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French photographer Amile? Kissel was the first photographer in the world to take photographs of Angkor Wat. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 infoIn 1866, he published photographs of Angkor Wat, which allowed people to witness the majesty of Angkor Wat.

In 1907, Siam returned Siem Reap, Battambang and other provinces to Cambodia. Beginning in 1908, the French Far Eastern Institute began a decades-long meticulous restoration of a large number of Angkor monuments, including Angkor Wat.

The 190-metre-wide moat of Angkor Wat acts as a barrier against the siege of the forest, so Angkor Wat is the most well-preserved than any other Angkor monument. However, it is still overgrown with trees, and some tree roots are deeply implanted in the gaps of some of the red soil bricks of the building, gradually expanding the gaps, and finally pushing the red soil bricks down, causing the building to collapse.

The restoration project involved several aspects of work: removing weeds, woods, soil, termites, stabilizing the foundation, supporting the crumbling buildings, and then applying the analytical reconstruction techniques developed by archaeologists in the reconstruction of monuments in places such as Athens, Greece and Java, Indonesia, to the reconstruction of the monuments of Angkor.

The clean-up of Angkor Wat was completed in 1911, and in the 30s, the restoration of Angkor Wat began with analytical reconstruction. The method of analytical reconstruction requires that the original materials of the site must be used to restore the site according to the original ancient construction method, and the appropriate use of substitutes is only allowed if the original is not present.

This work was halted in the sixties due to political turmoil in Cambodia and resumed in the 1990s. Wat Angkor became a Mahayana Buddhist temple in the mid-14th century because in the 13th century, King Jayavarman VII of Chenla adopted Mahayana Buddhism as the state religion.

After the Siamese invasion of Angkor in the early 15th century, the Siamese people embraced Theravada Buddhism, and Angkor Temple became a Theravada Buddhist temple. Since then, Angkor Temple has been a Theravada Theravada Buddhist temple and continues to this day.

The moat of Angkor Wat is rectangular in shape and is 1,500 meters long from east to west and 1,350 meters from north to south. The total length is 5,700 meters; The river is 190 meters wide. The outer bank of the moat is surrounded by a low sandstone fence.

There is an embankment due west and east on the moat leading to the west gate and east gate of Angkor Wat; The east embankment is an earthen embankment, the west embankment is 200 meters long, 12 meters wide, and is covered with sandstone version, and the west embankment is covered with gold in ancient times. A 30-metre-wide open space was left on the inner bank of the moat, surrounding the red stone rectangular wall of Angkor Temple.

The wall is 1,025 meters long from east to west. It is 802 meters wide and 4.5 meters high in the north-south direction. In the middle of the façade is a 230-meter-long colonnade with three tower gates in the middle. A tower gate in the middle is the mountain gate of Angkor Wat, which is connected with the two tower gates on the left and right with double eaves and double rows of stone pillar galleries. The ceiling at the top of the stone pillars on the outside (west) side of the gallery is decorated with lotus and rosette motifs.

Each tower gate has a longitudinal passage, a horizontal passage, crossed into a cross shape, a longitudinal passage to enter and exit the temple, and a horizontal passage to visit the gallery. The longitudinal passages of these three tower gates are particularly wide. It can accommodate elephants to pass through, also known as elephant gate.

The crown of the top of the three pagoda gates, although it has been incomplete, but the middle one, just higher than the left and right two, still resembles a mountain shape, more or less retains the original proportions, and the three pagodas on the top floor of Angkor Wat echo the front. tower gates on the other three sides of the wall. Smaller and simpler, and accessible only by trails. Very few people go.

