ANGKOR and I

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1 My Reception of the Ramon Magsaysay Award What we refer to as the Angkor archaeological site, signifies a group of large stone structures in the Siem Reap province of northwestern Cambodia. However, the territory of the Angkor dynasty covered northeastern Thailand, western Thailand, southern Laos, and southern Vietnam, as well as the whole of present-day Cambodia. This can be confirmed by the Khmer ruins and traces that endure in various places. They comprise a vast number of monuments erected by kings of this dynasty, and they may be specifically viewed in the many capital cities, temples, hospitals, inscribed stone pillars, rest houses, reservoirs, stone bridges, rammed earth embankments, and so on. This was a dynasty that prospered for around 600 years from the 9th to the 15th centuries and viewed from the standpoint of Japanese history, it would span the three eras of Heian, Kamakura, and Muromachi. Its religious art works have been highly evaluated, and are referred to as the “Greece of Southeast Asia.” The Angkor capital city itself covered an area of about 300 square kilometers, which is roughly around the size of the 23 wards of Tokyo. In the vicinity of the Angkor capital city lie five large archaeological sites. These once functioned as sub-cities, and with regard to the Angkor capital city, beginning with varied goods crucial for daily life, they supplied food, temple workers, material used for temples and so on. Frankly speaking, my confronting the Angkor monuments was almost a coincidence. In 1960, I visited Angkor Wat for the first time in my third year of university studies, and I was overcome by the majesty of the monument. I beheld the enormous temple dyed in the setting sun, and perhaps I am overstating the issue if I Introduction