Angkor Thom: "The Large City"

Of all the Angkor temples, it was the Bayon, at the centre of Angkor Thom, which most confounded the archaeologists. In earlier chapters, when discussing the chronology of the monuments, we touched briefly on the debate that ran with respect to the dating of its construction, based, until 1923, on the false identification of the "Central Mountain" mentioned in the inscription of Sdok Kak Thom - which referred in fact to Phnom Bakheng and not to the Bayon. This latter was therefore no longer assumed to be the "temple-mountain" of Yasodharapura, the capital of king Yasovarman dating from the end of the 9th century, and was instead recognised as the official sanctuary of the last city of Angkor Thom, reconstructed by Jayavarman VII towards the end of the 12th century following its sacking by the Chams.
It may seem surprising that, contrary to its function, a temple of this size was built without any external enclosure wall or moat - until one appreciates that these were in effect formed by the ramparts of the city of Angkor Thom itself and by its moats, with the gates taking the place of gopuras.

EXTERNAL ENCLOSURE

The walls of Angkor Thom, the southern of which lies 1,700 metres north of the axial entrance to Angkor Wat, form a square of 3 kilometres each side enclosing an area of 900 hectares. Nearly 8 metres high and topped with a parapet that has no battlements, they are constructed in laterite and buttressed on their inner side by an earth embankment - the top of which forms a surrounding road. Externally they are surrounded by a one hundred metre wide moat, which is crossed at each of the city gates by a causeway. The general flow of water within the square city was apparently established from the north-east to the south-west, in which corner it discharges into a kind of reservoir - the "Beng Thom" - itself draining to the external moat through a row of five tunnels cut through the embankment and the wall.
At the corners stand four small temples - "the Prasat Chrung" - each containing an inscribed stele mentioning the foundation by Jayavarman VII of a "Jayagiri scraping the brilliant sky at its top and of a Jayasindhu touching at its impenetrable depth the world of the serpents".
Each of the Prasat Chrung is in the style of the Bayon and was dedicated - as was the city itself - to the bodhisattva Lokesvara.
A visit to one of the Prasat Chrung - perhaps to the one in the south-west corner - can be made by foot in the dry season along the wall-top track - if it has been cleared. It is a very pleasant walk (3 kilometres) under the shade of the trees where, having first climbed the embankment at the foot itself of the south gate, one then descends at the west gate after having skirted a quarter of the city limits. One can see in places the remains of laterite steps discovered by Mr Goloubew, corresponding to the moats of the 11th century enclosure of Angkor Thom.

THE GATES OF ANGKOR THOM

Very little is known about organisation of the city, with its light-weight dwellings. Centred on the Bayon, it was divided into four quarters by four axial roads that were probably bordered by moats. A fifth similar road was set on the axis of the Royal Palace, leading to the east.
Corresponding to these avenues are five monumental gates. From the exterior, the crossing of the moat is made, as previously described, on a causeway. At the northern entrance this now forms a bridge for part of its length, following hydrological works in 1940.
The five gates are all similar and were found reasonably well preserved. Two of them, the north and the south, were restored by M. Glaize from 1944 to 1946 and can now be seen with their crowning motifs - though incomplete in terms of sculpture - in their original form. The most pleasing in composition are the northern gate and the western side of the Gate of the Dead (to the east, centred on the Bayon, at the end of the route Dufour), while the best faces are to be seen at the west gate.

THE BAYON: late 12th - early 13th century
Constructed under King Jayavarman VII - Cult Buddhist

Fifteen hundred metres of straight road separate the south gate of Angkor Thom from the Bayon. We recommend that, skirting it to the right, you gain access to the temple by the long redented eastern terrace, embellished with lions and naga-balustrades, that corresponds to its main entrance. One can see that the naga motif here is representative of the last period, where the hood is straddled by a garuda. On either side are the remains of ancient pools.
Separated by less than a century, the Bayon is the antithesis of Angkor Wat. While this latter sits at ease in its successive enclosure walls, realising according to a spacious plan a vast architectural composition through the harmonious equilibrium of its towers and its galleries, the Bayon, enclosed within the rectangle of 140 metres by 160 that constitutes its third enclosure (the gallery of the bas-reliefs), gives the impression of being compressed within a frame which is too tight for it. Like a cathedral built on the site of a village church, its central mass is crammed into its second gallery, of 70 metres by 80, in a jumbled confusion of piled blocks.
The Bayon is not so much an architectural work as the translation to reality of the spiritual beliefs of a grand mystic - the Buddhist king Jayavarman VII - with the four faces of each tower looking to the four cardinal points signifying the omnipresence of the bodhisattva Lokesvara, the kingdom's principal divinity. If, as Mr Cœdes believed, they are also the portrait of the sovereign himself identified as the god - if, like the further suggestion of Paul Mus, the towers corresponded to the different provinces of the kingdom - then their multiplication becomes symbolic of the radiant power of the god-king flooding the country.

DESCRIPTION OF THE MONUMENT

The confusion in the plan of the Bayon and the intricacy of its buildings results no doubt from the successive alterations to which the monument was subjected, that are evident just about everywhere. These changes could well have been made either during the course of construction or at other times - so not all necessarily corresponding to the reign of Jayavarman VII.
In its present form the temple is composed; - of the level external gallery of the third enclosure, with four corner pavilions and four gopuras, - of a surrounding courtyard containing, to the east, two high libraries, - of the gallery of the second enclosure at varying levels with four corner towers and three intermediate towers on each side, the central of which forms a gopura, - of a system of galleries forming a redented cross with corner towers and four small square courtyards, - of an upper terrace, the outline of which follows at a slight distance the plan of the cross-formed galleries below, which it clearly dominates, - and of a circular central mass, whose peak towers 43 metres above the surrounding city ground level and which is ringed with an arrangement of loggias, preceded to the east by a series of small halls and vestibules and, finally, flanked on each of its other axes by a high tower.
It would seem probable, according to research by Mr Parmentier and various archaeological excavations; -
- that the central block of the monument corresponding to the galleries of the second enclosure is part of a combination of galleries that once formed a redented cross surrounding a central sanctuary, perhaps raised, which was then adjusted to a rectangle by the addition of the internal galleries enclosing the four small courtyards.(10)
- that the upper crossed terrace carrying the central sanctuary was finally constructed by Jayavarman VII, when he decided to make the Bayon the temple-mountain of Angkor Thom - the siege of the Buddha king.
- that the present level of the surrounding courtyard corresponds to two successive in-fills, the sandstone base plinth of the second enclosure galleries continuing, with its cladding crudely cut, for 2m.50 below ground - excavation having revealed the presence of a first pavement in laterite at this lower level with another at an intermediate level 1 metre higher.
- that the galleries of the third enclosure and the two "libraries" were built on this filled ground, and therefore towards the end of the project.
- that the surrounding courtyard was divided into smaller courtyards by sixteen buildings which have now disappeared - four on each side - whose laterite foundations can still be seen at ground level joining the galleries of the second and the third enclosures - just in front of each tower of the second enclosure and on either side of the axial towers.

If you want to know more about the temples: www.angkor-cambodia.org
it is the traduction in English of Angkor temples "bible": the book of Maurice Glaize