 Bayon
was the state temple of Jayavarman VII, a powerful ruler in the
late 13th century. The temple sat at the center of Angkor Thom,
a walled city that served as the capital of the Khmer Empire. Four
of the city's five gates sat on axis with the temple, and the walls
of the city substituted for the enclosure walls normally found at
Khmer temples. The walls sit at such a distance from the temple
that the temple seems to rise abruptly from the ground like an artificial
mountain. In fact, the temple was intended to evoke the form of
Mt. Meru--the cosmic mountain at the center of the world in Buddhist
cosmology. In keeping with this cosmic symbolism, the plan of the
temple is based on a "yantra", a symbol used by Tantric
Buddhists as the basis of mandala diagrams that represent the layout
of the universe. The temple honored not just one deity, but a host
of gods found throughout the Khmer empire. Its central shrine held
an image of Jayavarman VII, who perhaps imagined himself as a god-King
ruling in the name of the Buddha.
 
The temple is best known today for the gigantic face sculptures
that adorn its thirty-seven surviving towers. Facing in four directions
on each tower, the faces are thought to represent Lokeshvara, a
Buddhist deity that projected benevolence outward to the four directions.
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