BAPHUON TEMPLE

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Constructed : Mid 11th century, 1060Temple Baphuon
Religion : Hindu
Temple Style : Baphuon
King Built : Udayadityavarman II ? 1050 – 1066 ?
Location : Angkor Thom, by leaving Bayon, on the left before arriving at the terrace of the elephants.

Description : Baphuon is a huge temple-mountained located in the heart of Angkor Thom. Temple was built by Udayadityarvarman II was the most poorly constructed of all the temples in Angkor. From the remaining ruins, it is possible to see how imposing it was. This temple hill was dedicated to Shiva, but in its reliefs many motives from the Vishnu epic can be seen. Restoration work continues to be carried out on the Baphuon.

Baphuon is a little frustrating to pass in front of such a monument and not to be able to visit it. One of the center pieces of Angkor Thom, Baphuon is currently closed with the public for restoration and surely still for a long time. You can just make the turn of it. It is about an enormous work: a puzzle of more than 300.000 stones scattered on several hectares and of which some weigh several tons! Each stone is numbered and recorded in files burned during the war! The work which was stopped in 1970 consists today with all to reconstitute and the result should be equal to the challenge to be judged some by what is already visible.

It will thus be necessary to wait a certain time to have to be able to admire gigantic Buddha lying which is inside. This temple-mountain of which the sight in its top is, appears it, exceptional, was to be the central temple of second Angkor , intermediate stage between Phnom Bakheng and Bayon. What is presented today as an immense building site should become a major temple to visit after the end of work.

Temple Detail : The big temple where the court is located immediately on south side. Presently, France undertaking restoration, the large-sized crane is moving. As for being possible to visit, entering from Toumon, to the point of the aerial going/participating road ending. The inner part from that, it has become off limit. Because of that, walking outer circle generally, the back (west side) it turns, it means to return looking at the sleeping form of the explanation/releasing.

sourced:cambodia-tourism.org

BAYON TEMPLE

Bayon Temple

The Bayon, is the exact centre of the town of Angkor Thom. Having to power after the burning of the capital by a Cham fleet, he rebuilt the city and surrounded it with a strong wall. This rampart constitutes the outer enclosure of the Bayon, it is a wide, provided the earth for the enormous embankment which support it, and makes a boulevard 25m wide, with four little temples at the corners, called "Prasat Chrung": the north-east one which is the best preserved, can be reached after charming walk along the top of the rampart in the thick forest.

The surrounding wall is opened up by five gates, 4 on the axis of the Bayon, the fifth is in the axis of Phimeanakas and the second Angkor. These entrances are splendid examples of carving in the very spirit of the Bayon; their mass is carried by enormous elephants with three heads and with trunks touching the ground in the act of picking lotuses. Above, the structure of triple tower makes the great faces of Avalokiteçvara, casting this benevolent gaze in all directions. The doors have lost their façades and have the appearance of pointed bows, before they were high rectangular bays 7 meter by 3. 50 meter strengthened with powerful leaves. The road which crosses the moat was decorated with two imposing balustrades; the churning serpent drawn by devils at the right (on entering) and by Gods on the left.

The central sanctuary is a huge mass, the dark centre of which is surrounded by a narrow corridor. The excavation of G. Trouvé brought it to light. It is a fine big statue of Buddha sitting on the coils of Naga and in the shelter of his head; it can be seen, re-installed on a terrace, on the right hand side of the avenue leads to the victory gate.

The bas-reliefs on the outer wall (160m 140m) and on the inner gallery differ completely and seem to belong to two different worlds. On the outside is the world of men, of events in history which might actually have taken place, and on the inside is the epic world of gods and legends. Many of legendary scenes are found repeatedly on Cambodian monuments and can be easily recognized. A number of the historical events pictured by the sculptors have also been identified since the correct dating of the Bayon in the 12th century directed research to the history of that time.

The faces ornamenting the towers, which are also found on the gates of Angkor Thom, of Ta Prohm, of Banteay Kdei and of great Banteay Chmar, are certainly the features which most impress the visitors.

Louis Finot formulated a theory (in 1911) that the towers at the Bayon, with somewhat phallic form, were enormous Lingas sculptured with faces, sheltering those worshipped in the shrines inside. This theory was based on the certain belief that the Bayon was a Hindu temple dedicated to Siva. But this theory had to be abandoned when the pediment representing Lokeçvara was discovered, a pediment which had formerly been hidden be the central mass. This indicated that the original and basic character of the Bayon was a Buddhist temple. The faces were certainly Buddhist and probably represented the compassionate Bodhisattva.

Even the archaeologists of the Ecole Français were not able to decide immediately whether the heads on the Bayon were Brahma, Siva or Buddha. The distinctions which clearly different: Brahma: the creator of the universe; Siva spreads blessings on every region in space; Buddha of the Great Miracle duplicates himself infinity; and Lokeçvara faces in all directions. The spirit behind these Indian divinities, which the architect tried to represent, was not so much a real being or individual, but an abstraction.

