| Built in the 11th century by king Udayadityavarman
II (1050-1066), the temple, dedicated to Shiva, was located near the
royal palace, part a city plan of Angkor that was centuries away from
being enclosed by the walls of Angkor Thom with its
Bayon in the centre.
The mountain temple stands 34.8 metre high without the tower that no
longer is there. It was crowned by a bronze tower according
to the Chinese diplomat Zhou Daguan, who visited the Angkor Thom at the end of
the 13th century.
Restoration works prevent access to the temple. This restoration
started in 1908 by entangling the structure from the vegetation. In 1972,
the process was still ongoing. Workers had dismantled the whole building, numbering
each stone to enable them to reconstruct the temple, when the war forced
them to leave. After the defeat of the Khmer Rouges, the documents related
to the reconstruction had disappeared. Since 1995 it is being puzzled back
together without a blueprint but with the help of French expertise and the
Cambodians from the original restoration team.
The Baphuon was the largest temple of its time and only Angkor Wat
would surpass it in the following century. It went through a major remake
project by the end of the 15th century. Where it was originally
built as a place of Hindu worship, dedicated to Shiva, it was transformed
into a Buddha temple in a most impressive way.
A reclining Buddha was built on the second level of the western side. This
sculpture was created by demolishing some portions of the temple to use
the stones. This is how the 8-meter tower on top of the monument may have
disappeared.
This Buddha aggravated a problem that had affected the structure from the
beginning. The three-tier pyramid was erected on an immense sand-pie as
fill. Earlier, Angkor builders had successfully used this technique but the Baphuon
exceeded the limits of what the
technique could handle. The builders had created one of Angkor's biggest but
also most precarious monuments.
Because of the instability of the sand fill, due to the weight of the
monument and the rain filtering through the stones, portions of the temple
collapsed. Throughout the Angkor era repairs were necessary to prevent the
structure from collapsing. By the late 1400s, it probably was in pitiable
condition, which might explain why builders of that time had no misgivings
about demolishing some sections to build the Buddha.
|
A
pen and watercolour rendering of the Baphuon temple as it might have
appeared in the 11th century, painted by Lucien Fournereau in
1889.