With more than 540 illustrations and with most icons dated to within a fifty-year period, this book establishes itself as an incomparable visual record. The description of this splendid range of early pre-Thai creations is rendered in a powerful new language of sacred art which expresses the depths of philosophy and evolving beliefs of the two major religions, Buddhism and Brahmanism, that underpin Thai society and culture today. The surviving works show that the people who lived in these ancient sites combined their wealth and most advanced technology to bring the gods in palpable form into their midst so as to ensure their own protection and prosperity in this world and the next.