India, Cambodia, and Indonesia are home to some of the most religiously influential megalithic structures of ancient Southeast Asia. These monuments stand before us in the present as faint remnants of the ancient civilizations that aspired to build towards the heavens. Each of the Hindu temples discussed in the coming pages were chosen because, while they were separated by hundreds of years and thousands of miles, each of the societies played a pivotal role in perpetuating the telling of the Hindu epic; the Ramayana as they observed in their own time. .
Many of the world's most elaborately adorned temples reside in South and Southeast Asia, paying homage to the traditional Hindu architecture of ancient times. The three temples of Angkor Wat, Prambanan, and Sri Ranganathar Swamy, located in the nations of Cambodia, Indonesia, and India act as guardians, preserving the cultural importance and unique subjectivity of the Hindu epic, the Ramayana as it was seen by the civilizations that came long before our own. These temples solidify in stone, mortar, and pigment, the interpretation of the Ramayana by the civilizations responsible for their creation. Furthermore, these temples share in their dedication to the god Vishnu and their representation of the most ambitious religious monuments for their respective eras and stand amongst the most influential Hindu monuments still intact. .
Throughout this research paper I will discus the construction methods of each of these three temples, with a focus on how certain aspects of their design share similarities and differences in their method of portraying the Ramayana. I will go into detail behind why each of the societies chose their certain method of construction and how it effected the portrayal of the Ramayana, taking into account material constraints, geographical location, architectural knowledge and of course the technological prowess of the societies.