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where the forces of King
Jayavarman VII defeated the Chan. The relief on the west
and north side make a rather unfinished impression.
Angkor
Thom was built in the 12th Century,
Angkor Thom Pictures
at that time religious
symbolism played an increasingly visible role as it is
seen with the mysterious smile at the face towers. King
Jayavarman VII (reigned about 1180-1217) a staunch
Buddhist, was convinced to be a Bodhisattva the faces
could be created after his face. Zhou Daguan a Chinese
diplomat who visited Angkor at 1296 – 1297 wrote that
the faces could also be a Buddha image. The face towers
or Bayon faces are probably some of the most impressive
monuments at Angkor Thom Cambodia.
Along the causeway of Angkor
Thom statues of demons and gods are placed, having the
bodies of Nagas (mythical snakes).This scenes thought to
have some connection with the Rainbow bridge in Hindu
mythology which connects the humans with the gods. The
demons move from the right side of the city gates
against the gods at the other side.
Jajavarman
VII begun building Angkor Thom in 1200
over the old city of
Udaydityavarman II centered on his Baphuon. He
surrounded it with a gigantic moat at least a hundred
meters wide and 15km long. It became the focus of a
final, huge complex of canals and irrigation, with extra
barays. He walled it completely; and in the walls five
gates marked by huge gate-pavilions were constructed.
The four gates were at the cardinal points, and the
fifth gate in the east wall was there to keep the old
road open which links the Phimeanakas to Ta Keo, which
lay slightly to the north of the east west center line.
The gate pavilions embody the outstanding architectural
invention of Jayavarman's reign, which has become almost
a symbol for Angkor the tower with four colossal faces
looking out in the four cardinal directions. These
faces, which in some way are related to the icon of
Lokeshvara, at the same time symbolize the power of the
king, demonstrating his domination of the four quarters
of the world. The Bayon which was Jayavarman's own
sacred temple-mountain at the very centre of Angkor
Thom, is crowded with towers, most of which carry the
same motif. The masks are combined with the terraced
tiers of the towers, with their corner-recesses and
projecting false porches, in such a way that the section
becomes virtually octagonal. The elevations present both
the curved and the pointed, sprouting-shoot contour. The
arches of the gateways, and within the towers of the
Bayon, are triangular and corbelled. Generally speaking
the stonework is hasty and relatively ill-trimmed, and
was carved into its final shape and surface in situ.
The
architecture of this Jayavarman's reign at Angkor shows
a certain development,
though all of it ultimately
springs from Angkor Wat. The main temple complexes are:
Banteay Kdei, which may be dedicated to his religious
teacher, begun the very year he arrived in Angkor 1181;
then Ta Prohm a huge complex of towered enclosures,
halls' and corridors, dedicated to his mother as an
incarnation of Transcendent Buddhist Wisdom, begun about
1186; Preah Khan, dedicated to his father as an
incarnation of Lokeshvara, begun in 1191; and Banteay
Chmar, dedicated to one of his sons who fell in battle.
Angkor Thom and the Bayon followed during the first
nineteen years of the thirteenth century. The ground
plans of all of them are centered on a tower shrine
oriented eastwards, surrounded by rectangular roofed
galleries which are punctuated by towers at the corners
and at the centre of each side; the outer enclosures
contain enclosed cloisters, rows of cast-facing shrines
on the cast side, with additional enclosures and
buildings at the north and south flanks of the central
complex. Many other smaller shrines were built in every
available space in Angkor.
Perhaps the most inventive and interesting of them is
Neak Pean.
This is a small tower-shrine
on a circular base standing at the centre of
Jayavarman's larger baray to the north east of Angkor
Thom. It is a fountain as well, its water spilling over
from the basin in which it stands into four ponds before
running into the baray. It represents the mountain lake
from which magic healing waters flow, supposed by Indian
mythology to exist in the Himalayas.This notion
introduces us to what was, perhaps, the outstanding
artistic if not purely aesthetic achievement of
Jayavarman's architects: the working out into massive
architectural symbols of a complex of mythical imagery.
We have seen how the conception of the temple as sacred
mountain came to be embodied in Khmer tradition. At
Jayavarman's Angkor, many similar mythical concepts are
worked out in visible structures - the towers with faces
are one. Another is a complex of water channels
representing the four sacred rivers of the world, yet
another is the colossal image by Neak Pean of the
com-passionate Bodhisattva, Avalokiteshvara, in the form
of a huge white horse, who is supposed to save sailors
from drowning
This is an allegory of the salvation of beings from
suffering. The colossal stone horse is shown with human
figures clinging to its body. It is not much of a work
of art, though imposing as a massive image. But perhaps
the most important of these realized myths is the
complex of towers, terraces and colossi at the centre of
Angkor Thom.
The king built his palace in
the enclosure of the Phimeanakas, and connected it with
the tenth-century pools and other parts of the site, by
a series of raised and carved terraces of stone. The
most magnificent of these is the 'Royal Terrace' the
front of which is decorated partly with a frieze of
elephants.
Buddha's achieving enlightenment
seated under his Bodhi Tree.
Mara
(Death), 'The Enemy of Man', who
would be deprived of his prey by the
Buddha's enlightenment, sent as many
distractions as he could to divert
the Buddha from his goal, including
a terrible storm and flood. A Naga
crept out from his hole under the
Buddha's tree to lift him above the
floodwater and shelter him from the
rain. Thus when he adopted the
Buddha as his patron, Jayavarman
made his priests seek out an image
that would combine the old familiar
Khmer one of the Naga as cosmic
source of existence and life, with
the new image of the victorious
Buddha as pattern of the king.
There may also be an
esoteric significance to
this icon of the Buddha.
Inside the Bayon the chapels
under the towers held many
sculptured icons. The
central one, under a tower
rising 140 feet above the
ground, was of the Buddha on
the Naga, the alter ego of
the king, around whom the
universe revolved. In other
shrines crowded on to the
terraces were images of the
dignitaries of the kingdom,
attending the divine king in
his celestial home. Around
the interior walls of the
great enclosure were acres
of relief carving, all of it
rather hastily and roughly
executed, and nowhere
reaching the standard of the
reliefs on Angkor Wat.
These relief once more deal
mainly with Indian classical
legend. Here again there is
evidence of the influence of
Chinese pictorial
conventions in some of the
compositions, while numerous
genre passages market
scenes, hunting, quarrels
have often been admired. But
it is obvious that the sheer
volume of work which the
artists were compelled to
get through prevented them
from thoroughly thinking out
their ideas or fully
achieving their execution.
This is an art of cursory
extemporization on well-worn
themes. The most impressive
single works of art
associated with the name of
Jayavarman VII are certain
single iconic stone figures
s from various places in the
Angkor Thom complex. Chief .
among them are the Buddhas
on Nagas, the 'Leper King
and the idealized 'portrait'
image of the king himself.
In all of
these one can feel something of the dedicated skill of
the earlier sculptors of Cambodia, and it must have been
that the masters who cut these important works were
allowed the time they needed to mature them. Their
fluent surfaces, deep plasticity and squared-off
conception convey a sense of ultimate tranquility and
celestial calm.
Bronze
figures of deities of various kinds have been found
among the ruins of Angkor Thom and at other sites. They
too tend to share in the general debasement of style
associated with Jayavarman, though individual pieces may
recapture qualities of Suryavarman ll's art.
After the
death of Jayavarman VII Angkor declined. The Khmer kings
retreated to the lower reaches of the Mekong river in
the face of invasion by the Thai peoples of Siam.
Buddhism of the Theravada branch became the religion of
the people. The |
