# The Downfall of the Gods/Notes

NOTES
Note 1. (Pages 83 and 317.)
THE SWORD OF INDRA
This weapon, which is still preserved in a shrine in the royal enclosure of the King of Kambodia, is said to have been presented to the first Khmer monarch of Angkor by the Thunder God himself. The wardens who serve in the sanctuary in which the Sword is kept, and who alone are suffered to touch the sacred weapon, are Brahmans—the last survivors of the race that once ruled over the Khmer empire. They live at the charges and under the protection of the King of Kambodia, who, in common with all his subjects, is a Buddhist. Only some six or eight inches of the blade, near the hilt, are exposed to the view of visitors to the little shrine; and the Sword, in which the mystic Spirit of the Land is popularly supposed to abide, is the object of immense veneration to all the natives of the country, who come from far and wide to make pilgrimage to it. So far as it was possible to form an opinion from the glimpse which was vouchsafed, the Sword was judged by the author to be very ancient. It appeared to be fashioned, not of steel, but of iron, and the elaborate carvings and the gold waterings which ornament its surface suggest Indian workmanship. The magnificent scabbard of carved gold is, on the other hand, certainly the work of an Indo-Chinese, probably of a Kambodian goldsmith.
A similar sword is worshipped as a god by the semi-savage hill-folk somewhere in the Hinterland of Annam; and to this, too, pious pilgrimage is made by the Buddhists of Kambodia. These journeys are ​attended by some risk; for if any unfortunate event occurs after the sword has been visited by strangers, the hill-men attribute it forthwith to the anger of their god, and hasten to avenge him upon the pilgrims who are supposed to have occasioned his wrath.
Note 2. (Page 111.)
THE WOMEN OF THE TEMPLE
Those who are curious on this subject may be referred to Mr Frazer's great book, Adonis, Attis, and Osiris: Studies in Oriental Religion (Macmillan and Co., 1907). The belief in which religious prostitu- tion had its origin was that the land was rendered fruitful through the fertilisation of women by the gods. These latter were represented by the priests of the temple, or in some instances by strangers; but the favours of the temple women were always denied to the laymen living in the vicinity of their abodes. Religious prostitution is still practised, notably in some of the Hindu temples of southern India.
Note 3. (Pages 119 and 319.)
COSTUMES AND DANCES OF THE TEMPLE WOMEN
The dances and costumes here described are to be seen to this day in the palace of the King of Kambodia at Phnom Penh, both being made use of in the dramatic representations which take place on state occasions. They are of considerable archeological interest, and are obviously a perpetuation of a tradition which coexisted with the designing and execution of the bas-reliefs and many of the sculptures of Angkor.
Note 4 (Page 123.)
THE LEPROUS KING
There is a tradition, which is believed to be histori- cally correct, that a king who was a leper ruled over Angkor. An image, which represents a sedent and almost nude figure, stands to-day in what must once have been the royal enclosure of the Palace at Angkor Thom, and this, for no very sufficient reason, has been described by some savants as an effigy of the leprous king. An examination of this image led the author to the conclusion that it was a comparatively recent piece of work, and that its character is Buddhistic rather than Hindu. It is devoid of artistic merit or interest, and it compares most unfavourably with the work of the Khmer sculptors.
Note 5. (Page 152.)
THE THAI
Thai is the name by which the Siamese call them- selves to this day, and it is by this name that they are known in Indo-China. It is an historical fact that the Khmer empire, at the moment of its decline, was attacked and defeated by the Siamese. The subsequent history of Kambodia is a record of warfare between the Siamese and the Kambodians, in which the former were usually successful. It was in order to escape from Siamese aggression that Norodom, the Kambodian king, threw himself and his country into the arms of France; but until the treaty of 1902 was concluded, by which Siamreap and Batambang were exchanged by Siam for Chantabun, Angkor continued to be accounted a Siamese province.
Note 6. (Page 153.)
