The Faces of Bayon

[khiemtran]

Bayon, at the centre of Angkor Thom, is famous for its giant Buddha faces. But if you look closely, there's another story written there...



Most of the temples I have shown so far started out as Hindu shrines that were converted later into Buddhist temples. However, when Jayavarman VII took power in 1181, after defeating the Chams who had sacked Angkor, he set off a frenzy of temple building that transformed the area. Javavarman VII, now regarded by modern Cambodians as one of the four great kings, was just the second Buddhist to take the throne.



The works Jayavarman VII created were stunning. But his successor, Jayavarman VIII, was a Hindu, and so the wave of Buddhist temple building was quickly followed by a frenzy of destruction and conversion, which would play out again as the Kings switched from Hinduism to Buddhism and back, and later from Mahayana to Theravada Buddhism (Liem: "I wish the Khmer Empire would just choose!")



Here you see where a Buddha image has been transformed into an image of Shiva, by "opening" the eyes (which would have been closed in meditation) and making other alterations including a diamond shaped "third eye".



Another face with opened eyes.



There's also a different theory that the faces represented Jayavarman himself.



The other highlight at Bayon are the detailed bas-reliefs. Instead of Hindu stories, these depict the battles and parades of Jayavarman VII and daily life in his new city.



Here the Cham invaders throw Khmer prisoners to the crocodiles in Tonle Sap.



A woman gives birth to a child.



Another checks for nits while a man scratches himself.



And everyone gets ready for a party...





A wider view of the temple complex. The whole site was built on by many different kings and you can often see places where carvings now face onto blank walls because of later additions.

Comments

[soon_lee]

We saw Bayon too. The scenes of life were fascinating, sadly we didn't get to see them all but got a quick run-down from our guide, including how to tell the Khmer figures on the bas-reliefs from other ethnicities (they have really long ears).

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Yes, it was interesting to see the China town scenes too, and also the Thai mercenaries and the indigenous soldiers.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Wow, these sound fascinating. The bas reliefs are my favorites in this post. I love the patterns of the leaves, and I like the woman giving birth, and the man caught on the underwater side of the boat in the Tonle Sap one.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Yes, I could spend hours just looking at the carvings. Although, by the time we had got to Bayon, we had already been through Angkor Wat and Ta Prohm, and we were all exhausted. I think Angkor is sort of place where you might get more out of it if you just take it one temple at a time.

[zyzyly.livejournal.com]

another of my favorite temples. I wasn't with a guide here, so didn't know these stories until now.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Our guide was worth a few stories himself. He was an amazing source of knowledge (and surprisingly up with some of the latest theories instead of just what it said in the guide books), but it was also much more exhausting than going on your own. I think he was really trying to work out what we wanted, so we started out getting marched around for tourist-free photo ops, then family portraits, then, when he noticed that Hsiu Lin wanted photos of waterlilies at Angkor Wat, it was water lilies at all opportunities.