extending inland to encompass what is now southern Laos. The temple was the site of a cult closely associated with the Indianized monarchies of ancient Indochina, part of the vast Khmer Empire that, some two hundred years later, made Angkor its capital.

The speeches over, the group from Vientiane, accompanied by town elders, drove the short distance through the forest to the temple. A long causeway led them into the centre of an architectural composition whose ancient stones were bathed in the golden light of the late afternoon.

Rising above the Mekong River, Wat Phou is a majestic ruin covered with a mantle of vegetation, a symbol of what the Laotians themselves had suffered and withstood--invasions, colonialism and wars. Nowadays, Wat Phou's battle is against the vegatation that relentlessly attacks its ancient stones. The conflict is between the ruins and the jungle which has overrun them.

At the end of the causeway, two exquisite rectangular pavilions made of sandstone stand near a large artificial lake, believed by the Khmers to have possessed extraordinary purificatory powers. For the god-kings of the Khmer Empire Wat Phou was a favourite royal bathing place, with its grand approach, its majestic flight of steps flanked by statues of lions and mythical animals. Today the lions are faceless and the statutes have lost their heads. Buffaloes stand motionless in the waters of the lake, only their heads showing.

The rectangular pavilions used to be temples for segregated worship--one for women and the other for men. Roots follow the outlines of the masonry along the temple walls, mimicking the architectural motives which they cover. A whole section of wall is cracked and prevented from disintegration by the roots' embrace. Ferns and underbrush have attached themselves to walls, screening the idealized representations of the Khmer aristocracy, while beneath the onslaught of vegetation, the powerful Brahman gods of the Khmer Empire--Krishna, Vishnu and Indra riding the elephant Airavata--are slowly suffocating.

A wide avenue leads from the temples to a majestic stairway carved into the side of the mountain. At the top is the sanctuary which had once housed the idol of the cult. Here time has wrought wonders with the sandstone, and the sun and rain have softened the decorative instincts of the Khmers. Local legend has it that the Emerald Buddha which now sits in Bangkok is a fake and that the authentic one is hidden here.

Behind the sanctuary the side of the mountain rises perpendicularly to the skies. From here it is easy to imagine the beauty of this site in its prime. The view spreads out harmoniously from mountain to plain. First the sanctuary, then the immense staircase interspersed by large terraces, the esplanade with the two rectangular temples, the artificial lake, the park, the forest and, beyond it, the course of the majestic Mekong flowing towards the horizon.

By the time the party of visitors had climbed down the stairway and reached the forecourt, the day was waning. A group of boys strolled through the ruins. They had come to this once exclusive place to burn incense-sticks at a small Buddhist shrine made of sticks and paper. It was all that was left from a festival that had been held in the previous month. For four days Wat Phou had basked in some of its ancient splendour, with processions and fireworks and hundreds of people from the surrounding regions chanting and praying to the rhythm of the khen and the deep sounds of gongs.

In just over an hour night would descend over the mountain sanctuary. The last rays of the sun lit up the growth of tropical vegatation, highlighting the deterioration of the buildings. The task of restoration is immense and greatly exceeds the resources of the Government of Laos. In associating itself with the efforts of the Laotian people, the world community will help to conserve a monumental site which is not only the work of a particular people, but also belongs to the common heritage of mankind.

Photo: A legendary temple in a remote corner of Lao People's Democratic Republic . . .