Beneath the South Pagoda Gate is a statue of Vishnu. During the reign of Suyavarman II, this statue of Vishnu was originally enshrined in the top nunnery of Angkor Temple, and after the conversion of Angkor Temple to Buddhism, the top nunnery invited to protect this place. The inner (eastern) side of the gallery is a stone wall with gourd mullioned windows. The gallery wall faces the Angkor Wat gallery with a relief of the goddess

The west side is decorated with a relief of dancing girls; The east-facing side of the gallery wall is decorated with dancing or riding warriors and flying goddesses. A relief of the goddess of flying in Mennan. She is the only flying goddess in the temple who smiles toothily. The main square of the temple, surrounded by a wall, covers an area of 82 hectares.

In addition to the central temple, this square is the site of the ancient city and the royal palace, and the ruins of the royal palace are in the north of the temple. Today, the ancient city and the ancient royal palace are gone, and the land is covered with forests. Only the outlines of some streets remain.

The main road leading from the west tower gate of the temple wall to the west gate of the temple is 9.5 meters wide and about 350 meters long, 1.5 meters above the ground, and the road surface is paved with sandstone chips. There is a building called the Zangjing Pavilion on the south and north sides of the road, and there are entrances and exits at each of its cardinal points.

To the east, north of the road, between the Tibetan scripture pavilion and the temple, there is a lotus pond, blooming with various lotus flowers; The pond in the symmetrical position of the south of the road is a pool of clear water. At the end of the road is a cross balcony leading to the mountain gate of the Angkor Temple, known as the Royal Terrace. There are lions guarding the throne on the left and right. Both the pond and the royal platform were added by later generations.

At the end of the Terrace of the Cross is the central complex of Angkor Temple. It is basically composed of large, medium and small three rectangular corridors as the periphery of Sumeru, according to the order of the outer large and the inner small, the lower large and the upper small stacked into three enclosures, and the center stands five pagodas as the apex, symbolizing Mount Meru.

The American scholar Alina Manica explained that the three layers of cloisters each represent the king, the brahmin, the moon, and Vishnu. The corridor door is established on each base point of each corridor, the corridor of the upper and middle two floors, the tower door is set up in the four corners, the four pagodas of the tower door of each floor, and the central pagoda forms a five-point plum blossom pattern.

Due to the west-facing orientation of the temple, the position of the upper Sumeru seat is not in the middle of the next Sumeru seat, but slightly back to the east, leaving more space for the west gallery. For the same reason, the steps on the west side are not as steep as the steps on the east side.

The first layer of the Sumeru seat is made of sandstone and rises about 3 meters above the ground; On the Sumeru seat, there is a cloister with a height of 3 meters, which surrounds the Angkor Temple. Angkor Wat moat.

The cloister is rectangular in shape, 190 meters long in the north-south direction and 220 meters long in the east-west direction. Around the cloister, there are four tower gates and eight corridor gates, one tower gate in each of the four corners, three corridor doors in the west and east, and one corridor gate in the north and south. The tower gate and the corridor gate have two stone steps, inner and outer, which can lead to the inner courtyard of the first floor and the outer courtyard of the temple.

The inner wall of the cloister doubles as the outer wall of the temple and the giant gallery. On the outside of the cloister, there are two parallel rows of ashlar columns, one of which supports the gallery vault and the other the semi-vaulted side gallery. The double eaves vault of the cloister, covered with terracotta tiles, protects the stone carvings on the gallery walls from the sun and rain.

The stone walls of the gallery are lined with eight intricately carved giant reliefs. Each relief is more than two meters high and nearly 100 meters long. The total length is more than 700 meters, around the temple. The reliefs depict stories from two famous Indian Sanskrit epics, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, and some of the history of the Angkor dynasty.

From the northwest corner of the wall in an anti-clockwise direction, the West Gallery displays the scene of Rama, the son of Ayuta in the Ramayana, defeating the Rakshasa demon king Ravana, and the story of the war between the Rakshasa and the Pandu tribe in the Mahabharata.

The South Gallery has several reliefs related to the history of the Angkor Dynasty, including one depicting Suyavarman II wearing a crown. He sat barefoot and cross-legged on the throne, pointed to the left with his left hand, leaned on the armrest of the throne with his back hand, two attendants on the left and right, holding a long fan in his hand, fanning the wind for the king, and a palace maid behind him, holding a giant candle, which was lit during the day.

