KHMER ROUGE The convulsions of the 1970s in Cambodia are incomprehensible,

KHMER ROUGE

The convulsions of the 1970s in Cambodia are incomprehensible, inexplicable, defying description.

The actual physical destruction of the Sangha began during the 1970-75 and was conducted not by the Khmer Rough, but by the American saturation bombing, and the monks were increasingly caught in the cross fire between factions in the growing civil war within Cambodia. These factions were not deliberately targeting Buddhism, but the effect was the same: the killing of monks, destruction of temples, libraries, Buddhist heritage. By 1975 when the Khmer Rough came to power, the number of wats had been reduced to 2,800 and while many monks’ lives were lost, many men and boys joined the monkhood in an effort to take refuge and protection from the intensifying and expanding war.

The Khmer Rough had been gathering strength throughout the 1960s and early 70s. When they seized control of Cambodia in 1975, they purged “feudalists” which included aristocracy, mandarins, landlords and Buddhist monks. The Khmer Rough utterly devastated and annihilated Buddhism from the land of Cambodia, for a five year period of genocidal orgy. “Much of the Buddhist clergy had expected to be part of the revolution, not its victims. Encouraged by Prince Sihanouk and his appeals from Beijing, many of the Buddhists of the countryside joined the Khmer Rough. In a repeat of what had happened during the First Indochina War, the Khmer Rough actively recruited monks during the first years of the war and treated them with respect. Monks were named to ceremonial positions in the United Front government and allowed to continue administering to the faithful in many areas under Khmer Rough rule. Even when religions was suspended in the late war period, the Khmer Rough promised it was a temporary emergency measure to allow full mobilization of the people.”

“With victory, the Khmer Rough immediately attacked the Buddhist clergy, Buddhist pagodas, statuary, relics, libraries, and schools. The destruction was nearly complete, with more devastating consequences for Cambodia than the Chinese attack on Buddhism had been for Tibet.”

“The Khmer Rough murdered the top clergy immediately, enticing the monks to hand themselves over to their executioners with ruses similar to those used to kill off the former military officers of the Lon Nol regime.”

“Those who were not executed were ordered to forfeit their robes and join the people to work in the cooperatives as common filed hands, an order that violate their religious tenets. Those who refused were killed. Many monks were ordered to marry, which prevented them from returning to the clergy. In some areas the Khmer Rough cadre allowed older monks to keep their saffron robes only to be countermanded by the Center.” “Without monks the people could no longer practice their faith, but the Khmer Rough was intent on erasing the faith form the country’s memory. The pagodas, too, became targets of the regime. The nearly 3,000 pagodas in the country were desecrated or destroyed. They were used as stables, granaries, prisons, and execution sites. Statuary were defaced. The sacred literature was burned or shredded.” [When the War was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rough Revolution, Elizabeth Becker, p254.] Older more venerated and educated monks were executed, while younger monks and novices were forced to disrobe and work in the fields.

The Buddhist Patriarch, Samdech Huot Tat, was killed by the Khmer Rough. A statue of the patriarch which was smashed and thrown into the Mekong River by the KR, was reassembled and is today on display at Wat Ounalom.The highest and most recent estimate (1990) indicated that about 60,000 monks were killed and about 5,000 survived by escaping into Vietnam or Thailand, and becoming refugees.

The Khmer Rough are thought to have completely leveled at least 1,900 wats, mostly in the countryside. Town temples survived because they were used for other purposes.Hang Ngor, author of A Cambodian Odyssey, on which the movie The Killing Fields was based, wrote of his work assignment to destroy the temple of Phum Phnom. The monks were denounced as “parasites” he reported:

“Buddhism was the old religion we were supposed to discard, and Angka was the new ‘religion’ we were supposed to accept. As the rainy season began – normally the time when the youth from the surrounding villages would shave their heads and join the monkhood – soldiers entered the empty wat [at Tonle Bati] and began removing the Buddha statues [in 1975]. Rolling the larger statues end over end, they threw them over the side, dumped them on the ground with heads and hands severed form the bodies, or threw them into the reflecting pools. But they could destroy only the outward signs of our religion, not the beliefs within. And even the, as I noticed with bitter satisfaction, there was one statue they did not destroy. It was the bronze Buddha, still gleaming inside the small Angkorean outbuilding….”

In addition killing monks and destroying the temples and monasteries, part of the Khmer Buddhist literary patrimony was permanently destroyed. Libraries were burned. Irreplaceable Buddhist sutras were used as cigarette paper. The entire library of the Buddhist Institute was destroyed by burning it, and throwing it into the nearby Mekong River. Among the valuable holdings stored in the library was ethnographic and literary research of the Commission des Moeurset Coutumes, documenting classic Khmer cultural customs, manners, traditions and customs. All across Cambodia, palm-leaf texts which had been preserved in village temples, were destroyed.

