Angkor Wat: Suryavarman II and the World's Largest Temple

Angkor Wat is a vast temple complex near Siem Reap in Cambodia, built for the Khmer king Suryavarman II during his reign from 1113 to about 1150. Dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu and designed as a model of the cosmos, it is the largest religious monument in the world and the most famous achievement of the Khmer Empire. Later turned to Buddhist worship, it is today the national symbol of Cambodia and appears on its flag.

Background: the Khmer Empire at Angkor

The Khmer Empire traced its origins to Jayavarman II, who in 802 proclaimed himself universal monarch on the Kulen hills north of the Tonle Sap lake (see Founding of the Khmer Empire). Over the following three centuries his successors built a series of capitals and state temples in the Angkor region, supported by rice farming and an extensive system of reservoirs (baray) and canals.

Khmer kings presented themselves as rulers linked to the gods. Each major king built a temple-mountain, a stepped pyramid representing Mount Meru, the mountain at the centre of the universe in Hindu and Buddhist cosmology. By the early 12th century the Angkor region was one of the most densely built landscapes in the pre-industrial world.

Suryavarman II

Suryavarman II came to power in 1113 after defeating rival claimants, including his great-uncle, King Dharanindravarman I. His inscriptions describe a decisive battle in which he seized the throne. He was consecrated by the senior Brahmin priest Divakarapandita, who had served several earlier kings.

Suryavarman II was an ambitious ruler. He restored diplomatic relations with Song China, sending an embassy in 1116, and waged wars against neighbouring states. His armies campaigned repeatedly against Dai Viet in northern Vietnam from 1128 onwards without lasting success, and in 1145 Khmer forces occupied Vijaya, a capital of Champa, before being driven out a few years later. These wars were costly and, in the longer term, helped provoke Cham revenge.

Unlike most of his predecessors, who honoured the god Shiva, Suryavarman II made Vishnu the focus of his state religion. After his death he received the posthumous name Paramavishnuloka, “he who has gone to the supreme world of Vishnu”, and the temple was probably known in his time by a name connected with Vishnu.

Building the temple

Construction probably began soon after Suryavarman II’s accession and continued for about three decades. No building accounts survive, so the organisation of the work must be reconstructed from the temple itself and from comparison with other Khmer sites.

The temple’s core is built of laterite, a reddish iron-rich material, faced with sandstone. Estimates suggest that 5 to 10 million sandstone blocks were used, many weighing more than a tonne. The stone came from quarries at the foot of the Kulen hills, roughly 40 kilometres away. Studies published in the 2010s identified a network of canals and quarry sites that suggest blocks were moved largely by water and on rafts, with elephants, rollers and human labour used on land.

Thousands of workers must have been involved, including quarrymen, carvers, labourers drawn from obligations owed to the crown, and skilled sculptors. Some reliefs in the north-east corner of the gallery were left unfinished and were only completed in the 16th century, suggesting that work stopped around the time of the king’s death.

Design, symbolism and reliefs

Angkor Wat is laid out as a rectangle surrounded by a moat about 190 metres wide. The moat and outer wall together enclose some 160 hectares. A causeway leads from the west across the moat to a long entrance gallery, then along a raised walkway to the temple proper.

The temple itself rises in three concentric galleries, each higher than the last. At the top stand five towers arranged in a quincunx, four at the corners and one in the centre, shaped like lotus buds. The central tower rises about 65 metres above the ground. The whole design represents Mount Meru, home of the gods, with its five peaks; the walls stand for the mountains at the edge of the world and the moat for the cosmic ocean.

Angkor Wat faces west, unlike most Khmer temples, which face east. Many scholars connect this with Vishnu and with the west as the direction of death, suggesting the temple also served as the king’s funerary monument. Others argue that the orientation simply suited a temple to Vishnu. Researchers have also noted that at the spring equinox the sun rises over the central tower when seen from the western entrance, though more detailed claims about astronomical codes in the temple’s measurements remain debated.

The outer gallery of the third enclosure carries one of the longest continuous series of stone reliefs in the world, running for about 800 metres. Among the best-known scenes are:

• The Churning of the Ocean of Milk: gods and demons pull on the serpent Vasuki to churn the ocean and release the elixir of immortality, with Vishnu at the centre.
• The Battle of Kurukshetra: from the Indian epic the Mahabharata.
• The Battle of Lanka: from the Ramayana, showing Rama’s war against the demon king Ravana.
• The historical procession: Suryavarman II seated in state and then leading his army, one of the few portraits of a Khmer king identified by inscription.
• Heavens and hells: the rewards and punishments awaiting the dead.

