Spirit of Asia

A thousand years ago in the dense jungles of northwest Cambodia, successive God-Kings strove to outdo their predecessors by building ever finer and more spectacular temples. So great was their achievement that there is today nowhere in the world which can compare with Angkor for the number, size and perfection of its monuments.

Most magnificent of all is Angkor Wat, the largest religious building in the world, a gigantic temple-mountain built to the glory of the god Vishnu and his incarnation,

God-King Suryavarman II. On its walls are carvings of apsaras , the divine nymphs of paradise, who had their earthly counterparts in the young girls who served the king as palace dancers and concubines.

Today, after ten years of war and suffering in Cambodia, the temples miraculously have survived, almost undamaged, and the dancers of the Royal Palace are beginning a performance which, under Pol Pot, would have meant death.