Latest / The Khmer Empire: The Lost Civilization Behind Angkor Wat — Fexingo History / Angkor Thom: Jayavarman VII's City of Giants
Transcript
- Lucas: We've talked a lot about Angkor Wat and the baray system and the devaraja cult, but I think it's time we looked at the city that actually functioned as the Khmer capital for the longest stretch — Angkor Thom. And it's not just a larger version of what came before. It's something else entirely. Luna: I know Angkor Thom is the walled city with the Bayon temple, but I've never really understood how it all fits together. Lucas: Right. So Angkor Thom means 'Great City' in Khmer. It was built by Jayavarman VII in the late 12th century, right after the Cham invasion of 1177. That invasion was a near-death experience for the Khmer Empire — the Chams sailed up the Tonlé Sap, sacked the old capital of Yasodharapura, and killed the reigning king. Jayavarman VII was probably a prince or a military commander at the time, and he rallied the Khmer forces, defeated the Chams in a naval battle on the Great Lake, and then set about building a new capital that would be the ultimate statement of Khmer power. Luna: So he built it with defense in mind. Lucas: Absolutely. The city is surrounded by a 12-kilometre-long wall, and outside that, a moat that's a hundred metres wide. Inside, the city grid is laid out with precise north-south, east-west axes. At the centre is the Bayon temple, but the city also has the Terrace of the Elephants, the Terrace of the Leper King, and several other major structures. It's a planned city, not an accretion — and it's huge. The enclosed area is about nine square kilometres, which makes it larger than any contemporary European city, including Paris at the time. Lucas: But what makes Angkor Thom truly unique architecturally is the Bayon. Instead of a single central tower, the Bayon is a cluster of 54 gopura-style towers, each one carved with four giant faces — 216 faces in total, all serene, all smiling slightly down at you. The faces are generally believed to be representations of Lokeshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, but they also bear a striking resemblance to Jayavarman VII himself. It's like the king is watching over the city from every direction. Luna: Wait, so it's a Mahayana Buddhist temple? I thought the Khmer kings were all about the devaraja and Shiva linga. Lucas: That's the interesting part. Jayavarman VII was a Mahayana Buddhist — he broke with the Shaivite devaraja tradition that had dominated since Jayavarman II. He built Angkor Thom as a Buddhist city, with the Bayon as its spiritual centre. And it wasn't just about temples. He also built hospitals — 102 of them across the empire, according to inscriptions — and rest houses along the main roads. His reign was a kind of Buddhist welfare state, which is pretty remarkable for the 12th century. Luna: What happened to all that Buddhist stuff after he died? Lucas: A lot of it was deliberately defaced or recarved. The later Hindu kings — especially Jayavarman VIII in the 13th century — launched an iconoclastic campaign. They smashed Buddha images, recarved Buddhist scenes into Hindu ones, and rededicated temples to Shiva. The Bayon itself was altered — some of the faces were given moustaches, which was a Shaivite addition. So what we see today is actually a palimpsest of Buddhist and Hindu layers. Luna: How much of that original Buddhist city is still visible? Lucas: Quite a lot, actually. The faces are still there. The Terrace of the Elephants — a 350-metre-long platform where the king reviewed his army — still has its garuda and lion carvings. And then there's the Terrace of the Leper King, which is this mysterious platform named after a statue found there. The statue is of a seated figure, naked except for a loincloth, and it's covered in lichen that gave it a leprous appearance. But it's probably not a leper king at all — it might be Yama, the god of death, or a depiction of a Khmer king with a skin disease. No one's entirely sure. Luna: That's a whole mystery I'd love to dig into. Lucas: The terrace itself has these incredible narrative bas-reliefs on multiple levels — they were buried by silt for centuries and only excavated in the 1990s. They show scenes of royal processions, warriors, and what looks like a king sitting in judgment. There's even a carving that some interpret as a scene from the Ramayana. So the terrace was probably used for royal audiences or public ceremonies. The 'leper king' statue now sits on top, but originally it might have been somewhere else inside the palace area. Lucas: If today was actually useful to you, the way these stay ad-free is listener support — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a small way to keep going deeper into stories like this one. Luna: Absolutely. We love putting these episodes together, and knowing people find them valuable makes it worthwhile. Lucas: So back to Angkor Thom — one detail I love is the city gates. Each of the five gates is topped with the same four-faced towers, and the causeways leading up to them are flanked by rows of stone giants. On one side, the gods hold a giant naga serpent; on the other, the demons pull it in a tug of war. It's a direct reference to the Churning of the Ocean of Milk from Hindu mythology — but here it's also a metaphor for the protective forces guarding the city. Luna: So the whole city is like a cosmic stage. Lucas: Exactly. And it wasn't just religious symbolism. Angkor Thom had a sophisticated water management system — canals, reservoirs, and drainage — that kept the city functioning through the monsoon season. The royal palace, which was inside the city, was built of wood and has completely disappeared, but we know from Chinese envoy Zhou Daguan, who visited in 1296, that it was opulent — gold tiles, carved pillars, the works. He also describes a thriving urban population, with markets, craftsmen, and even public baths. Luna: What happened to Angkor Thom in the end? Did it just get abandoned like Angkor Wat? Lucas: It was gradually abandoned over the 15th and 16th centuries, after the Thai invasions and the shift of political power to the Phnom Penh area. But unlike Angkor Wat, which remained a Buddhist monastery, Angkor Thom was largely reclaimed by the jungle. The Bayon's faces stared out from under trees for centuries. It wasn't until the French colonial period in the late 19th century that large-scale clearing and restoration began. Even today, there's still debate about what some of the structures were used for — the Terrace of the Leper King, the royal square, the exact boundaries of the palace. Angkor Thom still has secrets. Luna: It's amazing that a city that size could just be swallowed by the forest. Lucas: It's a reminder of the fragility of even the greatest empires. But the fact that we can still walk those causeways, stand on the Terrace of the Elephants, and look into the calm stone faces of the Bayon — that's a connection across eight centuries. And every year, more is uncovered. The Angkor Thom of today is not the same as the one tourists saw twenty years ago. Archaeology is still rewriting its story.