The Faces of Bayon. The temple of Bayon is the spiritual center of Angkor Thom, the medieval Khmer capital constructed in the 12th century A.D. by King Jayavarman VII. Bayon is surmounted by a maze of 49 towers each of which supports up to four massive, beautiful and serene stone faces that gaze in the four cardinal directions.
Scholars have speculated over the identity of the person or persons depicted at Bayon. One theory is that the stone faces belong to the Khmer monarch Jayavarman VII himself, and that they symbolize the extent of his power as it stretches from the capital to the most remote regions of the kingdom. Another theory is that they are the face of Avalokiteshvara, the boddhisattva of compassion who elected to postpone his own enlightenment in order to help other beings with their spiritual advancement, and that their orientation in all four directions represents the universality of the boddhisattva's compassion. The two theories are mutually compatible, since Jayavarman was a devote Mahayana Buddhist who in stone inscriptions declared the depth of his compassion for his subjects. "He suffered from the illnesses of his subjects more than from his own," says one inscription, "the pain that affected men's bodies was for him a spiritual pain, and thus more piercing." It is a fair inference that the person depicted in the stone faces is Jayavarman as identified with Avalokiteshvara.
Related pages on this website: 3 Preah Khan and 4 Ta Prohm (also built by Jayvarman VII); 10 Battle of Khmer and Cham (bas relief at Bayon depicting the king's victory over the Cham); 19 Gods, Kings and God-Kings (Khmer kings and their relation to divinity).
