Xieng Khuan

The morning sun has not yet reached its full potential.  After breakfasting on distinctly French coffee and pastries, you move out from your shady spot and into the heat of the Vientiane streets.  The capital of Laos sits on the banks of the powerful Mekong River and after a few short steps tracing the brown rushing water, you pick up a jumbo.  Known as tuk-tuks by many, the three wheeled hybrid pulls up beside you and after a brief, noisy, but friendly negotiation, you are speeding along the concreted road.  To your left are the suburbs of the city, to your right, on the opposite bank of the river, lies Thailand.  From here, you can see the city of Nong Khai, an ancient Thai border post across from their ancient rival.  Soon, both sides of the bank become more rural and the surface you are on transforms into a rutted and potholed dirt road.  Testing the steel of your body, the jumbo jerks and jumps as the driver tries to make as much progress as quickly as possible.  Before long, the villages become less frequent and trees and undergrowth begin to dominate the environment.  Turning off the road and into a gated and wooded enclosure, your driver stops and ushers you out.  Walking between giant banyan trees, you enter a clearing.  In the place of trees are vast concrete statues.  This is a magical place; Xieng Khuan, the Spirit City.

Often called the Buddha Park, Xieng Khuan was the first project of the mystic Luang Pu Bunleua Sulilat.  Born in Nong Khai, on the opposite side of the river, the shaman combined Hinduism and Buddhism as a result of his studies under the ruesi (hermit) Kaew Ku.  Although he was a lay mystic, he was given the title Luang Pu (Venerable Grandfather) by his followers, in what many consider to be a cult.  He went to Vietnam and studied to be a Hindu rishi.  After completing his spiritual education, he began work on Xieng Khuan in 1958.  After working on his park with unpaid volunteers and donated concrete for 17 years, the political climate in Laos changed.  In 1975, the Pathet Lao, the Communist Party of Laos, took control of the country and, fearing for his future, Sulilat fled to the town of his birth.  Although he could see his work from the Thai side of the bank, he did not let it deter him and he went on to build the larger park, Sala Kaew Ku, named after his teacher, in Nong Khai.  Sulilat eventually died in 1996 and his undecaying body rests there in a shrine that was once his house.

As you begin your exploration of this, his first creation, you note that Xieng Khuan has not been blessed with the same preservation powers as its creator.  A general state of weathering and dilapidation greets you, yet somehow adds to the magical atmosphere of the space with more than 200 statues.  Walking by the side of the large pumpkin that stands at the front of the park, you pass a set of statues that sit against the massive sphere.  The family tableau of the Hindu gods Śiva and his consort Pārvatī with their children Gaṇeśa and Kartikeya is quite touching.   The way that the children lean on their parents lap makes them a little less austere and more relatable.

On your right, a many headed statue occupies the centre of a circle of gods.  Entering into the enclosure, faces of Hindu deities such as Brahmā and Viṣṇu look down on you with their strange concrete visages.  Nāgas make the railing that encircles you as you head to the centre to more closely inspect the pivotal figure.  Looking at it, you see that this whole area is a prequel to the Wheel of Life at Sala Kaew Ku.  The central statue is almost identical and the tiers of heads represent human beings’ different faces.  At Sala Kaew Ku, the statue is described as showing your best face, your evil face, your strange face, the snake and your good face.  Here, the same representations seem to be the prototype for Sulilat’s later version.  The outstretched arms of the statue bear a standing figure on each of the palms.  Taking all of this in, your mind swims with the bizarre imagery.

Leaving the circle, you pass through a corridor of seated Buddha statues and find yourself looking up at a standing giant.  The enormous figure stares ahead with goggle-eyes and carries an unconscious lady in his goliath arms.  The giant is the famed villain of the Thai epic Ramakien.  Based on the Indian Ramayana, the Thai name for this character is Thotsakan (Rāvaṇa).  King of the Demons of Lanka, the rākṣasaḥ (a demonic being) is an asura (anti-god) who steals the wife of the hero, Phra Ram (Rāma), as an act of vengeance.  The prostrate lady in the arms of the Thotsakan is Nang Sida (Sītā), the damsel in distress.  Feeling tiny in comparison to the towering demon, you slip quietly away.

After passing more strange statuary and a stupa like tower amid trees at the back of the clearing, you turn back and continue the loop heading in the direction you came.  You soon find yourself before a demon devouring the sun.  The creature has what appears to be two serpentine tails rather than a normal lower half of a body.  This figure is a Hindu asura that is also worshipped in Thailand.  You are in the presence of Phra Rahu (Rahu), one of the Navagrahas, the nine cosmic influencers.  Rahu is the ascending lunar node that causes eclipses.  The story states that Rahu drank some amṛta (amrita – divine nectar of immortality) and that Viṣṇu beheaded him before the elixir could pass into his body.  This made his head immortal.  The head now swallows the sun during eclipses, but the sun then passes out of his disembodied neck to end the eclipse. Thai Buddhists believe that he attacks the sun and moon, but is compelled by the Buddha to release them.  Despite the mythos, he is depicted here, as he normally is, with arms and a torso, rather than just a head.  Looking into the stylized eyes of the monstrous looking sun-devourer, you feel the connection between Thai Buddhism and Hinduism.

