BAPHUM TEMPLE

The Baphuon temple is the prototype for the Baphuon style of design which covers every available surface with intricate carvings. These carvings include both realistic and fanciful depictions of lotus flowers, wild animals and hunters, devata figures, and men in battle. There are also carvings with indirect references to Hindu mythology and scenes illustrating epic poems such as the Ramayana. The sandstone temple-mountain symbolically represents the sacred five-peaked Mount Meru important in both Hindu and Buddhist cosmology. There are three enclosures in the Baphuon temple complex, and the main structure is situated on a high base. With the bronze tower that was part of the original structure it would have been roughly 50 meters high, but without this tower it stands 34 meters tall.
This magnificent temple was built by King Udayadityavarman II in the middle of the 11th century, before the city of Angkor Thom was established. Originally a Hindu temple dedicated to Shiva, it was converted into a Buddhist temple in the late 15th Century, and a huge reclining Buddha (nine meters tall by 70 meters long) was added to the west side of the temple’s second level around this time.

Like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Baphuon was built on a too-soft foundation of sandy soil which proved to be inadequate for such an immense structure. This shaky foundation caused the temple to be unstable for most of its history, and it is very likely that large portions had already collapsed by the time it was converted to a Buddhist temple. The stones from the collapsed portion of the structure were utilized in the creation of the reclining Buddha, which is one of the largest in Southeast Asia.By the early 20th century, Baphuon was on the verge of complete collapse. A massive restoration project began in the 1960s, which involved dismantling the temple stone by stone, reinforcing the foundation, and then re-assembling the structure. 300,000 blocks of stone were labelled and numbered, and carefully arranged in the 10 hectares surrounding the temple site, waiting to be put back together. Unfortunately, the project was abandoned when civil war broke out in 1970, and the plans identifying the stones’ intended location were destroyed by the Khmer Rouge. A second restoration project, which came to be known as the largest three dimensional jigsaw puzzle in the world, was launched in 1996 under the guidance of the architect Pascal Royère. Modern technology greatly aided in the process, but it still took 16 years to complete the puzzle. The lighter colored stones are the restored pieces. We are truly fortunate to be able to visit this remarkable site, and owe a debt of gratitude to the hundreds of workers responsible for reconstructing this magnificent temple.
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BAYON TEMPLE

Bayon Temple is distinctly different from Angkor Wat and other temples in the Angkor complex and it has undergone numerous​ modifications and additions during its history. Unlike the magnificent façade of Angkor Wat, Bayon doesn’t look terribly impressive from a distance. You can’t fully appreciate its beauty until you enter the temple.
Most of the Angkor temples are constructed with features oriented in the four cardinal directions, but Bayon’s face towers seem to point every which way. While most of the towers do have four faces, some have only two or three, while the central tower has many more. The number of

face towers is seemingly random, and there is some dispute about how many towers were included in the original design of the temple. Some believe there were 49, and others say it was 54. One theory holds that there was one tower for each of the 54 provinces in the Khmer empire at the time of the temple’s construction, symbolically keeping watch over all the inhabitants of the kingdom. However, the ravages of time have left only 37 of the towers standing today. There are two richly decorated galleries which serve as enclosures to the temple – the outer gallery depicting scenes from battles and other historical events as well as images of everyday domestic life, and the inner gallery primarily illustrating mythological tales. The beautiful bas- relief carvings feature an astonishing level of detail, including more than 11,000 figures. The inner gallery, added by the Hindu King Jayavarman VIII, is elevated above ground level, and the upper terrace, which holds over 200 of the famous giant faces, is one level higher. A circular central tower rises 43m high.

Bayon was the last state temple built in the Angkor complex. The great Buddhist ruler, King Jayavarman VII, began its construction near the end of his life – sometime in the late 12th or early 13th century. Originally intended to be a Mahayana Buddhist temple, it was altered during the reign of King Jayavarman VIII when the empire briefly reverted back to Hinduism in the mid-13th century. The temple underwent further modifications under the Theravada Buddhist kings in later years.
The most distinctive feature of Bayon is the subject of some disagreement among historians. Some believe that the tranquil faces are meant to represent the Bodhisattva of compassion known as Lokesvara, and in fact, the host of tranquil visages is often referred to as the “200 faces of Lokesvara”. Others believe that the faces are portraits of King Jayavarman VII, and indeed, they do bear a striking similarity to other statues of the king. Both hypotheses may be true, as many Khmer rulers regarded themselves as “god-kings”.

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