There are few places anywhere on earth to match the splendour of Angkor
Wat. The temple is one of the largest monuments to religion ever built
and is truly one the wonders of the world. Believed to have been
constructed as a temple and mausoleum for King Suryavarman II at the
peak of the Khmer empire in the first half of the 12th century, Angkor
Wat is probably the best-preserved of the Angkorean temples. As with
other Angkorean temples and walled cities such as Angkor Thom, the
central theme of Khmer architecture revolved around the idea of the
temple-mountain.
By the time building on Angkor Wat was begun
early in the 12th century, this had been elaborated to a central tower
surrounded by four smaller towers. The central monument represents the
mythical Mount Meru, the holy mountain at the centre of the universe,
which was home to the Hindu god Vishnu. The five towers symbolise Mount
Meru's five peaks. It is difficult to express in words the enormous
scale of Angkor Wat, but it can be explained in part by a look at the
dimensions of the complex. The temple is surrounded by a moat which
makes the one around the Tower of London, built at roughly the same
time, look like nothing more than a garden trench.
At 190 metres
wide and forming a rectangle measuring 1.5 km by 1.3 km, it is hard to
imagine any attacking force overwhelming the defences. But the moat was
more than just a defensive bulwark, in line with the temple's Hindu
origins it represented the oceans of the world. A rectangular wall
measuring 1025 metres by 800 metres borders the inner edge of the moat.
There is a gate in each side of the wall, but unusually for the mainly
Hindu-influenced Angkorian temples, the main entrance faces west. This
entrance is a richly decorated portico, 235 m wide with three gates.
However, the temple's greatest sculptural treasure is its 2 km-long
bas-reliefs around the walls of the outer gallery and the hundred
figures of devatas and apsaras. This intricately carved gallery tells
stories of the god Vishnu and of Suryavarman II's successes on the
battlefield. The whole complex covers 81 hectares.
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