Legends. Next up are the 32 levels of hell and the 37 layers of heaven in Hindu mythology. The East Gallery depicts a famous story from the ancient Indian myth of Pranas: Vishnu stirring the sea of milk: Vishnu ordered 92 asuras and 88 gods to stir the sea of milk with ropes from the serpent king vasuki.

The ensuing scene of Vishnu defeating the asura was added by later generations in the 16th century. The North Gallery shows the victory of the eighth incarnation of Vishnu over the Asura Pana in the Black Heavens. The northwest and southwest corner corridors are smaller and generally depict stories of the Ramayana or the black sky.

Enter the west gate of the cloister on the first floor, and step into a Tianzi pavilion called "Thousand Buddha Pavilion", surrounded by a cloister. The Tianzi Pavilion is divided into four courtyards by the central cross verandah, and its ground is about one meter lower than the cross verandah and the cloister. The north and south corridors of Tianzi Pavilion are about 3 meters wide. The outer side is closed, and the inner side stands with double rows of square columns.

The cross verandah consists of two verandahs intersecting to form a cross. Each verandah is composed of three parts: the middle corridor, the left corridor and the right corridor, supported by four rows of square columns. Two rows of inner columns support the middle corridor, and two rows of outer columns support their respective side corridors. The central corridor is about 3 meters wide and 4.5 meters high, with walls in the upper half and square columns in the lower half.

At the bottom of the stone pillar there is a relief of the flying woman. Some of the pillars and walls still have crimson lacquer, giving a glimpse of the glory of Angkor Wat more than 800 years ago. The roof of the main gallery is arched in the shape of an egg tip, and it is covered with terracotta tiles. The left and right corridors are about 2.5 meters wide and 3 meters high, and the total width of the verandah is about 8 meters.

For centuries. Worshippers left many Buddha statues in the pavilion, but most of them have now been removed. There are also many inscriptions extolling the good deeds of worshippers, mostly in Khmer and some in Burmese. The courtyard outside the Tianzi Painting Pavilion is the inner courtyard of the first layer of the temple, such as the anti-sangzi shape.

In the northwest and southwest corners of the first floor of the enclosure, there is a scripture pavilion each. The northern, middle and south corridors of the Tianzi Pavilion each have stone steps and corridors leading to the second layer of the temple in the west.

The second platform is five and a half meters higher than the first platform, and there is also a rectangular corridor around it, which is about 115 meters long in the east-west direction and about 100 meters wide in the north-south direction. There are no stone pillars in the cloister, there is no side corridor, and the two walls are distributed with vertical gourd lattice windows, and the relief of the gods is interspersed. There are ten corridors in the cloister, one in each of the four corners, one in the southeast, one in the north, and three in the west.

Each corridor door has two stone steps inside and outside, which leads to the first inner courtyard and the second inner courtyard. The three corridor gates on the west side lead to the Tianzi Pavilion of the first enclosure. The tower gates at the four corners of the cloister on the second floor, each with a pagoda standing on the top; Due to disrepair, most of the tops of the four pagodas are missing, and only two or three floors of the nine-story pagoda remain.

In the southwest and northwest corners of the inner courtyard of the second enclosure, there is a small scripture pavilion. The two pavilions are connected by a north-south road of a cross-shaped balcony, and the east and west roads of the balconies connect the west gate of the cloister on the second floor and the west gate of the cloister on the third floor. This cross balcony was also added by later generations.

The third pedestal of the temple, the innermost and highest pedestal, called Bagan, is square, shaped like a pyramid, but it is made up of two sections, and rises majestically from the ground for 12 meters, which is twice as high as the first and second tiers. There are 12 steps around the pedestal, 3 on each side of the south, south, west, and northwest, and the 12 steps are very steep, and you must use your hands and feet at the same time, crawling to climb, symbolizing the hardships of ascending to the sky.

