Bayon Temple - a temple with faces

Discovering the Bayon Temple

~~Gazes that follows wherever you go... (imagination activated! 😜Hollywood effect, but really, there were MANY PAIRS OF EYES, not sure if closed though.)

~~Gigantic four heads with four faces smiling at you...(depends how you see and interpret it... I am just exag)

Four heads and faces (in one head? ... just look at the picture anyway, not sure how to describe anymore) are the distinctive characteristics of the Bayon Temple which is located at the centre of Angkor Thom. According to the online sources which tone with the answers from my askings, the gigantic faces of Bayon Temple watch the four cardinal points and therefore protect the kingdom and its people.

The Bayon that is now available in the public is very complicated in appearance due to the many transformations that it undergone. Primarily, it was a Buddhist temple in a cross-shaped plan. Later, parts were added as if connecting the lines turning it into a rectangle. Expansion continuous - outdoor veranda, the extension of the 3rd floor, the construction of the road lined basin and the addition of the two libraries in the first floor.

The shift from one king to another contributes to the current status of the temple. The Hindu king was put into power after the death of King Jayavarman VII and subsequent to the Hindu king was a Buddhist King. Naturally, each of the kings would make changes to comply with their religion. The changes lingered and the temple itself will testify the transformations.

Here are random photos which could give a closer look of the temple.

Why 4 heads and faces?

Assumptions and interpretations are possibly as many as the visitors coming in the temple every day. But, common to it is the idea that it represents Brahma who is a Hindu God depicted with four heads, four faces, and four arms.

Faces in the temple

Another assumption is that it represents Lokeshvara – believed to be the Lord of the world, the lord who looks in every direction, and the lord of the actual and created world. Lokeshvara is a central deity of Jayavarman’s religion. King Jayavarman VII believed that Lokesvara is an aspect of his own divine self which leads us to the third assumption which many believes that the faces in the temple is the portrait masks of Jayavarman. It represents the union of the deity and the king.

That's it for now.

Until next travel memories :)