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Judgement of Yama, and Heavens and Hells

HTML clipboardTo the E of the S gopura, the theme is the judgement of souls and their consignment to heaven or hell. 66m long, this section is significantly shorter than the preceding Army of Suryavarman II because of the way in which the temple's enclosures are successively set back towards the E, away from the entrance. In order to keep a single N-S axis, all ol the N and S gopuras are aligned with the central tower. Note the restored ceiling which shows how the space would have appeared originally. It was reconstructed based on a small piece of wood found there. The scene begins on two registers, with two processions, among them the great and good of Khmer society, carried on thrones and palanquins. They are confidently on their way to Heaven. Almost immediately, both levels rise to make room for "the way down to the realms of hell" at the bottom, where demons waste no time in beating the damned and dragging them towards their just punishments. See how emaciated the sinners are; after 20m they are menaced by Yama's dogs - the hounds of hell - and beyond that they are savaged by wild animals, including a tiger and a beautifully observed Javan rhinoceros. Some of the damned are pulled along like cattle, with a cord through their nostrils.
 The central register, after some 18m, shows the place where souls are judged by Yama, the God of Judgement and of the Underworld, 18-armed and riding his traditional mount, a buffalo. His two assessors Dharma and Chitragupta, 3m further on, listen without mercy to the pleas of sinners, who are thrown down into to Hell through a trapdoor. In fact, they are directed to sin-specific Hells - 32 of them, identified by short inscriptions. At this point, 22m into the bas-relief, the two upper registers end, and the 37 1 leavens begin, considerably less interesting than the Hells, where the cruelty is extreme and the tortures imaginative. Supported by a frieze of garudas, the Heavens appear as a succession of palaces where not very much happens, and whatever delight the apsaras are supposed to give, they do it modestly. The inhabitants may, however, think it sufficient that they are spared the punishments below, some of which are spectacularly horrible.
 Consider, for instance, the 3rd Hell, Vaitarani, the Hindu equivalent of the Iliver Styx, where demons use long pincers to pull out the tongues of their victims (5m after the trapdoor); the 6th, Nirucchvasa, where the damned are slowly cooked; the burning lake of the 9th, Taptalaksamaya; bone-smashing in the 10th, Ashthibhanga. In the next, Krakaccheda, gluttons are sawn in two, which seems a little out of proportion, while in Puyapurnahrada immediately following, "those who steal strong liquor, seduce others' wives, go near the wives of scholars" (a strange combination) are torn to pieces by birds of prey and thrown into a lake of slimy pus. In the 23rd 1 Iell, Kalasutra, demons roast a man on a spit. The 29th is Cita, the frozen Hell, where you can see thieves shivering. Between 3m and 2m from the end is a particularly unpleasant punishment in the Hell of Maharaurava: the victims are tied to frames, and nails hammered into their entire bodies.
 Walk through the SE corner pavilion, which is undecorated, to the next section.
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Thanks for the email. Everything was okay with the passport in the end. There was some confusion at the police station but Mr Giang was able to convince the local authorities that everything was in order.  The tour itself was amazing. We both had a really good time and enjoyed every ...
Debbie, Australia, 12 Jan 2017
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