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This flawed masterwork takes us up to the buildings of the period that have made Angkor world famous and to the reign of the usurping Suryavarman 11, the most powerful monarch in southern Asia in his time. His rule, from A.D. 1113 to 1 150 followed a period of turmoil and his first years were spent in a series of campaigns to consolidate his empire. He had less success when he tried to extend its boundaries, and so he turned to building. The Thommanon on the royal avenue near the East Baray was built in about 1120, but Suryavarman's supreme work is Angkor Wat, the largest religious building ever built, a tremendous temple-mountain of stone covering the same area as the Great Pyramid of Egypt, and almost every surface is covered with sculpture of renewed vigour and exquisite detail. |
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Angkor
Wat is a monument to Suryavarman himself as god-king and to the great
benign god Vishnu, whom this king worshipped in preference to Shiva. During
the previous century, Khmer kings had turned more and more to Buddhism
for their private religion, while sustaining their overt Hindu obligations
as Head of State of a religious kingdom. These obligations included the
building of a temple-mountain by each king, but it is noticeable that
those built after the Baphuon were comparatively small until the arrival
of a ruler who was a personal adherent of one of the Hindu pantheon. |
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