The walls and pillars throughout the temple are also decorated with nearly 2,000 figures of apsaras and devatas, female divine beings shown with elaborate jewellery and hairstyles.

From Hindu temple to rediscovery

After Suryavarman II’s death the Khmer Empire faced turmoil. In 1177 forces from Champa attacked and plundered the capital (see Cham Sack of Angkor). Jayavarman VII, who restored Khmer power, was a Mahayana Buddhist and built a new walled capital at Angkor Thom, just north of Angkor Wat (see Angkor Thom and the Bayon).

Over the following centuries Theravada Buddhism spread among the Khmer people, and Angkor Wat gradually became a Buddhist temple. Buddha images were installed in its galleries, and monks lived around it. The Chinese envoy Zhou Daguan, who visited Angkor in 1296–1297, left a vivid description of the city, although his account of the temple is brief.

The Khmer court moved away from Angkor after Ayutthaya’s attack in 1431 and the shift of power southwards to the Phnom Penh area (see Fall of Angkor). Angkor Wat, however, was never abandoned. Cambodian kings and pilgrims continued to visit it, and inscriptions from the 16th and 17th centuries record donations and pious works.

Portuguese and Spanish travellers described the temple in the late 16th century, and a Japanese pilgrim drew a plan of it in the 17th century, believing it to be the Jetavana monastery of the Buddha. In the 1860s the French naturalist Henri Mouhot’s travel account, published after his death, made Angkor famous in Europe. The French School of the Far East (EFEO) began systematic clearance and conservation in the early 20th century.

During the conflicts of the 1970s and 1980s, conservation was largely interrupted, although the temple survived without major damage. In 1992 Angkor was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger, from which it was removed in 2004 after international conservation efforts.

Key people

• Suryavarman II (r. 1113–c. 1150): the Khmer king who commissioned Angkor Wat and made Vishnu the focus of royal religion.
• Divakarapandita: the senior Brahmin priest who consecrated Suryavarman II and served several kings before him.
• Zhou Daguan: Chinese envoy whose account of his stay in 1296–1297 is the only detailed eyewitness description of Angkor at its height.
• Henri Mouhot (1826–1861): French naturalist whose posthumously published travel writings brought Angkor to wide European attention.

Angkor Wat in modern Cambodia

Angkor Wat has become far more than an archaeological site. An image of the temple has appeared on Cambodian flags since the 19th century, and it features on banknotes, in political symbolism and in national celebrations. Every regime in modern Cambodia, whatever its ideology, has claimed the temple as a symbol of Khmer greatness.

It is also a living religious place. Buddhist monks still use the site, and Cambodians visit it during festivals such as the Khmer New Year in April. At the same time, the growth of mass tourism since the 1990s has brought both income and pressure, including wear on stone surfaces and heavy demand for groundwater in nearby Siem Reap. Conservation is managed by the Cambodian APSARA National Authority together with international teams from countries including France, Japan, Germany and India.

Modern research continues to change the picture. Airborne laser scanning (lidar) surveys carried out in 2012 and 2015 revealed traces of a grid of streets, ponds and house mounds within and around the temple enclosure, showing that Angkor Wat stood within a densely occupied urban landscape rather than in empty forest.

By the numbers

Timeline

• 802: Jayavarman II founds the Khmer state at Phnom Kulen.
• 1113: Suryavarman II takes the throne; work on Angkor Wat begins around this time.
• 1116: Khmer embassy to Song China.
• 1145: Khmer forces occupy Vijaya in Champa.
• c. 1150: Death of Suryavarman II; some reliefs left unfinished.
• 1177: Cham forces sack the Khmer capital.
• 1296–1297: Zhou Daguan visits Angkor.
• 1431: Ayutthaya captures Angkor; the court later moves south.
• 1860s: Henri Mouhot’s account popularises Angkor in Europe.
• 1992: Angkor inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Why it matters

Angkor Wat is the greatest single monument of the Khmer Empire and one of the supreme achievements of world architecture. It shows how a medieval Southeast Asian state could organise labour, engineering and art on an enormous scale to express a religious vision of kingship. Its transformation from a Hindu royal temple into a Buddhist shrine, and then into a national emblem, makes it a living link between Cambodia’s past and present.