Bayon

The Bayon was the last state temple to be built at Angkor, and the only Angkorian state temple to be built primarily to worship Buddhist deities, though a great number of minor and local deities were also encompassed as representatives of the various districts and cities of the realm. Originally a Hindu temple, the Bayon (Jayagiri) was the centrepiece of Jayavarman VII's massive program of monumental construction and public works, which was also responsible for the walls and nāga-bridges of Angkor Thom and the temples of Vishnu, Ta Prohm and Banteay Kdei.^[6]

La similitud de los 216 rostros gigantescos en las torres del templo con otras estatuas ha llevado a muchos estudiosos a la conclusión de que los rostros son representaciones del propio Jayavarman VII. Algunos estudiosos han teorizado que los rostros pertenecen a Avalokitesvara , el bodhisattva de la compasión. ^{[ 7 ]} Pero algunos lugareños creen que el templo fue construido para Brahma , ya que los rostros tienen cuatro lados, que representan los cuatro rostros de Brahma. Además, los rostros tienen tres ojos, que simbolizan a Shiva en la Trimurti . Las imágenes de Buda rara vez usan joyas como collares, grandes pendientes y una corona. Las dos hipótesis no tienen por qué considerarse mutuamente excluyentes. El erudito de Angkor, George Coedès, ha teorizado que Jayavarman VII se situaba de lleno en la tradición de los monarcas jemeres al considerarse a sí mismo un devaraja (rey-dios), con la diferencia de que, mientras sus predecesores eran hindúes y se asociaban con Brahma y su símbolo, el chaturmukha (cuatro caras), Jayavarman VII era budista . ^{[ 8 ]}

Desde la época de Jayavarman VII , el Bayon ha sufrido numerosas adiciones y modificaciones budistas a manos de monarcas posteriores. ^{[ 5 ]} Durante el reinado de Jayavarman VIII a mediados del siglo XIII, el imperio jemer volvió al hinduismo y su templo estatal fue modificado en consecuencia. En siglos posteriores, el budismo Theravada se convirtió en la religión dominante, lo que provocó aún más cambios, antes de que el templo fuera finalmente abandonado a la selva. Las características actuales que no formaban parte del plan original incluyen la terraza al este del templo, las bibliotecas , las esquinas cuadradas de la galería interior y partes de la terraza superior.

En la primera parte del siglo XX, la École Française d'Extrême Orient lideró la conservación del templo, restaurándolo según la técnica de anastilosis . Desde 1995, el equipo del Gobierno japonés para la Salvaguardia de Angkor (JSA) ha sido el principal organismo de conservación y ha celebrado simposios anuales.

The outer wall of the outer gallery features a series of bas-reliefs depicting historical events and scenes from the everyday life of the Angkorian Khmer. Though highly detailed and informative in themselves, the bas-reliefs are not accompanied by any sort of epigraphic text, and for that reason considerable uncertainty remains as to which historical events are portrayed and how, if at all, the different reliefs are related.^[10] From the east gopura clockwise, the subjects are:

• in the southern part of the eastern gallery a marching Khmer army (including some Chinese soldiers),^[11] with musicians, horsemen, and officers mounted on elephants, followed by wagons of provisions;
• still in the eastern gallery, on the other side of the doorway leading into the courtyard, another procession followed by domestic scenes depicting Angkorian houses, some of the occupants of which appear to be Chinese merchants;
• in the southeast corner pavilion, an unfinished temple scene with towers, apsaras (Khmer: អប្សរា), and a lingam (Khmer: លិង្គសិវៈ);

