Last night we flew into Cambodia from Thailand, where we spent time in Bangkok and Chiang Mai. Today we spent the day visiting Angkor Wat, a famous temple in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Time seemed as motionless as the warm air hovering above our sticky bodies. Crickets and birds repeated the same cadences. The trees alone appeared to live as they encompass the timeless ruins, but they too are rooted in the depths of time.
The temples themselves are inhabited by gods just as ancient. Cambodia's main religion officially shifted from Hinduism to Buddhism in the 1100s AD, but at the originally Hindu temple of Angkor Wat, Hindu deities still vie for preeminence with Buddha. Statues of Buddha meditate in small alcoves as carvings of Shiva meditate on the walls outside.
A tour guide came by as I was examining one bas-relief of Shiva. So I eavesdropped as the guide told a story of Shiva, the Hindu god of creation and destruction. This god often meditates, and his wife misses him. So one time she commissioned a messenger to make Shiva remember her. This messenger took a stick of sugar cane along with a lotus blossom--a sacred flower which resembles the shape of a temple--and shot the arrow at Shiva's heart.
This method was effective in that it disturbed Shiva's meditation, though he did not immediately think of his wife. In great anger he turned on the messenger who thus disturbed him and opened his third eye at him, thereby killing him. But then the arrow effectively entered his heart and he remembered his wife and how much he missed her. He returned to see her, and she was very happy.
However, she was not so happy that he had killed her messenger, and told Shiva so. Thankfully, though, Shiva is the creator as well as destroyer god, and he was able to return the messenger to life.
I am continually surprised at how openly religious the Buddhist countries of Thailand and Cambodia are after visiting so many Communist ones. The people here openly talk about spiritual matters. For example, on our taxi ride back from the airport last night, we asked the driver if it was supposed to rain today. He answered that he did not know, it depended on the mood of Indra, the Hindu god of rain. Their religion deeply penetrates everywhere, much like the vines that take over the trees here. And, like the vines, it often chokes out the tree and kills it as well. I pray that the hope of God will set them free! My prayer is that they would know the true God, and that He would set them free through Jesus Christ! Because, in the end, neither Buddha nor Shiva really reigns in this land. "For kingship belongs to the Lord, and He rules over the nations" (Psalm 22:28)
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