“Through oversight or error, some collections were not damaged or destroyed. In the national library, 343 palm and mulberry leaf manuscripts remained undamaged as well as 185 palm leaf manuscripts stored in the royal palace together with a complete set of the tipitaka. More than 100 palm leaf manuscripts were left undamaged in the museum library along with some 700 volumes of the Tipitaka.” [When the War was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rough Revolution, Elizabeth Becker.]

BUDDHIST RESTORATION

In 1979, after the overthrow of the Khmer Rough, Buddhism was reintroduced into Cambodia by a delegation of Buddhist monks from Kampuchea Krom in South Vietnam. The Sangha grew in numbers and strength quickly. By 1981 there were 3,000 monks in Cambodia; in 1987, 6,700 monks and by 1990, 10,000 monks.

After 1979 there were still some restrictions on the freedom of Buddhism in Cambodia. For example, only men over age 50 could be ordained. Only four monks were allowed to live in a wat. Since 1988 Buddhism was fully restored. In July 1988, Radio Phnom Penh began broadcasting Buddhist prayers and ceremonies after an absence of 13 years.Then in 1989, Prime Minister Hun Sen officially apologized for his governments past “mistakes” during a ceremony in Kampot Province, where he prostrated before the head monk and asked forgiveness. In April 1990, the National Assembly officially amended the constitution to reestablish Theravada Buddhism as the state religion and the government decreed that “devout Buddhist followers can be ordained as Buddhist monks as they wish.”

Appendix I

Traditional Khmer Buddhism was embodied in a didactic poem called Trai Phum or “Three Worlds”

These outlined cbabor “laws, of relationships, similar to Confucianism, these proverbs were memorized by every Cambodian child. The proverbs delineated proper relations and conduct between people. Everyone has a “place” in society, with accompanying rights and responsibilities.

The most important relations are parents and teachers.

This relationship insures a “transmission” process over generations, and does not recognize “progress.”

This cerate a static, stable, sustainable type of society emphasizing the high priority and value placed on continuity.

Appendix II

MOUNTAIN GODS

The earliest religious ideas of the proto-Khmer people were centered on worship of a “mountain god” who was venerated as the ancestor, and the king or patriarchal figure was identified with the “god of the mountain” or “king of the mountain.”

This mountain has phallic symbolism and was associated with virility, potency and fertility.

When the proto-Khmer people came into contact with Indianized Hindu culture through sea-trade which gave rise to the Funan culture of the Mekong Delta, they assimilated the Hindu mountain-cosmology with their own religious cosmology and began to increasingly accept Hindu, particularly Shiva, interpretations, and began to identify their “king of the mountain” with the God-king, Shiva.

In Hindu cosmology, Mt Meru is the center of the universe. The earthly temple-mountain is the symbolic center of the empire, from which the king reigns. The temple-mountain, in which his Shiva lingam phallic-symbol is housed and ritually worshiped, is the center and source of the kings’ potency and fertility, which blesses the empire with fortune and well-being. The potency-virility of the king fertilizes the earth, earth-goddess, the people, who bring forth rice, i.e. life, abundance, happiness, security, stability, well-being.

This is a continuous religious concept of Khmer tradition, extending from the earliest prehistory of Cambodia, and enduring into the present day.

Each year the king officially opens the rice-planting season with a formal ceremony in which he personally plows furrows in the earth, accompanied by musicians, and followed by young maidens who walk behind and scatter rice seeds into the furrows.

Mt Meru is the center between heaven and hell, between heaven and earth. Six circle chains of mountains surround Mt Meru, separated by six oceans. The Ocean of Infinity encloses the entire mass.

“In Buddhism, a continent shaped like an island lies beyond the ocean in each of the four cardinal regions of space. Layers of heaven soar above Mt Meru. The four rulers of the cardinal directions live in the summit of the mountain. Fantastic animals live in the forest at the base of the mountain, which serves as a refuge for ascetics to meditate.” (1)

The temple-mountain reached its perfect expression in Angkor Wat.

These temples were designed according to mathematical calculations and astrology, to represent harmony between heaven and earth, and to establish harmony in the universe.

The east represents the sun-creation; the west represents death and destruction.

DEVARAJA – GOD KING

In the Hindu world view, the king was the embodiment of the god, usually Shiva (the destroyers) or sometimes Vishnu (the sustainer).

The Shiva lingam was stored in the temple of the devaraja – the god-king. The king was the “creator” and sustainer of the nation.

“The temples represented the mystical Hindu golden Mount Meru, home of the gods and center of the world. Organizing the empire in the image of the universe and the center of the capital in the image of Mount Meru ensured harmony – and reassured Khmers that they were at the magical center of the world. The capital, and within the capital, the king’s palace and the mausoleum-temple in which his remains would be preserved had great cosmological significance, beyond being the administrative and cultural center of the country….” [Angkor Life, Stephen Murray, 1996]

In the minds of the Khmer kings, Hinduism and Buddhism were not distinct. The Mahayana Buddhists thought of Buddha as an avatar (manifestation) of God. The Shivite God-king (devaraja) idea blended with the bodhisattva ideal in their minds.

“The conflation of the Buddhist bodhisattva, Lokeshvara, and the Mahashvar may also date back to the fifth century. Beginning in the fourth century, Champa kings were attaching the suffix -varman (“protector”) to their names. The sixth century Buddhism king of Funan, Rudravarman, was apparently Buddhist. Nonetheless, he was careful to have his lingam worshiped (at Ba Phnom, east of the Mekong).” [Angkor Life, Stephen O. Murray.]

Worshiped Avalokitashvara who is portrayed in Angkor art. Avalokitashvara is the Bodhisattva of Compassion, known in Khmer as Lokeshvara- “Lord of the World.”

Avalokiteshvara means literally “the lord who looks down from above.”

The bodhisattvas appear in the stone sculptures of the period, as a four-armed deity who carries a flask, book, lotus and rosary and has a Buddha or lotus on his head.

Cambodian traditions tended to blend, synthesize religious ideas. The god Harihara, for example, is a uniquely Cambodian god who is composite of Shiva and Vishnu.

The word “varman” – “protector” – from “armor” was used among the Pallavas and other southern and central Indian kings in the 3rd century, suggesting a transmission and exchange of cultural influences between Funan and Buddhist India.

Appendix III

Fundamental Beliefs of Khmer Buddhist Cosmology

Human life is affected by variety of factors. These factors are influential in human life, but are not ultimately fateful, determining human destiny and depriving the individual of free will. These energy factors are limited. Human destiny is generated by one’s personal free, volitional action or “karma”.

Traditional Beliefs

A) In Spirits and gods (spirits below and gods above)

B) Vital essences

C) Fate: in the stars; astrology

D) Modern science – such as germ theory

The Spirits:

The spirits cause illness, accidents, plant and land fertility, fertility of women.

There are also group spirits, protectors, ancestors.

These spirits must be respected and honored, and they will protect and nurture the human being. If they are dishonored, ignored or angered, they can be dangerous.

Vital Essence:

Winds or “vital essence” - All living things have “vital essence” – air, breath, wind, called “pralu’n” in Khmer. This vital essence exists in plural forms in the 19 parts of the body in Khmer world view (32 parts of the body in Thai). The winds act as a unity in reality. They may survive death.

Male and female energies are vital essences. The “vital essence” is nourished by the female energy – the woman’s body, the mother’s milk, the “rice” of the earth. The earth and rice are feminine, goddess. Every grain of rice is part of the body of Mother Rice (Maeae Posop) and contains a bit of her vital essence.

The essence of male energy is “potency” – the power to fertilize the earth and fertilize woman; power to govern. Potency is a sense of glory, a religious essence, which men have, because men can achieve nibanna.

Fate:

Fate refers to the cosmic elements; heavenly bodies; topography of land; elements of the body; osculation of day and night; directions – orientation to the cosmic elements.

Disturbance can be corrected through ritual reaction that restores, balance, reorientation of the individual to the cosmic elements.

Modern Science:

In modern times, the Khmer people have come to accept western scientific notations of causality such as germ theory, chemistry, physics, etc, as influential forces affecting the course of human life.

Karma:

Karma: all these above influences are limited and experienced because we’re born in the human realm. They “influence” our lives, but do not determine our destiny/fate.

Our fate is caused by Karma.

We have a great degree of freedom in determining our future experience.

Our place in this world can change in the course of a lifetime when karma “burns out.”

Khmer Buddhists take “precepts” or vows in their bodies.

They must avoid demerit and perform acts of merit.

Demerit is breaking precepts, such as expressing greed, hatred and delusion.

Merit is accumulated through dana (giving gifts) especially to monks, keeping precepts, ordination, listening to Dhamma, performing acts of veneration to the three-jewels, pilgrimage, meditation (bhavana).

Meditation by older people especially in preparation for death is powerful merit.

Merit is also increased through “transfer of merit” in giving it to the goddess of the earth to spread it to all livening beings.

Chanting Buddhist sutras or “Paritti” (Protection) and religious ceremonies are great sources of merit, creating good karma and dissolving bad karma, by changing the mind.

“We are what we think. All that we are arises from the mind. With the mind we create the world.”

Chanting the Buddhist sutras tends the mind toward enlightenment and away from delusion with its accompanying suffering.

1. Through the power of truth. The Suttas are expressions of enlightened mind, recited by the Buddha. Recitation of the Suttas inclines the mind toward enlightened truth.

2. Through the power of love. The Suttas are teachings of the compassionate Buddha, and incline the mind toward compassion and love.

3. Through the power of virtue. The suttas are expressions of a noble being and incline the mind toward virtue, accompanied by wellbeing and happiness.

4. Through the power of sound. The power of sound sets off various levels of vibrations that are powerfully healing on many levels, both physically and mentally.