Bayon Temple

end of 12th century, Jayavarman VII

At the center of the last city of Angkor and a perhaps a microcosm of the kingdom with representations of all the major divinties-Buddhist of the south and east, and Hindu to the north the west 200 large faces adorn the 54 towers signifying the omnipresence of the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, the kingdom's principal divinity. There are indications that the temple was built in the stages with much architectural indecision. Best early in the morning or, if you get the chance, by the full moon. Don't miss the base reliefs.

           The 4 faces towers represented 4 directions and each visage is different smiling visage sad visage closed eyes and opened eyes, smiling visage represented his victory over Cham’s fleet in 1181, sad visage represented the sadness of the king Jayavarman 7 because Cham’s fleet conquered Angkor Wat in 1177, closed eyes represented his meditation, opened eyes represented the looking of his people living around his capital.

East gallery there three panels.

The procession of the king Jayavarman 7 the king Jayavarman 7 is riding on a large house with numerous parasols the commander are riding elephant and the musician.  The cavalry precedes and there is a concubine named Jaydeivy and the Khmers armies armed with spares and shields and the banners and the heads of Khmers armies have the gum trees and the fig trees and the lower is Chinesses have goatee.

          The first panels we could see a wooden cart covered the same style as we used to day and provision food for military and a woman crouching blows the fire for her cooking.

          We continued to the south we could see the procession continued and we could see every day life of Khmer and a coconut palm with moneys and we could see the military attached a buffalo killing for their party as they got success on their enemies.

Corner pavilion (south east)

                  

          This carving isn’t finished and identified the scene including a wooden palace and a man is drinking vessel and nearby the palace a Buddha statue is altered to be a linga after the temple became Hindu by the king Jayavarman 8.

South gallery

          Depicted a battle in 1177 between Khmer and Chams. The Khmer’s heads no covering and the Cham’s head had the head dress and there are a lot of boats and warriors armed with javelins bows and shields and the Cham’s crops are being thrown over the boats and are being eating by crocodiles. At the bottom a woman is removing lice from another’s hair and a mother is playing with her children a woman is kneeling and putting her arms around another woman who is writhing in pain is one scene of child birth and a woman is the midwife.

          A hunter prepared his bow to shoot a large animal while a tiger came behind him and he climbed up the tree to protect his life and the next is a fishing scene. The people on the boats are playing the chesses game wrestler sword fighters the chesses players and the cocks fighting between chiness and Khmer and a fight between wild boars outline a big figure is the king surmounts this entire scene.

          If we walked a little further along the gallery the battle resumes and lower tier Cham arrived in boats and disembark and upper tier the battle continued the fighting on the land with Khmers and we can also see the pig slaughter house the slaughterers put a pig into a big pan and the woman cooked fomented rice noodles after the king sits in his palace is celebrating their victory and we can see the carpenters cut sandstone and the black smith pounded iron and some are carrying sandstone another scene is military procession the weapons of war mounted on the elephants and archers and slingshot.