A Bridge Between Realms: On Imagining Khmer Myths
Author’s Introduction to The Serpent and the Star
The stories in this series are not scholarly translations, nor strict retellings of preserved Khmer folktales. They are something quieter. They are offerings.
Some rise closely from ancient soil—from tales once whispered in temple courtyards, woven into court dances, or carved along sandstone walls. Others are newly imagined, drawn from the deep wells of mythic feeling that still linger in Angkor’s shadows. But all are shaped in the spirit of Khmer cosmology, sacred symbolism, and the unseen world that flickers just beyond the veil.
Each story has been written with poetic care and reverent joy—not to replace the old, but to walk beside it. Like incense beside stone, or mist upon still water. They are voices that echo—not always exactly, but faithfully—what the naga, the apsara, and the temple may remember.
The first story—The Serpent and the Star—is not part of any recorded Khmer legend. And yet, when I walk beneath the towers of Angkor Wat, or stand by a lotus pond beneath moonlight, I feel its truth everywhere. A naga rising in silence. A celestial being drawn to earth. A temple shaped from longing.
These tales are meant to enchant and to invite—to stir memory in those who have visited these sacred places, and wonder in those who have not. They are bridges between realms, written for spiritually attuned adults and the children who read beside them.
With devotion and joy,
Lucas Varro
Angkor, Cambodia
Also in Library
From Mountain to Monastery
Angkor Wat survived by learning to change its posture. Built as a summit for gods and kings, it became a place of dwelling for monks and pilgrims. As belief shifted from ascent to practice, stone yielded to routine—and the mountain learned how to remain inhabited.
Why Theravada Could Outlast Stone
Theravada endured by refusing monumentality. It shifted belief from stone to practice, from kings to villages, from permanence to repetition. What it preserved was not form but rhythm—robes, bowls, chants, and lives lived close together—allowing faith to travel when capitals fell and temples emptied.
The End of Sanskrit at Angkor
The final Sanskrit inscription at Angkor does not announce an ending. It simply speaks once more, with elegance and certainty, into a world that had begun to listen differently. Its silence afterward marks not collapse, but a quiet transfer of meaning—from stone and proclamation to practice, breath, and impermanence.
