Angkor Wat Is A Temple Mountain
Angkor Wat Is A Temple Mountain
Angkor Wat is the largest religious monument on the planet. Angkor Wat is spread
across over 400 acres / 1.6 km², and is said to be the largest religious monument in
the world. It was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992, which encouraged
an international effort to save the complex.
Angkor Wat combines two basic plans of Khmer temple architecture: the temple-
mountain and the later galleried temple. It is designed to represent Mount Meru, home
of the devas in Hindu and Buddhist cosmology. ... The temple is at the top of the high
classical style of Khmer architecture.
What makes Angkor Wat special?: Though just one of hundreds of surviving temples
and structures, the massive Angkor Wat is the most famed of all Cambodia's temples
—it appears on the nation's flag—and it is revered for good reason. The 12th century
“temple-mountain” was built as a spiritual home for the Hindu god Vishnu
All of the original religious motifs derived from Hinduism, and the temple was
dedicated to the gods Shiva, Brahma, and Vishnu. The five central towers of Angkor
Wat symbolize the peaks of Mount Meru, which according to Hindu mythology is the
dwelling place of the gods.
Dr Uday DOKRAS
King Suryavarman II
Angkor Wat is an architectural masterpiece and the largest religious monument in the
world – covering an area four times the size of Vatican City. It was built by the Khmer
King Suryavarman II in the first half of the 12th century, around the year 1110-1150,
making Angkor Wat almost 900 years old.
50 Angkor Temples
Angkor Wat is the most famous of more than 50 Angkor Temples within the Angkor
Archaeological Park and Siem Reap Province. The area is over 400 square kilometres
(155 square miles) of hot and humid jungle.It fulfills the criterion of both a temple
mountain and is like a Jain temple city.
Sprawling structures forming the shape of a giant spiral and an ensemble of buried
towers have been dug up from the grounds of Angkor Wat, spurring new mysteries
about the ancient temple. It was once believed that the Cambodian temple was
surrounded sacred precincts, or 'temple cities. '
All of the original religious motifs derived from Hinduism, and the temple
was dedicated to the gods Shiva, Brahma, and Vishnu. The five central towers of
Angkor Wat symbolize the peaks of Mount Meru, which according to Hindu mythology
is the dwelling place of the gods.
Dr Uday DOKRAS
Angkor Wat occupies a rectangular area of about 208 hectares (500 acres) defined by a
laetrile wall. The first evidence of the site is a moat with a long sandstone causeway
(length 250 meters, 820 feet; width 12 meters, 39 feet) crossing it and serving as the
main access to the monument.
Is Angkor Wat bigger than the pyramids? Angkor Wat is the biggest religious complex
on the planet. The complex's main temple, Angkor Wat puts Vatican City to shame
(sorry Pope Francis) – it's four times the size! Plus, the entire city of Angkor used more
stone than all the Egyptian pyramids combined, and took over an area larger than
modern-day Paris. Angkor Wat 'temple city / city of temples', located in
northwest Cambodia, is the largest religious structure in the form of a temple complex
in the world by land area measuring 162.6 hectares (401+3⁄4 acres). At the centre of
the temple stands a quincunx of four towers surrounding a central spire that rises to
a height of 65 m (213 ft) above the ground. The temple has three rectangular galleries,
each raised above the next. It lies within an outer wall 3.6 kilometres (2+1⁄4 miles) long
and a moat more than five kilometres (three miles) long. Outer enclosure
A view of the gates and west wall of the outer enclosure of Angkor Wat from across the moat/ The Northern
library//Ta Reach Statue at Angkor Wat, an Eight-Armed Vishnu.
The outer wall, 1,024 m (3,360 ft) by 802 m (2,631 ft) and 4.5 m (15 ft) high, is
surrounded by a 30 m (98 ft) apron of open ground and a moat 190 m (620 ft) wide
and over 5 kilometres (3 mi) in perimeter. The moat extends 1.5 kilometres from east
to west and 1.3 kilometres from north to south. Access to the temple is by an earth
bank to the east and a sandstone causeway to the west; the latter, the main entrance,
Dr Uday DOKRAS
is a later addition, possibly replacing a wooden bridge. There are gopuras at each of
the cardinal points; the western is by far the largest and has three ruined towers.
