The temple’s five great towers represent the mountainous Olympian abode of the Hindu gods.
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According to an ancient bilingual stela (inscribed in Sanskrit and in the Cambodian Khmer language), a man named Jayavarman II (802–835 A.D.) united a number of independent Southeast Asian kingdoms into the powerful Khmer Kingdom. Ruling from northwestern Cambodia, the Khmer kings amassed an empire that lasted 500 years and stretched from Thailand to Vietnam, from Laos to the South China Sea.
Curiously, the greatest creation of this mighty kingdom was a temple, Angkor Wat, which symbolized the Khmer’s universal ambitions, profound Hindu spirituality and keen awareness of the cycle of life and death.
The 17th Khmer king, Suryavarman II (c. 1113–1150 A.D.), built Angkor Wat as a temple to the Hindu god Vishnu, as a royal capital and, perhaps, as a mausoleum. According to tradition, Suryavarman was cremated upon his death and his ashes were placed in the temple’s central chamber, near a statue (not extant) of the preserver-god Vishnu. Possibly, then, the king considered himself one of Vishnu’s avatars (heroes born in the god’s image), like the Hindu heroes Krishna and Rama.
The 19th Khmer king, Jayavarman VII (c. 1181–1215), built his own capital (Angkor Thom) and temple (Bayon) not far from Angkor Wat, and Suryavarman II’s structure ceased to have political importance. Around the 14th century, Angkor Wat was converted to a Buddhist temple. Although it later fell into neglect, it was never completely abandoned, and it remains a working Buddhist temple to this day. As no contemporaneous inscriptions referring to the temple have been found, it is known simply as Angkor Wat, meaning “City Temple.”
Angkor Wat is a huge rectangular sanctuary, 053about 4,000 feet long (west-east) and 2,800 feet wide (north-south), enclosed on all four sides by a 300-foot-wide moat. Unlike other Khmer temples, the precinct and temple are oriented toward the west; scholars suggest that this is because the patron god Vishnu is associated with the west, the Land of the Dead. A 655-foot-long stone causeway leads east from the entrance near the moat to a courtyard, within which the temple itself stands.
This magnificent temple, faced with pink-gold sandstone, is a square stepped pyramid roughly 650 feet on a side. Its three terraces contain galleries, arcades and corner towers. A stairway from the entrance on the west side leads up to the first terrace, which is decorated with numerous galleries of relief carvings (more than 10,500 square feet of them!) on the inside of the 054outer wall. The reliefs show scenes from the Ramayana and Mahabarata (the two most cherished Hindu epics, in which Vishnu’s avatars Rama and Krishna figure prominently), scenes of royal Khmer life and religious scenes (including depictions of the various Hindu heavens and hells). Some of the most beautiful carvings are of the Asparas055, celestial nymphs created out of churning sea foam.
The second terrace also has galleries and corner towers. The third terrace is a series of linked arcades reached by a number of steep staircases. Each of the four corners of the third terrace has a prominent tower with a lotus-shaped pinnacle. A great crowning tower at the center of the terrace rises 138 feet into the air—some 213 feet above the ground. Inside this central tower is the site’s holiest chamber, where a statue of Vishnu once rested (along with King Suryavarman II’s ash urn).
Angkor Wat is the universe in microcosm. Its central group of five towers symbolizes the peaks of Mount Meru, the Himalayan home of the gods in Hindu mythology. The great moat represents the world’s circumambient oceans, and the terraces, walls, enclosures, galleries and passageways represent the multifarious complexity of the world—the great diversity of beings, forms and passions: the preserve of Lord Vishnu.
According to an ancient bilingual stela (inscribed in Sanskrit and in the Cambodian Khmer language), a man named Jayavarman II (802–835 A.D.) united a number of independent Southeast Asian kingdoms into the powerful Khmer Kingdom. Ruling from northwestern Cambodia, the Khmer kings amassed an empire that lasted 500 years and stretched from Thailand to Vietnam, from Laos to the South China Sea. Curiously, the greatest creation of this mighty kingdom was a temple, Angkor Wat, which symbolized the Khmer’s universal ambitions, profound Hindu spirituality and keen awareness of the cycle of life and death. The 17th Khmer king, Suryavarman […]
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