‘This is what I had all along been missing – Sarita. Gods like to live & play near Saritas. One has been used to this word which has no literal translation, substitute, purport or a synonym in any other language, perhaps. Sarita‘. I told that voice over the phone. Military service all over the Globe lends many good things; one of them being establishing a first hand equation even with a stranger by seeking her/his name out. First thing I asked her, as she called me to resolve some pending matter with a hotel where I had booked myself and now wanted to cancel the booking; her name. The rather youngish voice very humbly told me what it was.
Whilst working on the site, my mind had constantly been getting troubled again and again as to what that one word was which was primordial to my quest – Angkor. Sarita, as she uttered, I said ‘Eureka”. That is what I had all along been wanting -a Sarita (in Spanish it means a Princess) to make my quest as close to complete as it could. Sarita, I decided has to establish all the possible linkages in my works, as it has been doing at the Kulen Ranges since millennia.
Well, a pure Hindi word, it challenges my repertoire of the most spoken foreign language, which though not of the order of Sir Srinivasa Shastri, may not be too poor either. But I know for sure there wasn’t any equivalent substitute word in English that could replace a Sarita of Hindi, for what it conveys to those who know. The compassionate, benign, reverential natural water flowing gently through the Kulen mountains is Sarita. Which cleanses anything & anyone that dips his soul into, in a manner that King Suryavarman would, is Sarita. It’s musical sounds created when the gentle water breaks over small pebbles adorning the channel bed, transports one into that heavenly world which inspires even The Gods, let alone mortal beings like us.
Water; cool tranquil transparent like a sheet of glass or shall I say molten butter, is just two inches deep, flowing from mother springs into a waterfall then oozing out into a gentle stream. Sanctity of such sacred life giver, accentuated by multitudes of Shivalinga Bases forming the bed of my Sarita at Kulen. Turbulence has never touched a Sarita whose birth was to confer compassion rather than cause any hurt. Get transported into a heavenly world the moment you step into. What a soul fulfilling experience? That’s why Sarita has no equivalence. Just plain Sarita; where The Gods like to live & play.
Little wonder then that the Gods of Holy Kulen ranges decided to lend its bounty to Angkor, perhaps the most pious place on earth. Stone from Kulen, water from Kulen and The Gods from Kulen. Although there are moats all around the major Temples Angkor, the very presence of gentle stream of water of Kulen Ranges must have been one major reason of creating Angkor at this spot so that Gods’ love & compassion is bestowed upon humanity; His best creation, through generations.