Bayon

The Bayon (Prasat Bayon) is the state temple of King Jayavarman VII at the center of Angkor Thom, in Angkor, Cambodia. Its many towers carry serene, smiling stone faces.

The Bayon at the center of Angkor Thom, seen across a pond, 2022.

Heritage site details
Also known as	Jayagiri
Location	Angkor Thom, Angkor
Country	Cambodia
Period	Late 12th or early 13th century
Historical figures	Jayavarman VII, Jean Commaille
Trails	Angkor visitor route, Saturday dance class, What Jayavarman VII built

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On this page

1. Name
2. History
3. Architecture and layout
4. The faces
5. Art and inscriptions
6. Significance and conservation
7. Visiting
8. References

On this page

1. Name
2. History
3. Architecture and layout
4. The faces
5. Art and inscriptions
6. Significance and conservation
7. Visiting
8. References

Name

Its original name was Jayagiri, "Victory Mountain." Henri Marchal called the Bayon Vnam Kantal; in Khmer inscriptions this expression, literally "central mountain," means "central temple." One account holds that the temple was renamed "Banyan Temple" and that Khmer workers restoring it mispronounced this as "Bayon."

History

Jayavarman VII, who ruled from 1181 to about 1220, was a Mahayana Buddhist king. He had the Bayon built as the state temple of his capital, Angkor Thom, at the end of the 12th or start of the 13th century. It was the last state temple built at Angkor. Though Buddhist, it joined Buddhist and Hindu deities with regional and ancestral gods, as earlier Khmer temples had done. It was first intended as a Mahayana Buddhist temple. At its consecration the king was joined in symbol to the Buddha, and at his death his ashes would have been placed beneath the Buddha image. Work began near the end of his life.

After Jayavarman VII's death, later Hindu and Theravada Buddhist kings changed and added to the temple to suit their own faiths. It was altered under Jayavarman VIII, when the empire turned back to Hinduism for a time in the mid-13th century, and Theravada Buddhist kings changed it further in later years.

For a time dense jungle hid the temple's place at the center of Angkor Thom. It was first linked, wrongly, with Yasovarman I and the ninth century. A pediment discovered in 1925 showing Avalokiteśvara identified the Bayon as Buddhist and moved its date forward by about 300 years. Its first form, and the order in which it was built, are still not settled.

Architecture and layout

The Bayon stands at the exact center of Angkor Thom. Its lack of an enclosing wall or moat is unusual; the city wall of Angkor Thom guards it instead.

Its plan consists of three levels, with square galleries on the first two levels and a circular central sanctuary above them. Because it stands at the center of a royal city, it may first have been a temple-mountain standing for Mount Meru in miniature. The plan is compact, and its design differs from that of Angkor Wat. Passages, stairs, and galleries form a maze in which the levels can be difficult to distinguish, while narrow walkways and low ceilings limit the available light. The first gallery was probably once roofed, perhaps in wood.

The circular central mass is an unusual feature in Khmer architecture. The central tower rises 43 meters (141 feet). The Chinese envoy Zhou Daguan wrote that this Golden Tower marked the center of the kingdom.

The faces

One of the carved faces on a tower of the Bayon, Angkor Thom, 2017.

The Bayon is known for its towers carved on each side with serene, smiling stone faces. The faces have broad foreheads, lowered eyes and thick lips that turn up slightly at the corners, the expression known as the "Smile of Angkor." Most towers have four faces, while some have two or three, and the central tower has more than four. The faces once looked straight ahead; many had their eyes recut to look down.

Counts of the towers and faces differ. Tourism Cambodia gives 54 towers and Encyclopedia.com gives 52. Some hold that the first design had 49 towers and others 54; 37 stand today. One theory holds that 54 towers stood for the 54 provinces of the empire. The upper terrace holds more than 200 of the giant faces, and Tourism Cambodia counts more than 2,000 large faces on the towers.

Historians disagree about whom the faces show. Some see in them portraits of Jayavarman VII. Many identify them with Avalokiteśvara, or Lokeśvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, and see in them the king's presence everywhere. Both views may hold, since many Khmer kings saw themselves as god-kings.

Art and inscriptions

The outer gallery reliefs were regarded as a major departure from earlier Angkorian examples in both subject and treatment. They are carved more deeply and less formally than those at Angkor Wat, usually in two or three rows. More than 11,000 figures fill the reliefs. Scenes of everyday life show markets, fishing, and festivals with cockfights and jugglers. Other reliefs show battles and processions. The scholar George Cœdès identified the enemies of the Khmer in the battle scenes as Cham, an identification that scholars accept.

Bas-relief in the Bayon, Angkor Thom, 2017.

The inner gallery holds mainly mythological scenes. Siemreap.net attributes the inner gallery to the Hindu king Jayavarman VIII. Vishnu appears almost only on the western side of the temple and Shiva most often on the southern side, while Buddhist images are on the north and east.

The dark interior of the central tower once held a large Buddha image sheltered by a naga (នាគ), a serpent. On the pillars of the entry towers, groups of three apsaras, celestial dancers, stand on lotuses, the middle one larger than the others.

Significance and conservation

The Bayon is a richly decorated Buddhist temple. Its reliefs combine scenes from history, mythology and everyday life. The Bayon is one of the earliest places of Buddhist worship in Cambodia and remains one of the country's main pilgrimage sites. It is part of the Angkor World Heritage property.

Between 1907 and 1992, conservation and restoration work at Angkor was carried out by several bodies, especially the École Française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO). The Japanese Government Team for the Safeguarding of Angkor (JSA) was formed in 1994 under the UNESCO/Japan Funds-in-Trust, directed by Professor Takashi Nakagawa of Waseda University. Its first phase of work, from 1995 to 1999, centered on the Bayon and the Royal Square. Angkor Enterprise describes the JSA as the main conservation body at the temple. The project works closely with the APSARA National Authority, and in 2005 it gave rise to the Japan-APSARA team for the Safeguard of Angkor.

The north library was in danger of collapse. When its foundations were taken apart in 1996, the team found that decayed building materials had caused them to sink. They packed the sand beneath with a traditional tamping tool called an "elephant's foot," added slaked lime and reused the original stones. A ceremony under the royal patronage of Queen Norodom Monineath marked the end of the work on September 29, 1999. JSA has held a symposium on the Bayon every year since 1996 with Cambodian authorities and international experts. On April 4, 2025, UNESCO marked 30 years of work by UNESCO, Japan and Cambodia to safeguard the temple.

Visiting

The Bayon stands 1.5 kilometers (0.9 miles) from both the north and south gates of Angkor Thom. A road surrounds it, and it can be entered from any side. The main entrance is from the east, where steps lead up to a terrace. The temple is part of the Small Circuit of the Angkor temples.

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