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History & heritage Photography Travels

[2581] An apsara at Angkor Wat

I had a dream about Cambodia today and when I realized it was a dream as I woke up, I found myself lingering in bed, refusing to get up. That took half a day.

Some rights reserved. Creative Commons 3.0. By Attribution. By Hafiz Noor Shams

This is an apsara, which is an equivalent of an angel but not quite. Wikipedia translates it as a nymph. It comes from Hindu mythology of the Churning of the Milky Ocean. As the myth goes, the gods and the demons agreed to churn the Ocean of Milk to obtain something that is called amrita, which gives eternal life to its drinker. During the process of churning, a number of things are produced and one of them are the apsaras.

The asparas adorn Angkor Wat and many other temple ruins. The way the Angkor Wat is designed is supposed to replicate Hindu cosmology. The moat, the gallery, the towers are all mean to represent the seas, the mountains and the home of the gods. Demons, gods, apsaras and other being are represented at the appropriate places within Angkor Wat.