Date: Late 12th to late 13th century, construction probably starting about 1200
Style: Bayon
Reign: Jayavarman VII to Jayavarman VIII
Visit: 2 hrs
Highlights
This, the State Temple of Jayavarman VII and his immediate successors, is one of the most enigmatic and powerful religious constructions in the world. The temple is extremely complex both in terms of its structure and meaning, having passed through different religious phases from Pantheon of the Gods, Hindu worship and Buddhism. It uses, uniquely, a mass of face-towers to create a stone mountain of ascending peaks. There is some dispute about the number of towers.
There were originally 49 towers even though Paul Mus thought there should be 54. Today only 37 are standing. Most are carved with four faces on each cardinal point but sometimes there are only three or even just two. The central tower has many more. Readers are invited to write in when they have counted them all. Whatever the final number the overall effect is quite overwhelming. Back to Top
Plan
The Bayon has gone through several architectural changes, with additions that are responsible for the complexity and crowding at its centre. This is because the city of Angkor Thom was so well fortified that later kings found it simpler to re-model the Bayon rather than remove it and build their own new State Temple which would have had to have been in the same place at the centre of the city. Its plan is distinctive and has many peculiarities.
The temple itself is composed of two galleried enclosures, which are almost square, but also on three levels, because of the rebuilding described below. The approach, which is probably later, is a broad, two-tiered terrace, 72m long and guarded by lions, leading to the eastern gopura of the outer enclosure, which measures 156m x 141m. This is the first, at ground level and is surrounded by a gallery with corner pavilions and gopuras. Within this, the inner enclosure is 80m x 70m, and is slightly offset, in common with most Khmer temples, away from the entrance. Between the 3rd and 2nd enclosure, can be clearly seen traces of 16 large chapels where Buddhist and local divinities were housed. They were demolished by Jayavarman VIII.
The confusion of the Bayon begins inside the inner enclosure, where additional construction has made a complex arrangement of galleries and towers on the second level. Within the almost-square surround of galleries, another set of redented galleries in each corner enclose a cross shape. It is generally agreed that the original gallery was cross-shaped, and that the corners that make it now rectangular were added later.
Almost filling the cross-shaped gallery walls is the 3rd level – the upper terrace, also later – and in the centre of this rises the central massif, which is, very unusually, round. 25m in diameter, it reaches a height of 43m above ground-level, and is connected to a series of small chambers to the east. In fact, it was originally cruciform in plan, but later radiating chapels filled in the ‘circle’.
Dominating the whole arrangement of galleries and terraces are the face-towers, some over the gopuras, others over the corner angles, yet others free-standing on the upper terrace. As mentioned above the numbers of faces are in dispute. Equally, the actual numbers of towers do not have any symbolic significance as many were added later. Their different individual heights combined with the different levels of the temple create the impression of a forest of towers rising towards the centre.