Sculpture from the Angkor National Museum

Sculpture from the Angkor National Museum: This dramatic multi-armed sculpture, hosted by the Angkor National Museum, is termed as a standing Lokeshvara on the museum’s signage, dating from the late 12th/early 13th century, and was found outside the West Gate of Angkor Thom in 1925 by deputy EFEO curator Léon Fombertaux, though he identified it at the time as a sandstone stele of Hevajra. There is an important difference between the two identities. Lokeshvara is regarded as the bodhisattva of compassion and mercy and was a popular deity under King Jayavarman VII during his reign for those practicing Mahayana Buddhism. As for Hevajra, he was a principal figure in Tantric Buddhism and their consecration rituals that also became widespread alongside the mainstream forms of Buddhism, Hinduism and ancestor worship during the same period. However, there are few stone sculptures of Hevajra, besides a colossal but mutilated dancing figure that was found at the East Gate of Angkor Thom. Hence, for the advocates of the Tantric doctrine, like scholar Peter Sharrock, this nearly four feet tall high-relief sculpture is an important clue in proving their hypothesis of its popularity, despite a distinct lack of supporting inscriptions. The carving is richly decorated, with seven heads, 20 arms (each hand holding a vajra – a thunderbolt – and a club) and four legs. The body is adorned with a diadem, long pendant earrings, necklace, bracelets and anklets, along with a belted sampot with a single fishtail panel. Held in safe storage at the Angkor Conservation depot until the Angkor National Museum opened its doors in 2007, this stele was likely to be either a boundary stone or Caitya as part of demarcating the sacred space of a Buddhist shrine. These high-relief carvings are sculpted from a single block of stone, and many similar examples proliferated during the late 12th century and into the next.