We were dumbstruck by the sight of the temple! It was so huge covering a vast area of land and surrounded by a moat of water. It was a very beautiful scene owing to a serene atmosphere.
The interiors of the temple were decorated with carvings from the Vedic scriptures depicting the various pastimes of the demigods in the heavenly planets. There were very huge carvings of the churning of the milk ocean with the demigods and demons on either sides holding on to the body of the giant serpent, Vasuki; the Mandara mountain as the churning rod and Lord Kurma, the tortoise incarnation of the Lord acting as the pivot were also depicted. There were other carvings of the different incarnations of Lord Krishna as well. It was in every sense a Vishnu temple built similar in architecture to that of the Hindu temples generally found in Indonesia.
There were no more deities in any of the sancta and there were also no priests or brahmanas to conduct any services. We then realized how important it was to have the brahmanical culture established for it is very difficult for the Varnasrama society to flourish without it. By this we also deeply understood as to why Srila Prabhupada was always insisting on training Brahmanas in the society to get the system of Varnasrama going. Srila Prahupada aptly said,” Without the head it would be difficult for the body to function.”
Due to lack of proper worship, the temple seemed like a ghost town. It was just a worthless decoration.
Without bhagavad-bhakti, glorification of the Supreme Lord, whatever we have is simply a decoration on a dead body.
By seeing this we can understand why Srila Prabhupad took so much pain to establish this movement. And after all that he did, he said that only 50% of his job was done. And the rest 50% was to establish Varnasrama. Therefore how important it is for us, as the disciples of His Divine Grace, to further this movement by strictly following the brahminical principles so as to place the movement on a solid footing. Once the Brahmanical order is established, the others i.e. the administrative, mercantile and the worker orders will automatically fall in place.
If there existed a strong government providing us the necessary administration and security, it would have been easily possible for us to revive this system of worship. With the very simple formula of chanting Hare Krsna as given by Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, it is easily accomplishable.
It was not possible for us to take over the huge complex as it was very firmly being held in the hands of the Buddhist government. We thought we could at least start somewhere to begin this great movement. With this realization we were keener in firmly establishing a temple in this country. After performing kirtan in the temple and the surrounding area we left for other places of visit.
All the other sites were mostly Buddhist temples, most of which were in a very dilapidated condition undergoing some UNESCO restoration program. We also found out that just near this place was the infamous Killing Fields of the notorious Pol Pot regime where they had killed some 2 million people. We visited the place and saw pictures of victims on display before their execution. Amongst many other scenes depicting the inhuman cruelty were pictures of mothers holding on to their children just prior to their death. It was horrible! We finally concluded our tour and decided to head back to the capital.
