Sculptures from Angkor National Museum:
This particular sculpture sent me on a field trip today, for a visit to the tenth century trio of brick towers of Kutishvara, located a few meters north of the Banteay Kdei north gate. My previous research had drawn a blank for this headless, four-armed statue before I was sent a picture from 1930, showing a statue of Brahma, in-situ, discovered by Henri Marchal and Henri Parmentier as they cleared the small temple. At that time, it looked almost complete, bereft of just the upper right hand and immediately identifiable as the four-faced god of creation, Brahma. It’s likely the temple’s three brick sanctuaries contained statues of the trio of gods, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, though the style of Brahma’s dress dates him to a couple of centuries later, to the late 12th century. Unfortunately, Brahma suffered the fate of many such sculptures after his arrival at the Angkor Conservation Depot – the most serious of which was losing his head(s) to looters during the civil war period of the 1970s. The loss was included in the One Hundred Missing Objects: Looting in Angkor book published in 1993, but it remains one of the unsolved robberies of that era. In addition, the three hands holding attributes that were secured onto the statue when it was photographed in October 1930 have also disappeared over time, with just one remaining when it was pictured again in 1962. Now there are none. The most notable feature of the Brahma was the tower-like shared cylindrical chignon, with a ribbon of beads at its base, which sat on top of four smiling faces, each with their own diadem and pendant earrings. The simplistic fishtail fan-fold at the front of his pleated sampot with the wide belt, is the only other decoration on the sculpture, and identifies its creation during the Bayon art style period of Jayavarman VII. Today, I visited Kutishvara and was more than pleased to see the circular pedestal, decorated with lotus flowers, remaining in the south tower, where our statue would’ve stood. Next to the broken brick structure was a lintel with Brahma sitting on a lotus at its center, surrounded above and to both sides by at least twenty praying worshippers. Two pieces of irrefutable evidence of the statue’s original home.