• in the eastern part of the southern gallery, a naval battle on the Tonle Sap (Khmer: ទន្លេសាប) between Khmer and Cham forces,^[12][13] underneath which are more scenes from civilian life depicting a market, open-air cooking, hunters, and women tending to children and an invalid;
• still in the southern gallery, past the doorway leading to the courtyard, a scene with boats and fisherman, including a Chinese junk, below which is a depiction of a cockfight; then some palace scenes with princesses, servants, people engaged in conversations and games, wrestlers, and a wild boar fight; then a battle scene with Cham warriors disembarking from boats and engaging Khmer warriors whose bodies are protected by coiled ropes, followed by a scene in which the Khmer dominate the combat, followed by a scene in which the Khmer king celebrates a victory feast with his subjects;
• in the western part of the southern gallery, a military procession including both Khmers and Chams, elephants, war machines such as a large crossbow and a catapult;
• in the southern part of the western gallery, unfinished reliefs show an army marching through the forest, then arguments and fighting between groups of Khmers;^[14]
• in the western gallery, past the doorway to the courtyard, a scene depicting a melee between Khmer warriors, then a scene in which warriors pursue others past a pool in which an enormous fish swallows a small deer;^[15] then a royal procession, with the king standing on an elephant, preceded by the ark of the sacred flame;
• in the western part of the northern gallery, again unfinished, a scene of royal entertainment including athletes, jugglers and acrobats, a procession of animals, ascetics sitting in a forest, and more battles between Khmer and Cham forces;
• in the northern gallery, past the doorway to the courtyard, a scene in which the Khmer flee from Cham soldiers advancing in tight ranks;
• in the northeast corner pavilion, another marching Khmer army;
• in the eastern gallery, a land battle between Khmer and Cham forces, both of which are supported by elephants: the Khmer appear to be winning.

The outer gallery encloses a courtyard in which there are two libraries (one on either side of the east entrance). Originally the courtyard contained 16 chapels, but these were subsequently demolished by the Hindu restorationist Jayavarman VIII.

The inner gallery is raised above ground level and has doubled corners, with the original redented cross-shape later filled out to a square. Its bas-reliefs, later additions of Jayavarman VIII, are in stark contrast to those of the outer: rather than set-piece battles and processions, the smaller canvases offered by the inner gallery are decorated for the most part with scenes from Hindu mythology. Some of the figures depicted are Siva, Vishnu, and Brahma, the members of the trimurti or threefold godhead of Hinduism, Apsaras or celestial dancers, Ravana and Garuda.^[16] There is however no certainty as to what some of the panels depict, or as to their relationship with one another. One gallery just north of the eastern gopura, for example, shows two linked scenes which have been explained as the freeing of a goddess from inside a mountain, or as an act of iconoclasm by Cham invaders.^[17] Another series of panels shows a king fighting a gigantic serpent with his bare hands, then having his hands examined by women, and finally lying ill in bed; these images have been connected with the legend of the Leper King, who contracted leprosy from the venom of a serpent with whom he had done battle.^[18] Less obscure are depictions of the construction of a Vishnuite temple (south of the western gopura) and the Churning of the Sea of Milk (north of the western gopura).

The inner gallery is nearly filled by the upper terrace, raised one level higher again. The lack of space between the inner gallery and the upper terrace has led scholars to conclude that the upper terrace did not figure in the original plan for the temple, but that it was added shortly thereafter following a change in design. Originally, it is believed, the Bayon had been designed as a single-level structure, similar in that respect to the roughly contemporaneous foundations at Ta Prohm and Banteay Kdei.^[19]

The upper terrace is home to the famous "face towers" of the Bayon, each of which supports two, three or (most commonly) four gigantic smiling faces. In addition to the mass of the central tower, smaller towers are located along the inner gallery (at the corners and entrances), and on chapels on the upper terrace. "Wherever one wanders," writes Maurice Glaize, "the faces of Lokesvara follow and dominate with their multiple presence."^[20]

Efforts to read some significance into the numbers of towers and faces have run up against the circumstance that these numbers have not remained constant over time, as towers have been added through construction and lost to attrition. At one point, the temple was host to 49 such towers; now only 37 remain.^[21] The number of faces is approximately 200, but since some are only partially preserved there can be no definitive count.

Like the inner gallery, the central tower was originally cruciform but was later filled out and made circular. It rises 43 metres above the ground. At the time of the temple's foundation, the principal religious image was a statue of the Buddha, 3.6 m tall, located in the sanctuary at the heart of the central tower. The statue depicted the Buddha seated in meditation, shielded from the elements by the flared hood of the serpent king Mucalinda. During the reign of Hindu restorationist monarch Jayavarman VIII(Khmer: ព្រះបាទជ័យវរ្ម័នទី ៨), the figure was removed from the sanctuary and smashed to pieces. After being recovered in 1933 from the bottom of a well, it was pieced back together, and is now on display in a small pavilion at Angkor.^[22]