Lokesvara

Lokesvara (លោកេស្វរៈ), also called Avalokitesvara, is the bodhisattva of compassion in Mahayana Buddhism, worshipped in the Khmer Empire. The name Lokesvara means "Lord of the World." Khmer worship of Lokesvara reached its peak under Jayavarman VII in the late 12th century, when his image appeared on many temples at Angkor.

A bronze Lokesvara (Avalokiteshvara), late 13th century, in the Walters Art Museum.

Tradition details
Khmer name	លោកេស្វរៈ
Also known as	Avalokitesvara; Lokeshvara; Lord of the World
Practice type	Religious practice
Subjects	Religion & Spiritual Life; Visual Arts & Design

The bodhisattva

In Mahayana teaching, a bodhisattva comes to the edge of nirvana but puts off his own release to help others toward salvation by teaching. In Cambodia, Lokesvara was regarded as the spiritual heir of the Buddha Amitabha. He carries an image of Amitabha on his chignon, the knot of his hair. Some texts treat him as the source of the Hindu gods. Thomas S. Maxwell, who translated the stele of Preah Khan, wrote that Lokesvara was the supreme savior in the Buddhism of Jayavarman VII. In East Asian Buddhism the same bodhisattva is often shown as a woman, called Guanyin in Chinese and Quan Am in Vietnamese. Glaize called the Khmer Lokesvara a male counterpart of Guanyin.

Iconography

Khmer sculptors showed Lokesvara standing or seated on a lotus flower, which lifts him above the world. Freestanding statues give him two, four, six or eight arms, and the temple reliefs at Banteay Chhmar give him ten. Glaize wrote that four arms were usual, though the number could be two, six or twelve and more, and that the face often has a third eye, with heads at times stacked in tiers. His usual attributes are a lotus, a rosary, a book and a flask or vase of water. In one form, adorned with jewels, small Buddhas, gods and spirits pour out of his body; Louis Finot compared the pattern of tiny figures to a coat of chain mail.

In the Khmer Buddhist triad, the Buddha sits at the center between Lokesvara and his female counterpart, the goddess Prajnaparamita, the Perfection of Wisdom. A sculpture of the late 12th or early 13th century from Prei Monti, at Roluos, shows the three together, with the Buddha sheltered by a naga; it is held by the National Museum of Cambodia.

Before Jayavarman VII

Lokesvara had a place in Khmer Buddhism by the 10th century. In that century Avalokitesvara appears beside Prajnaparamita, the god Vajrapani and a Buddha sheltered by a naga on carved Buddhist steles and small votive shrines (caitya). A four-armed Avalokitesvara is carved in the brick of the central shrine at Phnom Trap D. An inscription from Wat Sithor, dated 980, tells of images of Avalokitesvara and Vajrapani on a hill. Paul Nietupski reads it as saying that a lord named Satyavarman rebuilt these statues and ten others after their foundations collapsed. Pia Conti reads it as saying that Kirtipandita, who lived in the 10th century, set up again more than nine or ten images of Vajrapani and Lokesvara that Satyavarman had raised on the eastern hill, after their pedestals were damaged. Conti wrote that Avalokitesvara is absent from Phimai, the first tantric Buddhist temple built on a royal scale, in the reign of Jayavarman VI, and that he and Prajnaparamita gained supreme importance only under Jayavarman VII.

Under Jayavarman VII

Jayavarman VII drew on the Mahayana bodhisattvas, above all a triad of deities found in various combinations of three, among them Lokesvara, Vajrapani and Prajnaparamita. Their main qualities are compassion and wisdom, which together lead to enlightenment. He dedicated Ta Prohm in 1186 to his mother as Prajnaparamita, and Preah Khan in 1191 to his father as Lokesvara. His second wife, Indradevi, began the long poem of her inscription at Phimeanakas, from about 1194 to 1200, by praising the Buddha, the dharma, the sangha and Lokesvara.

Preah Khan

The foundation stele of Preah Khan, written in Sanskrit, records that in 1191 the king consecrated a statue of Lokesvara named Jayavarmesvara and set it in the central tower in honor of his father. The statue was an image of that father, Dharanindravarman. One of the stele's first verses hails Lokesvara as a walking tree of paradise, the wish-granting tree, with his many arms as its boughs. A large standing Lokesvara with eight arms, found in the undergrowth near the temple, was set up in an eastern vestibule of the temple in 1943; Glaize wrote that it seems to be the Jayavarmesvara of the stele. The statue went to the National Museum in Phnom Penh.

Healing

Jayavarman VII founded 102 hospitals across his kingdom. Because of his healing powers, Lokesvara holds the main place in the carvings on the hospital chapels. Several images of Lokesvara lie among the carved stones at Ta Prohm Kel, near Angkor Wat, which Glaize thought may have been the chapel of one of these hospitals. At a hospital chapel near the Spean Thma bridge, Goloubew noted a pediment showing Lokesvara with a patient whose hand an attendant is about to massage.

At Neak Poan, pilgrims washed in four small pavilions fed from the pools, hoping for a cure, and every carved scene with figures on the pavilions is devoted to Lokesvara. Three blocked doorways of the central sanctuary carry large images of him. Its waters were believed to wash away sins and diseases. Georges Coedès suggested that the shrine was first dedicated to the Buddha and turned to Lokesvara late in the reign, when the pools were arranged for healing. On the east side of the island stands the flying horse Balaha, a form Lokesvara took to save people, carrying the merchant Simhala and his shipwrecked companions away from an island of ogresses. At the Terrace of the Elephants, Finot and Goloubew read a five-headed horse on an earlier wall as Lokesvara in the form of Balaha.

Temples and gates

The four small corner temples of Angkor Thom, the Prasat Chrung, were dedicated to Lokesvara, as was the city itself. An inscription at Prasat Chrung invokes the "compassionate one," an epithet of Avalokitesvara. Gate towers carved with four faces of Lokesvara stand at Ta Prohm, Banteay Kdei and Ta Som. The Angkor Database names Avalokitesvara as the main deity of Banteay Kdei. At the small temple of Krol Ko, two pediments show Lokesvara standing among worshippers, and Glaize thought the temple was dedicated to him. Extensive reliefs of Lokesvara dominate Banteay Chhmar.

The face towers

The Bayon, at the center of Angkor Thom, rises in more than 50 towers carved with four great faces, and four-faced towers also stand over the city's five gates. The faces of the Bayon are believed to represent Lokesvara. At one time they were taken for Brahma, the god usually shown with several faces. A pediment with a standing Lokesvara, long hidden under paving near the temple's northern library, was the first sign that the Bayon was Buddhist.

Glaize wrote that the four faces of each tower, turned to the four directions, express the presence of Lokesvara everywhere in the kingdom. Georges Coedès believed that the faces were also portraits of the king, identified with the god, and Paul Mus suggested that the towers stood for the provinces of the kingdom. Briggs wrote in 1947 that the faces represent Lokesvara and that the gates and the temple were at first meant to be dedicated to him. In his account, the Bayon was later altered and dedicated to the Buddha in the likeness of Jayavarman VII. Cambodianess wrote in 2022 that researchers have proposed that the four-faced figure over the south gate of Angkor Thom is Avalokitesvara. Glaize wrote that the origin of the face tower was unknown, and that the motif did not outlast Jayavarman VII.

In modern Cambodia, the four faces of Lokesvara usually crown pagodas and stupas, as a protector of all the planets.

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