/ARTS WEEKLY/VIETNAM: Ancient Temple Towers Bring the Past Back

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Tran Dinh Thanh Lam

NINH THUAN PROVINCE, Vietnam, Feb 18 2003 (IPS) - Sculptor Thanh Van Suong is poring over old documents and listening to legends in an effort to recreate sacred statues, working to bring the past back to life in Vietnam.

Suong is Cham, an ethnic group of around 600,000 whose largest concentration is found in Ninh Thuan province in southern Vietnam. There are about 100,000 Cham here, and this land was once part of the ancient kingdom of Champa, a civilisation that flourished in Vietnam from the 2nd to the 18th centuries.

This is a landscape that has seen war and destruction on a massive scale in the 20th century, and the ruins that survived are now being restored. "We are doing our best to preserve the rich culture handed down by our ancestors," said Truong Hien Mai, director of the Cham Culture Study Center (CCSC) in Ninh Thuan.

It is a struggle against meagre budgets, scanty documentation and the ever-present threat of art thieves, but cultural officials like Mai are certain that the effort will return spiritual significance to the work that Suong is doing.

The statues he is reproducing are those of gods and goddesses – the age-old originals have been stolen and even mutilated. The Cham practice was to place them in the enigmatic brickwork towers that are a unique architectural feature of their culture – these served as royal mausoleums as well as temples because the Cham kings were considered gods.

In the towers, the statues were worshipped. "Once washed and dressed for ritual ceremonies, the old statues are very sacred," said Nguyen Tinh, an 80-year-old Cham man. During the high point of the Cham civilisation, the statues would have been magnificent – adorned with brocade, gold and precious stones.

Old Tinh knows first hand the difference between how the statues should be revered, where they are, and how they have instead been treated. For 14 years he was the ‘tamnay’ (guardian) of the Po Rome Tower, named for a Cham king. The tower contained four precious statues, those of the king and his three wives.

The statue of one wife had already been stolen twice before 1975 (it is now in the Ninh Thuan Museum, which was set up in 1994-95). Another statue was hacked in half and stolen in 1991. The next year it was found and restored, then in March 1993 was stolen again and has yet to be traced.

As for the third statue, it disappeared in 1994, just as two others had from a nearby temple tower. The same year, the golden crown on the statue of the king was switched for a metal imitation. Sadly, the old ‘tamnay’ was dismissed for negligence.

In 1999, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) designated the Cham religious centre of My Son (in Quang Nam province) a World Heritage site.

That gave a fillip to the efforts to save the Cham cultural heritage – the temples of My Son, which is near the port city of Danang, barely survived the conflicts of the French colonial period and the war with the United States. The government has put cultural development high up the agenda and has as an immediate aim the restoration of historic and cultural heritage to prevent their further degradation. That in turn attracts tourists, helps the local economies, and spurs the study of one of Vietnam’s most fascinating historical periods.

In neighbouring Binh Dinh province – which once formed the political, economic and commercial heart of the ancient kingdom of Champa – archaeologists have found kilns that illustrate just how advanced Cham ceramics were.

In the 14th and 15th centuries, Champa potters produced goods considered the equal of those made in the great pottery centres of South China and Dai Viet (ancient Vietnam).

Today, it is not ancient kilns that are being fired but the imaginations of those working to restore the Cham heritage. When the curators of the Ninh Thuan museum decided to have restored damaged statues and to reproduce lost ones, they realised their main difficulty lay in the absence of adequate reference material.

Suong has no photographs of the original statues to base his sculpting on, which is why he relies on documents, folk legend and his imagination. He is also handicapped in that he must use cement, stone powder and ceramics, for the traditional materials the ancient Cham used to make statues – granite and sandstone – are beyond the budget.

Still, there has been progress. Statues have been restored and reproduced and then, following careful inspection by officials from CCSC, the museum and the Council of Traditions Management of the Cham Villages, returned towers like those of King Po Rome to be placed on the altars.

Yet all that effort has evoked a mixed response from the community.

Cham sculptor Dang Nang Tho feels that the reproductions have not the grace and richness of the originals. "I don’t find a spiritual connection with the new ones," said Tho. He however agreed that Suong’s work "symbolises his devotion to Cham culture" and "shows the spiritual meaning for the community".

That is the purpose of the restoration. "We cannot demand that the new statues should be exactly like the old ones," said Mai. "The main thing is that they would satisfy the spiritual requirements of the community."

New statues in old dresses may be jarring for some, said Mai, but their enduring presence has rejuvenated the ancient towers. "The new statues have brought back a sacred sense of worshipping to the community. The towers should have statues to maintain their spiritual significance."