Angkor Thom and the Bayon: Jayavarman VII's Capital

Angkor Thom (“Great City”) was the walled capital that the Khmer king Jayavarman VII built after he was crowned in 1181. At its exact centre stands the Bayon, a Buddhist state temple famous for its towers carved with huge, calm stone faces. Created after a devastating Cham invasion, the city expressed a new vision of kingship and became the last great capital of Angkor.

Background: a kingdom in crisis

In 1177 a fleet from Champa sailed up the Mekong and the Tonle Sap and plundered the old Khmer capital, killing its king (see Cham Sack of Angkor). Jayavarman VII, a prince of the royal family then in his fifties, led the resistance, drove out the invaders and was crowned in 1181.

Jayavarman VII was a devout Mahayana Buddhist, unlike most earlier Khmer kings, who had honoured Shiva or Vishnu. His first wife, Jayarajadevi, and her elder sister Indradevi, whom he married after Jayarajadevi’s death, were also important patrons of Buddhism. A long Sanskrit inscription composed by Indradevi praises her sister’s piety and learning.

Building a new capital

Jayavarman VII rebuilt the capital on and around the site of earlier royal cities. Angkor Thom is a square about 3 kilometres on each side, covering some 9 square kilometres. A laterite wall about 8 metres high surrounds it, with a moat roughly 100 metres wide beyond.

Five monumental gates pierce the wall: one at each cardinal point and an extra Victory Gate on the east leading to the royal palace. Each gate is crowned by a tower with four great faces. The causeways leading to them are lined with rows of stone figures, gods on one side and demons on the other, holding the body of a giant serpent (naga). The scene recalls the Hindu myth of the Churning of the Ocean of Milk, which is also shown at Angkor Wat.

Inside the walls stood the royal palace, built largely of wood and now lost, along with older temples such as the Baphuon and the Phimeanakas. In front of the palace Jayavarman VII built the Terrace of the Elephants, a long platform decorated with carved elephants and used for royal ceremonies. Nearby is the Terrace of the Leper King, named after a statue found there.

The Bayon

The Bayon stands at the centre of Angkor Thom, where the roads from the four cardinal gates meet. Like earlier Khmer state temples it represents Mount Meru, the mountain at the centre of the universe, but it is dedicated to the Buddha rather than a Hindu god.

The temple is crowded and complex, the result of several changes of plan during construction. Its most striking feature is its towers: about 37 survive, out of an original total often estimated at 49 to 54. Most carry four faces looking in different directions, around 200 faces in all. Their half-smiling expression, with lowered eyes and full lips, is one of the most recognisable images of Cambodia.

Who the faces represent is uncertain. A common view is that they show the bodhisattva Lokeshvara (Avalokiteshvara), the embodiment of compassion, perhaps with the features of Jayavarman VII himself, watching over every part of the kingdom. Other scholars suggest they represent guardian deities. No inscription settles the question.

The bas-reliefs

The outer gallery of the Bayon is carved with reliefs that differ from those at Angkor Wat. Alongside battle scenes, including naval combat between Khmer and Cham forces on the Tonle Sap, they show everyday life: markets, cooking, fishing, cockfights, a woman in childbirth and people playing games. These scenes are among the best evidence for the daily life of ordinary Khmer people in the 12th and 13th centuries. The inner gallery carries mainly religious and mythological scenes, many added or altered later.

Jayavarman VII’s building programme

Angkor Thom was part of a vast programme. Jayavarman VII founded the temple-monasteries of Ta Prohm in 1186, dedicated to his mother, and Preah Khan in 1191, dedicated to his father. He built the distant temple of Banteay Chhmar and the island shrine of Neak Pean in a reservoir.

His inscriptions record 102 hospitals across the kingdom and 121 rest houses along the main roads. Historians see these works as both acts of Buddhist merit and a way of binding the provinces to the capital. Some argue that the scale of construction strained the kingdom’s resources.

Life in the royal city

Angkor Thom was not a city in the sense of a dense mass of stone buildings. Apart from temples and terraces, almost everything was built of wood, bamboo and thatch, which has long since vanished. Archaeological surveys, including airborne laser scanning (lidar), have revealed a grid of embanked roads, ponds and house platforms within the walls, suggesting a planned urban layout.

The city formed the core of a much larger settlement that spread across the plain around it, linked by roads, canals and reservoirs. Estimates of the population of Greater Angkor vary widely, from several hundred thousand to more, and remain uncertain. Within the walls lived the court, priests, officials, servants and craftspeople, while farmers worked the rice fields beyond.

Zhou Daguan’s later account describes busy markets run largely by women, royal processions with parasols and elephants, and festivals held in front of the palace. Although written about a century after Jayavarman VII’s death, it helps bring to life the stone terraces and gates that survive today.

Key people

• Jayavarman VII (r. 1181–c. 1218): the Buddhist king who rebuilt the capital and expanded the empire to its greatest extent.
• Jayarajadevi: his first queen, a devout Buddhist who supported religious foundations.
• Indradevi: Jayarajadevi’s elder sister and later queen, a scholar who composed an important Sanskrit inscription.
• Jayavarman VIII (r. 1243–1295): a Hindu king under whom many Buddhist images were defaced.
• Zhou Daguan: Chinese envoy who described Angkor Thom in 1296–1297.

After Jayavarman VII

Jayavarman VII died around 1218. In the mid-13th century, probably under Jayavarman VIII (r. 1243–1295), a Hindu reaction set in. Thousands of Buddha images at the Bayon and elsewhere were chiselled away or recarved as Hindu figures. The Bayon’s central Buddha statue was smashed and thrown into a pit beneath the main tower; French archaeologists found its pieces in 1933, and it has since been restored and placed in a shrine nearby.

The Chinese envoy Zhou Daguan visited Angkor Thom in 1296–1297. He described a golden tower at the centre of the city, generally identified with the Bayon, and gates topped with stone heads. Angkor Thom remained the capital until the 15th century, when power shifted south after the fall of Angkor to Ayutthaya.

Timeline

• 1177: Cham forces sack the Khmer capital.
• 1181: Jayavarman VII is crowned.
• 1186: Foundation of Ta Prohm.
• 1191: Foundation of Preah Khan.
• Late 12th–early 13th century: Construction of Angkor Thom’s walls and gates and of the Bayon.
• c. 1218: Death of Jayavarman VII.
• c. 1243–1295: Reign of Jayavarman VIII; Buddhist images defaced.
• 1296–1297: Zhou Daguan visits Angkor Thom.
• 1933: The Bayon’s broken central Buddha is discovered.
• 1992: Angkor is inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Why it matters

Angkor Thom and the Bayon mark the high point of Khmer power and the last great building age of Angkor. They reflect Jayavarman VII’s turn to Mahayana Buddhism and his idea of a compassionate king watching over his people, while the Bayon’s reliefs offer a rare view of ordinary life. The faces of the Bayon remain one of the most powerful images of Cambodia’s past.