Cambodia
/ Angkor Wat
Photo: Reliefs of great beauty decorate Angkor Wat.
Angkor Wat
(see header photo) is the most famous temple ground in the entire
Angkor plain. It was built by King Suryavarman II in the
middle of the 12th century over a period of about 30 years.
Like many other Khmer temples, Angkor Wat was built as architectural
allegory of the Hindu religion. The central tower stands for Mount
Meru, the center of the universe according to Hindu mythology;
the top of Mount Meru is considered the home of the gods.
The temple
ground is surrounded by a wall and a moat, not only for demarcation
purposes, but also because in Hindu mythology Mount Meru is surrounded
by other mountain ranges and oceans.
The main
entryway to Angkor Wat is a street of roughly half a kilometer
length, ornamented with balustrades and fringed by artificial
lakes, so-called Barays. This entryway resembles the rainbow bridge
in Hindu mythology, the link between heaven and earth, or the
realm of the gods and the realm of the mortals.
Angkor Wat
is in better structural condition than many other temples
on the Angkor plain because it has been converted into a Buddhist
temple probably even before the Siamese conquest in 1431,
and because it has been used as such continuously after (in the
13th century Buddhism became an important religion in originally
pure-Hindu Angkor).
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