Glaize notes that this gopura both hides and echoes the form of the temple proper.
The outer wall encloses a space of 820,000 square metres (203 acres), which besides
the temple proper was originally occupied by the city and, to the north of the temple,
the royal palace. Like all secular buildings of Angkor, these were built of perishable
materials rather than of stone, so nothing remains of them except the outlines of some
of the streets.[58] Most of the area is now covered by forest.
A 350 m (1,150 ft) causeway connects the western gopura to the temple proper,
with naga balustrades and six sets of steps leading down to the city on either side.
Each side also features a library with entrances at each cardinal point, in front of the
third set of stairs from the entrance, and a pond between the library and the temple
itself. The ponds are later additions to the design, as is the cruciform terrace guarded
by lions connecting the causeway to the central structure. Beyond, the second and
inner galleries are connected to each other and to two flanking libraries by another
cruciform terrace, again a later addition. From the second level
upwards, devatas abound on the walls, singly or in groups of up to four. The second-
level enclosure is 100 m (330 ft) by 115 m (377 ft), and may originally have been
flooded to represent the ocean around Mount Meru. Three sets of steps on each side
lead up to the corner towers and gopuras of the inner gallery. The very steep stairways
represent the difficulty of ascending to the kingdom of the gods. This inner gallery,
called the Bakan, is a 60 m (200 ft) square with axial galleries connecting each gopura
with the central shrine, and subsidiary shrines located below the corner towers.
The roofings of the galleries are decorated with the motif of the body of a snake ending
in the heads of lions or garudas. Carved lintels and pediments decorate the entrances
to the galleries and to the shrines. The tower above the central shrine rises 43 m
(141 ft) to a height of 65 m (213 ft) above the ground; unlike those of previous temple
mountains, the central tower is raised above the surrounding four. The shrine itself,
originally occupied by a statue of Vishnu and open on each side, was walled in when
the temple was converted to Theravada Buddhism, the new walls featuring standing
Buddhas. The monument was made out of five to ten million sandstone blocks with a
maximum weight of 1.5 tons each. The entire city of Angkor used far greater amounts
of stone than all the Egyptian pyramids combined, and occupied an area significantly
greater than modern-day Paris. Moreover, unlike the Egyptian pyramids which use
limestone quarried barely 0.5 km (1⁄4 mi) away all the time, the entire city of Angkor
was built with sandstone quarried 40 km (25 mi) (or more) away.[71] This sandstone
had to be transported from Mount Kulen, a quarry approximately 40 kilometres
(25 mi) northeast.
The route has been suggested to span 35 kilometres (22 mi) along a canal
towards Tonlé Sap lake, another 35 kilometres (22 mi) crossing the lake, and finally
15 kilometres (9 mi) against the current along Siem Reap River, making a total journey
of 90 kilometres (55 mi). However, Etsuo Uchida and Ichita Shimoda of Waseda
University in Tokyo, Japan have discovered in 2011 a shorter 35-kilometre (22 mi)
canal connecting Mount Kulen and Angkor Wat using satellite imagery. The two
believe that the Khmer used this route instead.[73]
Dr Uday DOKRAS
Virtually all of its surfaces, columns, lintels, and even roofs are carved. There are
kilometres of reliefs illustrating scenes from Indian literature including unicorns,
griffins, winged dragons pulling chariots as well as warriors following an elephant-
mounted leader and celestial dancing girls with elaborate hairstyles. The gallery wall
alone is decorated with almost 1,000 m2 (11,000 sq ft) of bas reliefs. Holes on some of
the Angkor walls indicate that they may have been decorated with bronze sheets.
These were highly prized in ancient times and were a prime target for robbers. [
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