THE CHINESE EMBASSY
The Embassy of which mention is here made was ordered, in 1295, to proceed to the kingdom of Chin-Lá, ​the name by which the Khmer empire was then known to the Chinese. The ambassador, whose name is unknown, but who has left a record of his journey and experiences, started from Ming-Cheu in the second month of the following year; travelled thence to the port of Wen- Chu; whence he put to sea on the twentieth day of the same month. On the fifteenth day of the third month —viz., twenty-five days later—he arrived off the coast of Cochin-China; but he relates that he did not succeed in reaching his destination until the seventh moon, owing to the contrary winds which he encountered. He returned to China in 1297, again travelling by sea. A translation of his journal is to be found in M. Abel Rémusat's Noveaux Mélanges Asiatiques. At the time of his visit, Angkor was a flourishing city, the capital of a great empire, and the temple of Angkor Wat was still under construction. When the place was next visited by a traveller who has left a record behind him, it was what it is to-day—a vast collection of temples, long deserted, and overgrown by vegetation; yet this was after the lapse of less than three centuries, in 1570. The account is to be found in a book published by Christoval de Jaque, a Portuguese traveller, who published his work in 1606. He mentions the fact that even in 1570 the inscriptions at Angkor (which are written variously, either in Sanskrit characters, or in Sanskrit words trans- literated into Kambodian character) were unintelligible to the natives, thus showing how completely the learning of the Brahmans had been lost. He also mentions that the natives of the country feared to approach the temples, and ascribed their construction to demons and giants.
Note 7. (Page 230.)
THE EXODUS OF THE BATS
The spectacle here described was witnessed by the author many times during December 1908, and even the efforts which the French Government are making to reduce the numbers of the bats which infest the temples ​at Angkor are attended with only partial success. It is certain that no similar attempts were made in the time of the Brahmans, since Hindus are averse from the avoidable destruction of animal life; wherefore it may be surmised that the bats inhabited the buildings in vast numbers even before they were abandoned.
Note 8. (Pages 237 and 238.)
THE HERESY OF THE SNAKE
The existence of this belief among the Khmer people is an historical fact. The following mention of it is made in the account of Angkor, written by the Chinese ambassador, to whom reference has been made in Note 6:—
   "Several natives of distinguished rank have told me that formerly there used to be a fairy in that tower in the form of a dragon with nine heads, who was the protectress of the kingdom; that under the reign of each king of the country the fairy assumed every night the form of a woman, and sought the king in the tower; and even though he were married, the queen, his wife, dared not intrude before a certain hour; but, at a signal of two strokes, the fairy vanished, and the king was then able to receive his queen and his other wives; if the fairy allowed a single night to pass without appearing, it was a sign that the death of the king was near at hand; if, on his side, the king failed to meet her, it was certain that a fire or some other calamity would occur."
It is probable that the Chinese envoy was mistaken as to the number of the dragons' heads. They should be seven, not nine.
Note 9. (Page 238.)
THE SYMBOL OF THE SNAKE IN HINDU MYTHOLOGY
The author is indebted to his friend, the Hon. Mr P. Arunachalam, of the Ceylon Civil Service, for the explanation, and almost for the words here put into the mouth of Baguan Dass.
Note 10. (Page 309.)
The sunset effect here described is not due to any effort of the imagination. It was witnessed by the author on more than one occasion during his stay at Angkor.
Note 11. (Page 337.)
The clown in the Kambodian dance, witnessed by the author in the palace of the King of Kambodia, wears a caricature of the head-dress of the Brahmans, and is the object of the insults of the other players and of the derision of the spectators. He is called Bram, a con- traction of Brahman, a word which reappears in Malay as Pran, the term applied to the clown in the dramatic representations called Ma'yong, which are clearly derived from the Kambodian dance.
Note 12. (Page 337.)
The natives of Kambodia, and indeed of all Indo- China, are to-day Buddhists to a man, if the wild tribes of the Hinterland and the hills be excepted. Their con- version to Buddhism is believed to have been wrought by the Siamese; and here, as elsewhere, it is to be regarded in its popular forms less as a separate religion than as a purified and reformed Hinduism.