The Tianzi-shaped heavy eaves gallery on the steps, 60 meters square, stand five pagodas on it, each of the four corners has a tower door, in the middle stands a 42-meter-high main tower, the top of the tower is 65 meters above the ground, the main tower is taller than the four corner towers; Five pagodas, arranged in a five-point plum blossom style. There is a shrine in each tower.

The shrine of the main pagoda, the original four-way, in the middle for a statue of Vishnu, after the conversion to Theravada Buddhism, the Buddha statue in the middle, surrounded by the Buddha statue wall on three sides. Between the tower gates, between the tower gate and the main tower, it is connected by the Tianzi Gallery.

The Tianzi Gallery is composed of a cloister and a cross verandah, the cloister is divided into two parts: the main corridor and the side corridor, the outer wall of the main corridor is distributed with vertical gourd mullioned windows, and the four base points of due east, west, south and north are distributed rectangular windows without railings. The inner side of the main corridor is a row of columns, the main corridor has a vault five meters high, and the inner side of the corridor is lined with columns, and the semi-vault is three meters high.

The cross verandah has a corridor, two side corridors, a vault, two half vaults, and two rows of ashlar columns on the left and right. The vault and semi-vault of the Tianzi Corridor are paved with terracotta tiles. The ceiling at the top of the gallery is carved with a lion's head, and the entrance to the gallery and shrine has carved lintels and pediments.

There are corridor doors in the middle of the four sides of the southeast, northwest and northwest sides of the cloister, and each corridor door has steps to go down to the second floor; The tower gate at the four corners of the cloister has two steps leading down to the second floor.

The layout of Angkor Wat is very symmetrical and rhythmic. The Angkor Wat complex has two forms of symmetry, mirror symmetry and rotational symmetry. From the moat, the outer wall to the central building complex, the central axis that runs through the east and west is the center, showing an accurate mirror symmetry: even the two scripture pavilions and two pools in the north and south of the central axis of the square avenue are also symmetrically distributed on both sides.

Looking at Angkor Temple from the Plaza Boulevard, you can see a tall pagoda in the middle, and two smaller towers are symmetrically foiled on the left and right, forming a mountain-shaped shape. The five-son plum blossom pagoda group on the top floor of the temple, in addition to the central axis symmetry, has two more rigorous rotational symmetry: from the east, west, south and north four directions, presenting the same mountain-shaped composition, in a 90-degree rotational symmetry.

There is also a second group of 90-degree rotational symmetry: from the northwest, southwest, southeast, northeast, and four diagonal directions, it is also the same mountain-shaped composition. Only in this way can the five pagodas be arranged in such a way that they can have the maximum symmetry, repeating the same theme in all directions.

The pedestal structure, originated from Greece, was introduced to India, and after being introduced to Chenla from India, it evolved into one of the important features of Angkor Wat architecture. It may be because Cambodia often suffers from the flooding of the Mae Kong River, and today many houses are erected on elevated roads to avoid flooding, and many monuments in Angkor have a foundation.

At the beginning of the 10th century, the Bakken Monastery had a five-story pedestal, and in the middle of the 10th century, the Hanging Palace had a four-tiered pedestal. At first, the pedestal of Angkor may have been sheltered from floods, but later the pedestal developed into an important part of Angkor's architectural art, and high-rise buildings that could not reach the river, such as the small Tibetan scripture pavilion in the inner courtyard on the second and third floors of Angkor Wat, also had a pedestal.

In the mid-13th century, the triple pedestal and five central pagodas of Angkor Wat became the symbol of Mount Meru in Hindu mythology. Mount Meru has five peaks. Although the Bakken Mountain Temple and the Sky Palace have multiple pedestals, after all, there is only one central pagoda, which does not fully represent Mount Meru. There are five pagodas on the top floor of Angkor Wat, which completely symbolize the five peaks of Mount Meru. (To be continued.) )

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