HTML clipboardFor once, the modern name of a temple is
completely justified. Angkor Wat, the 'city [which became a] pagoda', was not
only the grandest and most sublime of all the Khmer temples, but also a city in
its own right. It was built during the reign of Suryavarman II, in the first
half of the 12th century, both as the capital and the State Temple dedicated to
Vishnu.
Plan
The outer limits of Angkor Wat are set by its broad moat, faced in
laterite and sandstone. Including this, the total area is almost 200 hectares -
a rectangle of 1.5 km E-W by 1.3 km N-S, the largest temple at Angkor. Two
causeways at W and E cross the 190m-wide moat to the outer enclosure, bounded by
a laterite wall of 1025m by 802m. Because of Angkor Wat's unusual orientation,
the W gopura of this outer enclosure is by far the largest of the four.
Within the 82 hectares of the outer enclosure, the temple itself stands in
the middle on a terrace measuring 332 x 258m, nearly 9 hectares. The remaining
9/10ths of the area was taken up with the city, including the royal palace,
although of course no trace remains of these buildings, presumably constructed
in light materials. Following tradition, the palace would have been to the north
of the actual temple.
The temple proper combines two major features of Khmer architecture: a
pyramid and concentric galleries. Pyramids, which in most cases were created by
means of stepped terraces, date back to the 8th century Ak Yum and the better
known 9th century Bakong, and were the Khmer method of symbolising the centre of
the Hindu universe, Mount Meru, in the form of a temple-mountain. Galleries,
however, evolved later, around the beginning of the 11th century; they were the
natural succession to a growing number of annex buildings surrounding the
sanctuary. Angkor Wat is, to put it as simply as possible, a pyramid of three
levels, each one enclosed by a well-developed gallery with four gopuras and
corner towers. The summit is crowned with five towers in a quincunx.
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