-
Chapter 3: The Date of the Baphuon and theLater Chronology of Angkor
- NUS Press Pte Ltd
- Chapter
- Additional Information
25 Chapter 3 The Date of the Baphuon and the Later Chronology of Angkor William A. Southworth Abstract This paper will critically examine the current dating of the Baphuon temple at Angkor, and show how the date of the temple and the later chronology of Angkor as a whole has been reconstructed. I will then look at some of the archaeological and historical inconsistencies of this dating, using in particular the contemporary descriptions of the Baphuon recorded in Chinese historical accounts of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and the structural evolution of the pillared gallery. Finally, I will suggest a new synthesis of earlier research and present an alternative chronology of the later temples at Angkor, including the Baphuon and Angkor Wat. It should be emphasized however that this paper is preliminary, theoretical, and hypothetical in nature, and its purpose is to stimulate greater research on the technical development of religious architecture in Cambodia by challenging some of the assumptions that underlie the historical and art historical consensus. Theoretical Background The Baphuon temple at Angkor is currently the subject of a major restoration and research program being undertaken by the École Française d’Extrême-Orient.1 This work has revealed many of the structural problems involved in the building of the temple, as well as its importance to the wider architectural development of Angkor as a whole.2 The present debate on the date of the Baphuon however can be traced back to the pioneering work of Étienne Aymonier (1844–1929). