French photographer Emile Kissel was the first photographer in the world to take photos of Angkor Wat. The photos of Angkor Wat he published in 1866 allowed people to witness the magnificence of Angkor Wat.

In 1907, Siam returned Siem Reap, Battambang and other provinces to Cambodia. From 1908, the French School of the Far East began a decades-long meticulous restoration project on a large number of Angkor monuments, including Angkor Wat.

The 190-meter-wide moat of Angkor Wat is like a barrier to prevent the siege of the forest, so Angkor Wat is the most well-preserved compared to other Angkor monuments. However, there are still many trees, and some tree roots are deeply embedded in the cracks of the red soil bricks of some buildings, gradually widening the cracks and finally pushing down the red soil bricks, causing the buildings to collapse.

The restoration project includes several aspects of work: clearing weeds, trees, accumulated soil, and termites, stabilizing the foundation, supporting crumbling buildings, and then applying the analytical reconstruction techniques developed by archaeologists in the reconstruction of ancient monuments in Athens, Greece and Java, Indonesia, to the reconstruction of Angkor monuments.

The cleaning of Angkor Wat was completed in 1911, and in the 1930s, the restoration of Angkor Wat began using analytical reconstruction. The analytical reconstruction method requires that the original materials of the site must be used to restore the site according to the original ancient construction methods. Only when the original objects are no longer available can appropriate substitutes be used.

This work was suspended in the 1960s due to the political turmoil in Cambodia and resumed in the 1990s. Angkor Wat became a Mahayana Buddhist temple in the mid-14th century because the 13th century King Jayavarman VII of Chenla adopted Mahayana Buddhism as the state religion.

After Siam invaded Angkor in the early 15th century, Angkor Wat became a Theravada Buddhist temple because the Siamese believed in Theravada Buddhism. Since then, Angkor Wat has been a Theravada Buddhist temple until today.

The moat of Angkor Wat is rectangular, 1,500 meters long from east to west and 1,350 meters long from north to south. It is 5,700 meters long and 190 meters wide. The outer bank of the moat is surrounded by a low sandstone fence.

There is an embankment on the west and east of the moat, leading to the west and east gates of Angkor Wat. The east embankment is an earthen embankment, while the west embankment is 200 meters long and 12 meters wide, covered with sandstone slabs. In ancient times, the west embankment was covered with gold. A 30-meter-wide open space is left on the inner bank of the moat, surrounding the rectangular red earth and stone wall of Angkor Wat.

The wall is 1,025 meters long from east to west, 802 meters wide from north to south, and 4.5 meters high. In the middle of the front of the wall is a 230-meter-long colonnade with three tower gates in the middle. The tower gate in the middle is the mountain gate of Angkor Wat, which is connected to the tower gates on the left and right by a double-eaved double-row stone column gallery. The ceiling on the top of the stone column outside the gallery (on the west side) is decorated with lotus and rose patterns.

Each tower gate has a longitudinal passage and a transverse passage, which intersect in a cross shape. The longitudinal passage is for entering and exiting the temple, and the transverse passage is for visiting the gallery. The longitudinal passages of these three tower gates are particularly wide, and can accommodate elephants, so they are also called elephant gates.

The tops of the three towers are incomplete, but the one in the middle is taller than the two on the left and right, still shaped like a mountain, retaining more or less its original proportions, and echoing the three pagodas seen from the top floor of Angkor Wat. The towers on the other three sides of the wall are smaller and simpler, and only accessible by small paths. Few people go there.

A statue of Vishnu is enshrined under the south tower gate. During the reign of Suryavarman II, this Vishnu statue was originally enshrined in the temple on the top floor of Angkor Wat. After Angkor Wat converted to Buddhism, it was brought here from the temple to guard it. The inner side of the gallery (east side) is a stone wall with gourd lattice windows in between. The gallery wall faces the goddess relief in the gallery of Angkor Wat

The west side is decorated with reliefs of dancing girls; the east side of the gallery wall is decorated with dancing or animal-riding warriors and flying goddesses. There is a relief of a flying goddess on the south side of the door. It is the only flying goddess with a toothy smile in the temple. The temple square surrounded by the wall covers an area of ​​82 hectares.

Apart from the temple in the center, this square is the site of an ancient city and palace. The palace ruins are located to the north of the temple. Today, the ancient city and palace are gone, and the ground is covered with forests. Only the outlines of some streets remain.

The road from the West Pagoda Gate of the temple wall to the West Mountain Gate of the temple is 9.5 meters wide, about 350 meters long, 1.5 meters above the ground, and paved with sandstone slabs; seven-headed cobras are lined up on both sides of the stone road. There is a building called the Sutra Repository on the south and north of the road, with entrances and exits at each base point.

Going east, on the north side of the road, between the Sutra Library and the temple, there is a lotus pond with various lotus flowers blooming; the pond symmetrically located on the south side of the road is a pool of clear water. At the end of the road section is a cross-shaped balcony leading to the mountain gate of the Angkor Temple, called the Royal Terrace. There are lions guarding the Royal Terrace on both sides. The pond and the Royal Terrace were added by later generations.

At the end of the Cross Terrace is the central building complex of Angkor Wat. It is basically composed of three large, medium and small Sumeru pedestals with rectangular corridors as the perimeter, stacked in the order of large outside and small inside, large below and small above. In the center stands five pagodas as the apex, symbolizing Mount Sumeru.

American scholar Alina Manika explained that the three corridors represent the king, Brahman, moon and Vishnu respectively. There are corridor doors at each base point of each corridor, and tower doors are set at the four corners of the upper and middle corridors. The four pagodas on each pagoda door and the central pagoda form a five-point plum blossom pattern.

Because the temple is oriented westward, the position of the upper pedestal is not in the center of the lower pedestal, but slightly back and east to leave more space for the west gallery; for the same reason, the steps on the west are not as steep as those on the east.

The first-level Sumeru pedestal is made of sandstone and is about 3 meters above the ground. Above the Sumeru pedestal, there is a corridor about 3 meters high, surrounding the Angkor Wat like a mouth. The moat of Angkor Wat.

The corridor is rectangular, 190 meters long from north to south and 220 meters long from east to west. There are four tower gates and eight corridor gates around the corridor, one tower gate at each corner, three corridor gates in the west and east, and one corridor gate in the north and south. The tower gates and corridor gates have inner and outer stone steps, which lead to the first inner courtyard and the outer courtyard of the temple.

The inner wall of the cloister is both the outer wall of the temple and a giant gallery. On the outside of the cloister, there are two rows of square stone columns, one row supports the gallery vault, and the other row supports the semi-vaulted side gallery. The double-eaved vault of the cloister is covered with ceramic tiles to protect the stone carvings on the gallery wall from the sun and rain.

The stone walls of the gallery are lined with eight giant reliefs with fine carvings. Each relief is more than two meters high and nearly one hundred meters long. The total length is more than seven hundred meters, and it goes around the temple. The reliefs depict stories from two famous Sanskrit epics in India, "Ramayana" and "Mahabharata", as well as some history of the Angkor Dynasty.

Starting from the northwest corner and going counterclockwise, the West Gallery displays the scene in the Ramayana where Prince Rama of Ayodhya defeats the demon king Ravana, and the story of the war between the Karavas and the Pandavas in the Mahabharata.

There are several reliefs in the South Gallery, which are related to the history of the Angkor Dynasty. One of them depicts Suryavarman II wearing a crown, sitting cross-legged barefoot on the throne, with his left hand pointing to the left and his back hand resting on the armrest of the throne. There are two attendants on each side, holding long fans, fanning the king, and there are palace maids behind him, holding giant candles, which are lit in the daytime.

Legends. Next are the 32 levels of hell and 37 levels of heaven in Indian mythology. The East Gallery depicts a famous story in the ancient Indian mythology Puranas: Vishnu churns the ocean of milk: Vishnu ordered 92 asuras and 88 gods to use the snake king Vasuki as a rope to churn the ocean of milk.

The following scene of Vishnu defeating the Ashuras was added by later generations in the 16th century. The northern gallery shows Vishnu's eighth incarnation, Krishna, defeating the Ashura Bhāra. The pictures in the northwest and southwest corner galleries are smaller, and generally depict stories from the Ramayana or Krishna.

Enter the west gate of the first-floor corridor and step into a Tianzi Pavilion called "Thousand Buddha Pavilion", surrounded by corridors. The Tianzi Pavilion is divided into four courtyards by the central cross corridor. The ground is about one meter lower than the cross corridor and corridor. It was originally a pool, but now it does not store water. The north and south corridors of the Tianzi Pavilion are about 3 meters wide. The outside is closed, and there are double rows of square columns on the inside.

The cross corridor is formed by two corridors crossing each other in a cross shape. Each corridor consists of three parts: the central corridor, the left corridor and the right corridor, supported by four rows of square columns. Two rows of inner square columns support the central corridor, and two rows of outer square columns support their respective corridors. The central corridor is about 3 meters wide and 4.5 meters high, with the upper half being walls and the lower half being square columns.

There are flying female reliefs at the bottom of the stone pillars. Some pillars and pillar walls still have deep red paint, which gives us a glimpse of the glory of Angkor Wat during its heyday more than 800 years ago. The main corridor has an egg-shaped arch and is covered with ceramic tiles. The left and right corridors are about 2.5 meters wide and 3 meters high; the total width of the corridor is about 8 meters.

Over the centuries, pilgrims have left many Buddha statues in the pavilion, but most of them have been removed. There are also many inscriptions praising the good deeds of pilgrims, most in Khmer and some in Burmese. The courtyard outside the Tianzi Pavilion is the inner courtyard of the first level of the temple, like a reversed 匚 character.

There is a Sutra Repository in the northwest and southwest corners of the first enclosure. The north, middle and south corridors of the Tianzi Pavilion each have stone steps leading to the second enclosure of the temple in the west.

The second-level platform is five and a half meters higher than the first-level platform. There are also rectangular corridors around it, about 115 meters long from east to west and about 100 meters wide from north to south. There are no stone pillars or side corridors in the corridor. There are vertical gourd lattice windows on both walls, with reliefs of gods in between. There are ten corridor doors in the corridor, one in each of the four corners, one in the east, south and north, and three in the west.

Each corridor door has two stone steps inside and outside, which lead to the inner courtyard of the first enclosure and the inner courtyard of the second enclosure. The three corridor doors on the west side lead to the Tianzi Pavilion of the first enclosure. The tower gates at the four corners of the second-floor corridor have a pagoda on top. Due to years of disrepair, most of the tops of the four pagodas are missing, and only two or three floors of the nine-story pagoda remain.

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There are two small Sutra Repository in the southwest and northwest corners of the inner courtyard of the second enclosure. The two Sutra Repository are connected by a north-south corridor of a cross-shaped balcony, and the east-west corridor of the balcony connects the west gate of the second-floor corridor and the west gate of the third-floor corridor. This cross-shaped balcony was also added by later generations.

The third level of the temple, the innermost and highest level, is called Bagan. It is square and pyramid-shaped, but it is made up of two sections. It rises 12 meters from the ground, twice as high as the first and second levels. There are twelve steps around the base, three on each side of the east, south, west and north. The twelve steps are very steep and must be climbed by hands and feet, crawling, symbolizing the difficulty of climbing to heaven.

The double-eaved gallery on the steps is 60 meters square and has five pagodas on it. There is a pagoda gate at each corner. In the middle stands a 42-meter-high main pagoda, with the top of the pagoda 65 meters above the ground. The main pagoda is taller than the four corner pagodas. The five pagodas are arranged in a five-point plum blossom style. There is a shrine in each pagoda.

The main tower's shrine was originally four-way, with a statue of Vishnu in the center. After it was converted to Theravada Buddhism, a Buddha statue was placed in the center, surrounded by Buddha statue walls on three sides. The tower gates and the tower gates and the main tower are connected by field-shaped galleries.

The Tianzi Gallery is composed of a corridor and a cross corridor. The corridor is divided into two parts: the main corridor and the side corridor. The outer wall of the main corridor is distributed with vertical gourd lattice windows, and rectangular unbarred windows are distributed at the four cardinal points of due east, due west, due south and due north. The inner side of the main corridor is lined with columns, and there is a five-meter-high vault on the main corridor. The inner side of the side corridor is lined with columns, and the semi-vault is three meters high.

The cross gallery has one corridor, two side corridors, one arch, two half arches, and two rows of square stone columns on each side. The arches and half arches of the field gallery are covered with ceramic tiles. The ceiling at the top of the gallery is carved with lion-headed snakes, and the gallery and the entrance to the shrine have lintels and pediments covered with carvings.

There is a corridor door in the middle of the four sides of the corridor, each with steps leading to the second floor; the tower doors at the four corners of the corridor each have two steps leading to the second floor.

The layout of Angkor Wat is very symmetrical and full of rhythm. The Angkor Wat complex has two forms of symmetry, mirror symmetry and rotational symmetry. From the moat, outer wall to the central complex, with the central axis running from east to west as the center, it presents accurate mirror symmetry: even the two scripture pavilions and two pools on the central axis of the square avenue are symmetrically distributed on both sides.

Looking at Angkor Wat from the square avenue, you can see a tall tower in the middle, with two smaller towers symmetrically set off on the left and right, forming a mountain shape. The five-plum blossom tower group on the top floor of the temple, in addition to the central axis symmetry, has two more rigorous rotational symmetries: from the east, west, south and north, it presents the same mountain-shaped composition, forming a 90-degree rotational symmetry.

There is also a second set of 90-degree rotational symmetry: when viewed from the northwest, southwest, southeast, and northeast, the four diagonal directions, the same mountain-shaped composition is also seen. Only in this way can the five pagodas have the maximum symmetry effect, repeating the same shape theme in all directions.

The platform structure originated in Greece and was introduced to India. After being introduced to Cambodia from India, it evolved into one of the important architectural features of Angkor Wat. It may be because Cambodia often suffers from flooding of the Mekong River. To this day, many houses are built on elevated platforms to avoid floods. Many ancient monuments in Angkor are built on platforms.

The Phnom Bakheng Temple in the early 10th century had a five-story platform, and the Sky Palace in the middle of the 10th century had a four-story platform. The platforms of Angkor Wat may have been used to avoid floods at first, but later they developed into an important part of Angkor's architectural art. High-rise buildings that are not accessible to rivers, such as the small scripture pavilion on the second and third floors of Angkor Wat, also have platforms.

In the mid-13th century, the three-tiered base and five central pagodas of Angkor Wat became the symbol of Mount Sumeru in Indian mythology. Mount Sumeru has five peaks. Although Phnom Bakheng Temple and the Sky Palace have multiple bases, they only have one central pagoda after all, which cannot fully represent Mount Sumeru. The five pagodas on the top floor of Angkor Wat fully symbolize the five peaks of Mount Sumeru. (To be continued...)