Bayon - Jayavarman VII capital

Jayavarman VII's capital: Bayon

King Jayavarman VII built Bayon temple in the late of 12th and early of 13th centuries. It was the State and religious centre dedicated to Buddha. It is one of the most enigmatic and powerful religious constructions ever built in Cambodia.

The temple is extremely complex both in terms of its structure and meaning, as it passed through different religious phases from Pantheon of the gods, Hindu worship and Buddhism. It uses a mass of face-towers to create a stone mountain of ascending peaks. There are some disputes about the number of towers. There were originally 54 towers just the same number of gods or demons holding upon the serpents both sides of the causeway at the South Gate, even though some people thought there should be 49. Most are carved with four faces on each cardinal point but sometimes there are only three or even just two.

Bayon went through several architectural changes; responsible for the complexity and crowding at it's centre. The city of Angkor Thom was so well fortified that later kings found it simpler to re-model the Bayon rather than to remove it and build their own new State-temple, which would have had to be in the same place at the center of the city. Its plan is distinctive and has many peculiarities.

The temple itself is composed of two galleried enclosures, which are almost square. The approach is 72 meter long and guarded by lions leading to the eastern side 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 (gates with four doors). The inner enclosure is 80m by 70m. It took 24 years to build, but the number of the workers is unknown. Most significant is the bas-relief on the outer galleries depicting the real daily life of the Khmer people and the fighting between the Khmer and Cham soldiers in 12th centuries and before.