Excerpts from Vernes' Journey to the Center of the Earth are italicized.
The universe is in your bones,
The stars, in your soul. - Buddhist Saying
Have you ever read Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth?
Even if you haven't, its title is a giveaway.
All those years, the planet has happily rotated on its axis minding its own business. And then?
Adventurers show up with new backpacks and go all expedition-special on a thrilling but perilous and ill-advised voyage to the center of the earth.
The trip I'm currently embarking on promises to be as exciting, but hopefully not as hazardous. Here in the ruins of the Angkor Wat Temple City in Cambodia, I'm visiting the sacred five-peaked Mount Meru.
Abode of the gods.
Axis of the world.
Excellent! Capital! Glorious!
Today, I will journey to and through its center and hopefully come back. In.One.Piece.
Forward, my friends, into the Interior of the Earth. And whichsoever way thou goest, may fortune follow.
First impression?
Immense. A 900-year-old complex standing on 402 acres of a tiered terrain.
Dark and mysterious.
It's a place where the seasons seem to have run together, the years a stunned blur.
Gif akt! Attention - look out!
Seven-headed serpents, half-human and half-cobra, threaten from below the bridge. Nagas. (I know what they are because that's what the brochure that I'm holding says). Not to worry, they're not real but just symbolic representations.
Moving along, I feel like I'm being drawn below in the nether regions by devas, a term for deities in Hinduism. It is a little scary and overwhelming. Yet I continue on, undaunted.
Forut. Forward!
Each step will lead me to the gods' heavenly home.
Beyond a seventeen-foot-tall outer wall is the first of three interior galleries. Walls are gray and worn. Visible though covered with a few random cobwebs are reliefs of unicorn and griffins and winged dragons.
A pleasing rhythm of space and enclosure, of light and shade.
Winged dragons are pulling chariots. Warriors follow an elephant-mounted leader.
Moving along, I see an array of richly ornamented apsara carvings.
Beautiful and sacred.
Cavorting about in the next gallery are celestial dancing girls with elaborate hair styles. I squint at extensive bas-relief friezes of pilgrim monkeys struggling through the storm on Rama's Mayflower-of-a-chariot. (Rama is a legendary hero in the Ramayana epic).
I'm now deep in the hollows. Everything is a lot aged with grimy and darkened corners and damage and deterioration throughout. The air has become flat and humid. Is there a way out?
Halt. We have reached the end of our journey.
I hear leaves rustling like the soft murmur of running water, the insects humming in the windless heat as I walk slowly toward what looks like a light at the end of a tunnel.
I've just journeyed to the center of the universe and back.
Voyage Extraordinaire!
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