| Much
has been written of the decadence of Khmer art by this period, but the impact
of the Bayon is tremendous and unique. This `strange and disconcerting edifice,
almost exasperating in its confusion, remains undoubtedly the most amazing
piece of architecture in existence.' A rectangular base, with an open gallery
around it, supports a circular central shrine with 14 radiating chapels.
Towers rise above these chapels and above various points over the outer
gallery. The result is that the upper part of the building is like a forest
of 54 stone towers about the higher-stepped cone of the central tower. Each
of the smaller towers has four giant Buddha-likc faces smiling from its
sides, while on the middle tower these faces rise in tier above tier, the
ubiquitous god-king transformed into Bodhisattva (in Buddhism, a spiritual
master well-advanced towards nirvana).
On
a more human level, the Bayon is famous for the stone relief carvings
on its walls, which illustrate the clothing and everyday life of the ordinary
Khmer people. Here are sculpted scenes of a woman cooking over an open
fire, a mother with her children, a market-place, men playing chess, cockfighting,
battles, court processions and a woman about to give birth. They arc a
moving record of the people ruled by the phenomcnal jayavarman.
After
that great king's death in about 1215 there was little more building during
the remaining two centuries of the Khmer kingdom. During its slow decline,
the outward appearance of prosperity and glory at Angkor continued. A
written account of the city at this time has survived in the journal of
the Chinese envoy, Chou Ta Kuan, who spent a year at the Cambodian capital
in 1296-97.
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