Angkor Wat: Khmer State Temple and Buddhist Sanctuary
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.8
- Popularity
- Very High
- Country
- Cambodia
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Unclassified
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Temple
On this page21 sections
History
Angkor Wat is a Khmer temple complex in Krong Siem Reap, Cambodia, constructed during the reign of King Suryavarman II in the first half of the twelfth century. It was commissioned as the king’s state temple in Yaśodharapura, the capital of the Khmer Empire, and dedicated to Vishnu within the Vaishnava Hindu tradition, which centres on Vishnu and his incarnations. The temple formed the culmination of Suryavarman II’s building programme and was intended to glorify both the deity and the king.
Foundation and royal purpose
Suryavarman II ruled during a period of territorial expansion and extensive royal temple construction. Angkor Wat was built conventionally between 1113 and 1150, although construction may have begun around 1122 and continued for several decades. Decorative work remained incomplete, probably because of the king’s death. The temple’s original name is uncertain. Vrah Viṣṇuloka or Parama Viṣṇuloka, meaning Vishnu’s sacred or supreme dwelling, has been proposed.
A tradition identifies the Brahmin chief priest Divākarapaṇḍita, who crowned Suryavarman II, as the adviser or designer responsible for the temple’s conception. This attribution remains a tradition rather than a securely established fact. Angkor Wat may also have served as Suryavarman II’s funerary temple or mausoleum. Its westward orientation, the counter-clockwise order of its reliefs, associations with funerary ritual, and a possible deposit beneath the central shrine have all been connected with that interpretation, but the funerary purpose remains uncertain.
The temple precinct and its communities
The area around Angkor Wat was occupied before the temple was built. Radiocarbon evidence indicates settlement by the eleventh century, while habitation evidence places some occupation within the precinct as early as the sixth century. The residential landscape developed through several phases, reaching its final form in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
The outer enclosure was not used only by priests or members of the royal elite. It contained low-density residential settlement, probably accommodating temple personnel and other workers in modest structures that were often short-lived. The precinct may have held about 283 buildings and between 250 and 300 ponds, with a population estimated at approximately 3,000 to 4,300 people. Religious activity depended on Brahmins, assistants, pilgrims, ascetics, musicians, dancers, singers, guards, gardeners, cooks, milk producers, accountants, textile workers, carpenters, masons, architects, and other specialists.
Angkor Wat’s waterworks formed part of the wider hydraulic system of Angkor. Canals, ponds, reservoirs, embankments, and drainage works stored, distributed, and collected water while supporting agriculture. The temple’s construction was accompanied by the creation or alteration of this infrastructure, which connected the monument to the wider urban and agricultural landscape.
Decline of Angkor and Buddhist transformation
From the fourteenth century, Angkor’s population and political importance declined gradually. Hydraulic deterioration, soil degradation, demographic change, climatic instability, and prolonged droughts, especially around 1350 to 1370 and 1400 to 1420, weakened the urban system. The transfer of political power southward and the attack by the Ayutthaya kingdom in 1431 accelerated the decline, although Angkor was not abandoned in a single event.
Angkor Wat continued to be used by Theravada Buddhist monks and pilgrims, and its ponds and other facilities remained in use. From the late thirteenth or fourteenth century, the complex was gradually transformed from a Hindu temple into a Buddhist sanctuary. This change altered the temple’s contents without entirely replacing its earlier architecture. Buddha images, inscriptions, offerings, and shrines were added, while many Hindu sculptures remained.
In the sixteenth century, King Ang Chan placed Buddhist images in an unfinished gallery and sponsored restoration. An inscription dated 1546 records the resumption of stone-carving work because the earlier king, identified with Suryavarman II, had left two panels incomplete. Later inscriptions describe restoration under Ang Chan’s grandson Satha. Walls were repaired, roofs were reconstructed, and the tops of approximately sixty towers were reportedly gilded.
The sixteenth- and seventeenth-century restoration of Angkor Wat as a Theravada sanctuary served religious and political purposes. Khmer rulers used the monument to associate themselves with the ancient royal tradition and reinforce their legitimacy during conflicts with neighbouring states. By the seventeenth century, Angkor Wat was a major Buddhist pilgrimage centre attracting visitors from beyond Cambodia, including Japan. Many Buddhist images were later removed, damaged, or dispersed during colonial interventions and twentieth-century collecting.
