Distorted History

In my recent visit to Siem Reap in Cambodia I came across a very interesting phenomenon. Almost all of the temples which were of Hindu origin had been changed to Buddhist beliefs and even the figurines had turned Buddhists.

Take the case of the churning of the ocean which is a Hindu myth, the Buddhist rulers had removed the heads of the Gods and the Demons who did the churning and replaced them with Buddhist demi gods and devils heads. Citing reasons that the original heads were vandalized by miscreants.

Surely the newer heads could have been close to original ones but alas it is not so.

There are 4 million tourists which visit these famous temples and are fed by ill educated guides who have very little regards for the history of that place. Their job is to create an aura that the Buddhist were great builders and the original deity inside the temple is the Buddha.

The largest and the best maintained temple is the Angkor Vat which starts with the Hindu epics of Ramayana, Mahabharata and the Puranas too. There are wall carvings and frescoes depicting the war between the Kauravas and Pandavas, Krishna, Bhishma, Ram, Ravan, Churning of the sea of milk and so on and inside the main sanctum is the deified Buddha in various poses. Reclining, sitting and standing too.

Now here we have a religion which does not believe in Gods like the Hindus is showing Hindu beliefs all over. Does it not bring to the mind how much of distortion of the beliefs have happened there! In Hinduism there are 33 crore Gods and in Buddhism there are none. The religion is more on the basis of Atheistic beliefs. But cannot be called atheism in the true sense. People with half baked beliefs are being mislead by touts and untrained elements to distort history and religious understandings.

It would be sacrilegious to distort Christ and club Him with the olden Greek Gods or the Pagan ones. Just the way you cannot club Islam with any other beliefs since they have their own and so do the rest of the religions. It is not correct to club two variant beliefs and club them into one distorting the way in which it is presented.

I would sincerely request the Cambodian government to look into the above and correct its interpretation of what it calls the truth.

Let the Hindu Gods be and let the Buddhist have their own but please do not mix the two since that would tantamount to distorting history.
Before I end here can I club the current rulers with the olden Khmer Rouge? Since the answer is a firm "NO", then let us not distort the two and give a concocted version of the truth.