The next figure is a Medusa-like snake lady.  The four armed statue has a far more benevolent look on her face than her Greek counterpart and you feel no sense of menace approaching her.  She is likely representative of Manasā, the Hindu goddess of Snakes.  She is the sister of Vasuki, a great Nāga king and the destroyer of poisons.  Sulilat felt a great affinity for snakes.  It started when, as he claimed, he fell into a hole in the forest as a young man.  At the bottom of the hole he met the ruesi Kaew Ku and the ascetic taught him the secrets of the underworld and the snakes that lived there.  He held the strong belief that snakes were the purest animals, as they had no limbs with which to destroy the world.  He thought of himself as half snake.

After a few more steps, you see Phra In (Indra), the king of the devas and rain god on his three-headed white elephant Erawan (Airavata).  Although he is depicted with three heads, Erawan is said to have thirty-three.  The king of the elephants has featured on the royal standards of Laos and Thailand.  Standing next to him, you inspect his ornate trunks.  These, he uses to suck the water from the underworld and spray it into the clouds.  Standing on his back, Phra In then makes the clouds rain.  Looking up at the god, you see he bears a vajra lightning bolt and his expression is proud.  As king of the gods, he is exceptionally powerful, but according to Buddhist teaching, even he follows the dhamma (dharma).  The Buddhists call him Sakka (Śakra) and after hearing the Buddha teach in the Trāyastriṃśa Heaven, he vowed to protect Buddhism for the second 2,500 years after its foundation.

Moving on, your right flank is dominated by an enormous reclining Buddha.  The 40 metre long statue represents Buddha attaining parinibbāna (parinirvāṇa), when he passed from this world into death.  At the age of 80, he abandoned his earthly body in the jungles of Kuśināra, India.  The Buddha announced his intention to pass and then ate an offering from a poor blacksmith and his wife.  The pork that was part of the alms gave the Buddha food poisoning and he died surrounded by his followers.  Before he died, he asked the bhikkus (bhikṣus – monks) whether they had any doubts that needed clearing up.  When they said that they had none, he left his body.  Here, the statue is in the typical reclining position on his right side with head raised.  Standing next to it, you are dwarfed.  You feel the effect of the statue and are humbled in its presence.

On your left, as you tour alongside the large statue is an emaciated Buddha image.  This is the Buddha when he was an austere ascetic before discovering the middle way and gaining enlightenment.  The ribs of the figure are prominent, but it is the gaping demonic maw of the pumpkin that draws you in.  The pumpkin is topped with a tangled tree that appears like a fire mandala.  As you approach, you pass a statue of Nang Thorani (Vasudhārā), washing her hair and the protecting the meditating Buddha from the arrows of Māra’s warriors.  Stepping up to the mouth, you conquer your fears and crouch down to enter the pumpkin through the demon’s mouth.

You find yourself in a dark circular space with a central stairwell.  This, the first of three levels, represents hell.  All around you are ghoulish figures and skeletal statues.  Hell guardians mete out severe punishments on the wicked.  Deciding that you would like to escape the under realm, you ascend the spiral stairs and up to earth.  The scenes here are more pleasant and the gruesome statues are not to be seen.  From the mundane, you enter the final level of the heavens.  Here, the devas and asuras hold court.  One tableau catches your eye; it depicts Samudra Manthan the Churning of the Ocean of Milk.  This story from Hindu scripture tells of the devas and asuras using the nāga Vasuki wrapped around Mount Meru to churn the Kṣīrasāgara (Ocean of Milk – the Milky Way), resulting in the surfacing of many auspicious and magical items as well as some deities.  This is where the devas, with the help of Garuda (the bird-man), obtained amṛta.

The staircase leads up to the trunk of the tree that sits atop the pumpkin.  At the base of the tree, a small portal leads out onto the top and the open air.  Feeling free of the pumpkin’s layers, you take in the park in its entirety from the vantage point given by Sulilat.  From here, the blue sky and the green vegetation highlight the grey ferroconcrete behemoths.  The brightness contrasts the dark inner world of the pumpkin as you decide to make your descent from the dizzying summit of the park.  Back on ground level, you take one last look at the weird and wonderful spectacle created by the Thai holy man all those years ago.  Although it was cut short in its prime, it is almost richer for it.  The slight dilapidation adds to the atmosphere.  As you make your way out through the jungle trees, the grey one on top of the iconic pumpkin rises above the canopy to bid you farewell on your journey back upstream to Vientiane.