European accounts and modern investigation
European visitors recorded Angkor Wat before its nineteenth-century popularisation in the West. Portuguese missionaries and merchants described the monument in the late sixteenth century, including António da Madalena, who visited around 1585 or 1586, and Diogo do Couto, who later gave an account. The ruins nevertheless remained known locally and regionally, so the idea that Angkor Wat had been entirely lost before European attention is inaccurate.
Henri Mouhot encountered the Angkor ruins in January 1861 and helped popularize them in Europe through the posthumous publication of his travel writings and drawings. After the French mission was established in Phnom Penh in 1864, French administrators and scholars began systematic investigation of Angkor. The Archaeological Mission of Indochina was founded in 1898 and became the École française d’Extrême-Orient in 1900.
Institutional conservation began in 1908 with Conservation d’Angkor, established by the École française d’Extrême-Orient. Research, clearance, conservation, and restoration continued until 1975, including major campaigns during the 1960s. Viktor Goloubew investigated Angkor repeatedly between 1923 and 1931 and published illustrated studies of its architecture, sculpture, and relief galleries.
Conservation was interrupted by the Cambodian Civil War and Khmer Rouge rule. Work was abandoned during the 1970s, and some remaining wooden elements were used as firewood. Conflict caused limited damage to reliefs, while looting in the late 1980s and early 1990s removed sculptures and damaged earlier reconstructions. The Archaeological Survey of India carried out restoration between 1986 and 1992. Broader restoration resumed during the 1990s, although some early French and Indian methods, including the use of chemicals and cement, later attracted criticism.
Heritage protection and continuing research
Angkor was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1992 under cultural criteria i, ii, iii, and iv. It was placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger at the same time and removed from that list in 2004 after international conservation measures. A protected zoning system was established in 1994, the APSARA Authority was created in 1995, and Cambodia’s heritage-protection law came into force in 1996.
The International Coordinating Committee for the Safeguarding and Development of the Historic Site of Angkor was established in 1993 through cooperation among Cambodia, UNESCO, France, and Japan. It coordinates archaeological and conservation projects and establishes technical standards for work in the Angkor region. Cambodian and international institutions from France, Japan, India, Germany, the United States, China, Italy, and other countries have contributed to stabilising entrances and galleries, conserving reliefs and sculptures, repairing drainage and roofs, and training Cambodian specialists.
Aerial photography, radar, LiDAR, and remote sensing used during the 2000s and 2010s mapped roads, canals, ponds, settlements, and temple remains across Angkor. A regional survey covering approximately 3,000 square kilometres identified 168 temple structures, 94 of them accessible through the jungle, and traced a large water and transport network. Research near Angkor Wat has also identified buried structures, demolished towers, a possible wooden-fortification complex, roads, ponds, mounds, and residential areas. These discoveries have clarified that the precinct had a complex settlement history alongside its ceremonial functions.
Angkor Wat has been a major Cambodian national symbol since the nineteenth century. Its image appeared on Cambodian national emblems and the national flag from 1863 onward, representing Khmer civilisation and Cambodian cultural identity.
Remains
Angkor Wat occupies a large rectangular enclosure approximately 1,500 by 1,300 metres, covering about 162.6 hectares. The complex combines the Khmer temple-mountain, a sacred structure formed by elevated platforms and summit towers, with the galleried temple. Three progressively higher rectangular terraces and a central group of five towers represent Mount Meru, the cosmic mountain at the centre of Hindu and Buddhist cosmology. Walls, galleries, and the surrounding water similarly express a sacred landscape of mountain ranges and ocean.
Outer enclosure and approaches
Enclosure wall and moat
The rectangular outer wall measures approximately 1,024 to 1,025 metres from east to west and 802 metres from north to south, and rises about 4.5 metres. It encloses approximately 82 hectares containing the central temple, former residential and service areas, streets, and the former royal palace area north of the temple. A moat between 190 and 200 metres wide surrounds the wall. It extends about 1.5 kilometres east to west and 1.3 kilometres north to south, has a perimeter of more than five kilometres, and is separated from the wall by an open strip of ground about 30 metres wide.
