Saturday, April 14, 2012

Bayon Temple in Angkor Thom


After spending the better part of the morning at Ta Prohm, we headed for Angkor Thom, the 10 square km walled city that houses some of the greatest monuments in Cambodia. The city was built by the Angkor Devaraja Jayavarman VII, regarded by historians as the greatest of the "God-Kings" who ruled over the ancient Angkor Empire. He built Ankor Thom around 1200 AD, and filled it with temples, monuments, terraces, and pools. The size of this city is mind-blowing, when you consider that this was constructed prior to the use of machines. Moving this much stone must have required a labor force of millions, including elephants, and the fact that it was all quarried from many miles away and floated down rivers on bamboo rafts makes the whole enterprise even more unlikely. These buildings are the work of men convinced of their own divinity.
Nowhere is this strange narcissism clearer than at the Temple of Bayon, which is the epicenter of Angkor Thom. Bayon is comprised of 54 towers, each of which is crowned by 4 faces, that look down down upon all visitors from various stages of decay. A total of 216 faces gaze out in all directions, each meant to represent various attributes of the Boddhisatva Avalokiteshvara. The temple as a whole is a Buddhist shrine, but it was altered in the years after Jayavarman VII to be a Hindu structure. More on that later. Suffice to say, Bayon is an incredible structure, which looks like huge ruinous pile of old stones from afar, but which slowly reveals hidden dimensions as you enter it and climb its stairs. The place is weird and beautiful and eerie and awesome, all at once. For more about it, check out this link.


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