Pierre Loti: grasped this with the remarkable perception of a poet: from on high, the four faces on each of these towers face the four cardinal points, looking out in every direction from beneath lowered eyelids. Each face has the same ironic expression of pity, the same smile. The multiplication of these faces to the four cardinal points symbolizes the idea that the Royal power is blessing the four quarters of the Kingdom. As for the repetition of these faces on every tower. The idols worshipped in the chapels inside the towers were statues of deified princes or dignitaries or else of local Gods. Each tower corresponded to a province of the Kingdom or at least to a religious or administrative centre of the province. Thus if the four faces symbolizes the Royal power spreading over the land in every direction, placing them over the chapel which was typical of each province signified that: the king Jayavarman VII's Royal power was as strong in the province as at Angkor itself. This accounted for having a four-faced tower to represent each part of the Kingdom. We now begin to understand this mysterious architecture as the symbol of the Great Miracle of Jayavarman VII. It represents his administrative and religious  power extending to every corner of Cambodian territory by mean of this unique sign.

PHNOM BAKHENG TEMPLE

Phnom Bakheng (Khmer: ប្រាសាទភ្នំបាខែង) at Angkor, Cambodia, is a Hindu and Buddhist temple in the form of a temple mountain.[1]:103 Dedicated to Shiva, it was built at the end of the 9th century, during the reign of King Yasovarman (889-910). Located atop a hill, it is nowadays a popular tourist spot for sunset views of the much bigger temple Angkor Wat, which lies amid the jungle about 1.5 km to the southeast. The large number of visitors makes Phnom Bakheng one of the most threatened monuments of Angkor. [1] Since 2004, World Monuments Fund has been working to conserve the temple in partnership with APSARA.

Constructed more than two centuries before Angkor Wat, Phnom Bakheng was in its day the principal temple of the Angkor region, historians believe. It was the architectural centerpiece of a new capital, Yasodharapura, that Yasovarman built when he moved the court from the capital Hariharalaya in the Roluos area located to the southeast.[1]:112–113

An inscription dated 1052 AD and found at the Sdok Kak Thom temple in present-day Thailand states in Sanskrit: "When Sri Yasovardhana became king under the name of Yasovarman, the able Vamasiva continued as his guru. By the king's order, he set up a linga on Sri Yasodharagiri, a mountain equal in beauty to the king of mountains."[2] Scholars believe that this passage refers to the consecration of the Phnom Bakheng temple approximately a century and a half earlier.[1]:112

Surrounding the mount and temple, labor teams built an outer moat. Avenues radiated out in the four cardinal directions from the mount. A causeway ran in a northwest-southeast orientation from the old capital area to the east section of the new capital's outer moat and then, turning to an east-west orientation, connected directly to the east entrance of the temple.[3]

Phnom Bakheng is a symbolic representation of Mount Meru, home of the Hindu gods, a status emphasized by the temple’s location atop a steep hill 65 m above the surrounding plain. The temple is built in a pyramid form of seven levels, representing the seven heavens.[4]:355,358–360 At the top level, five sandstone sanctuaries, in various states of repair, stand in a quincunx pattern—one in the center and one at each corner of the level’s square. Originally, 108 small towers were arrayed around the temple at ground level and on various of its tiers; most of them have collapsed.[5]

Jean Filliozat of the Ecole Francaise, a leading western authority on Indian cosmology and astronomy, interpreted the symbolism of the temple. The temple sits on a rectangular base and rises in five levels and is crowned by five main towers. One hundred four smaller towers are distributed over the lower four levels, placed so symmetrically that only 33 can be seen from the center of any side. Thirty-three is the number of gods who dwelt on Mount Meru. Phnom Bakheng's total number of towers is also significant. The center one represents the axis of the world and the 108 smaller ones represent the four lunar phases, each with 27 days. The seven levels of the monument represent the seven heavens and each terrace contains 12 towers which represent the 12-year cycle of Jupiter. According to University of Chicago scholar Paul Wheatley, it is "an astronomical calendar in stone." [6]

Phnom Bakheng is one of three hilltop temples in the Angkor region that are attributed to Yasovarman's reign. The other two are Phnom Krom to the south near the Tonle Sap lake, and Phnom Bok, northeast of the East Baray reservoir.[1]:113

Following Angkor's rediscovery by the outside world in the mid-19th century, decades passed before archeologists grasped Phnom Bakheng's historical significance. For many years, scholars' consensus view was that the Bayon, the temple located at the center of Angkor Thom city, was the edifice to which the Sdok Kak Thom inscription referred. Later work identified the Bayon as a Buddhist site, built almost three centuries later than originally thought, in the late 12th century, and Phnom Bakheng as King Yasovarman's state temple.[1]:112

Sun set of Phnom Bakheng

Later in its history, Phnom Bakheng was converted into a Buddhist temple. A monumental Sitting Buddha, now lost, was created on its upper tier. Across its west side, a Reclining Buddha of similar scale was crafted in stone. The outlines of this figure are still visible.

ANGKOR WAT TEMPLE

ANGKOR Wat temple

29.01.2016 Friday

Angkor is one of the most important archaeological sites in South-East Asia. Stretching over some 400 km2, including forested area, Angkor Archaeological Park contains the magnificent remains of the different capitals of the Khmer Empire, from the 9th to the 15th century. They include the famous Temple of Angkor Wat and, at Angkor Thom, the Bayon Temple with its countless sculptural decorations. UNESCO has set up a wide-ranging programme to safeguard this symbolic site and its surroundings.