The moat connected with Angkor’s wider water network. It stored water, helped regulate hydraulic conditions, supported local domestic and agricultural needs, and helped stabilise groundwater beneath the temple platform during alternating wet and dry seasons. Causeways cross it from the east and west. The eastern approach is an earth embankment, while the western approach is a sandstone causeway about 200 metres long and 12 metres wide.
Western entrance
Gopuras, monumental entrance pavilions through an enclosure wall, stand at the cardinal points. The western gopura is the largest and has three partially ruined towers. Its southern tower contains Ta Reach, an eight-armed image of Vishnu that may originally have stood in the central shrine. The entrance galleries have closed inner walls and outer rows of square columns. Their passages are large enough for elephants, giving rise to the term elephant gates. Lotus rosettes decorate the ceilings, while the walls contain dancing figures, animals, devatas, and windows shaped like stone balusters.
Causeway and libraries
A sandstone causeway about 350 metres long leads from the western gopura to the main temple. Raised above the surrounding ground, it has six sets of steps on each side and naga balustrades. A naga is a serpent being in South and Southeast Asian religious traditions. Two library buildings stand beside the causeway, with ponds between the libraries and the central temple. The ponds and the cruciform terrace linking the causeway to the central complex were later additions. Stone lions guard the terrace, which was associated with ceremonial movement between the outer and inner areas.
Central temple and upper sanctuary
Galleries and terraces
The inner temple rises through three rectangular galleries and terraces. The lowest terrace measures approximately 197 by 215 metres, while the outer gallery measures about 187 by 215 metres. The first platform rises about three metres above the ground and is surrounded by a gallery approximately 180 to 187 metres from north to south and 215 to 216 metres from east to west. It contains corner pavilions, entrance galleries, columned half-galleries, and extensive bas-reliefs.
The second enclosure measures approximately 100 by 115 metres and rises about 5.5 metres above the first platform. Its galleries contain devata reliefs, entrance pavilions, corner towers, libraries, and a northern echo chamber. The highest enclosure, known as the Bakan, is about 60 metres square and rises roughly 30 metres above the second level. Twelve steep stairways lead to it, three on each side. The principal stairways have approximately 39 steps and inclinations reaching about 70 degrees.
Central towers and shrine
The upper platform contains four corner towers surrounding the central sanctuary tower. This quincunx, an arrangement of four elements around a fifth central element, is conventionally understood as the five peaks of Mount Meru. The central tower rises approximately 42 to 43 metres above its platform and about 65 metres above ground level. Its original shrine housed Vishnu; after the conversion to Theravada Buddhism, the shrine was altered to accommodate Buddha images.
A deep vertical shaft or pit lies beneath the central shrine. Excavations in 1934 reached approximately 25 metres through sand and recovered a foundation deposit rather than major treasure. The deposit consisted of two crystals enclosed in laterite brick and two circular gold leaves, each about 18 centimetres in diameter and together weighing about 65 grams.
Orientation and construction
Angkor Wat is unusually aligned westward rather than eastward. The orientation has been interpreted as a funerary arrangement, an association with Vishnu, or an astronomical and cosmological design. Sightlines associated with sunrise at the equinoxes and solstices are also present, although their interpretation remains debated. The terraces, galleries, towers, and stairways are balanced along east-west and north-south axes. Because the complex faces west, the upper platforms are positioned somewhat eastward above the lower ones, leaving greater depth on the western side. The western stairways are consequently less steep than those on the other sides.
Fine-grained grey sandstone is the principal visible material. Laterite was used for outer walls, foundations, platforms, and concealed structural elements. Most sandstone came from quarries on the Kulen plateau, approximately 34 to 40 kilometres northeast of Angkor. More than fifty ancient quarries and canal networks leading toward Angkor have been identified. Construction may have required about five million tonnes of sandstone, with individual blocks weighing up to 1.5 tonnes.
Masonry was generally laid without mortar, using closely fitted blocks held partly by their own weight. Some joints used dowel-like connections or dovetail fittings. Circular holes, commonly about 2.5 centimetres wide and three centimetres deep, occur in many blocks, although their precise function remains uncertain. Proposed uses include lifting devices, temporary wooden pegs, and metal connections.
The galleries use sandstone columns, closed walls, half-galleries, and double roof forms. Main barrel-vaulted galleries are supported by inner rows of columns, while outer rows support narrower half-galleries. Roofs were covered with fired clay tiles, and some galleries retained wooden ceilings or ceiling panels. Corbelled roofs were formed by successive stone courses projecting inward until they met. Walls are commonly one to 1.5 metres thick and may be made from sandstone, laterite, or brick. Traces of paint, plaster, glazed tiles, and decorated tiles show that the monument was more colourful in antiquity than its present stone surfaces suggest.
Reliefs, images, and inscriptions
Narrative bas-reliefs
The outer gallery contains eight principal narrative bas-relief compositions arranged in a counter-clockwise sequence. A bas-relief is a shallow carving in which figures project only partly from a wall. The panels extend for roughly 700 to 800 metres and cover approximately 1,000 to 1,400 square metres. Their subjects include episodes from the Ramayana, Mahabharata, Harivamsa, and Hindu mythology, together with scenes associated with Suryavarman II.
Major compositions portray the Battle of Kurukshetra, the Battle of Lanka, the Churning of the Sea of Milk, Suryavarman II’s army and procession, the Hindu heavens and hells, the battle of the gods and asuras, and Vishnu’s victories. In the Churning of the Sea of Milk, Vishnu directs devas and asuras as they use the serpent Vasuki to churn the cosmic ocean. A later addition shows Vishnu defeating asuras, and eighteenth-century Buddhist inscriptions occur in this part of the gallery.
The historical gallery depicts Suryavarman II in royal and military settings. One relief shows the crowned king seated with attendants, while another presents soldiers and officers travelling on foot, horseback, and elephants. The scenes place royal military authority alongside the divine imagery of Vishnu. The reliefs range from very shallow to deeply projecting forms, using horizontal registers, overlapping figures, changes of scale, and carefully arranged movement to create narrative sequence and visual rhythm.
Devatas and apsaras
More than 1,796 devata depictions have been documented, while other counts identify approximately 2,000 celestial female figures, including apsaras. An apsara is a celestial female figure associated with dance and divine beauty. Smaller apsara motifs decorate columns and walls, while larger full-body devatas occupy the galleries and upper levels. Their hairstyles, headdresses, clothing, jewellery, poses, and floral ornaments vary considerably. Many carvings are unfinished, with some showing only heads or outlines and others lacking completed clothing or bodies.
Buddhist additions and later drawings
The complex contains later Buddhist imagery, including Buddha reliefs, seated ascetics, and figures protected by the serpent deity Muchalinda. Numerous freestanding Buddha images were installed in the galleries. Surviving examples include damaged figures without heads or limbs. The Preah Poan, or Thousand Buddhas, gallery is a cruciform cloister whose four courtyards may originally have held water. Pilgrims left Buddha images and inscriptions there over many centuries, and inscriptions survive in Khmer, Burmese, and Japanese.
Digital image processing in the 2010s revealed around 200 faint post-Angkorian wall drawings. They include boats, buildings, musical instruments, animals, deities, apsaras, and the monkey hero Hanuman. Some may be visitor or pilgrim drawings, while those near the sanctuary may relate to later restoration activity.
Residential and service precinct
The outer enclosure once contained residential and service buildings, streets, and a royal palace north of the temple. These secular structures were built mainly of perishable wood and have disappeared, while street outlines, mounds, depressions, and ponds remain. The residential precinct followed an orthogonal grid of raised mounds and depressions. Mounds probably supported houses, while depressions held ponds. Excavated materials include local and Chinese ceramics, such as bowls, boxes, and low-quality globular vessels dating broadly from the Northern Song to the Ming periods.
Conservation of the remains
Conservation has addressed vegetation, fungi, sandstone weathering, salt deterioration, microbial biofilms, unstable foundations, damaged columns, collapsed sections, drainage, roofs, stairways, reliefs, sculptures, the western entrance, upper galleries, northern library, ponds, causeway, and cruciform terrace. Gilded stucco on towers, gilding on relief figures, wooden doors and ceiling panels, bronze wall coverings, and many sculptures have disappeared through deterioration, looting, removal, or later rebuilding. Replicas have been installed where original sculptures were lost or too fragile to remain exposed.
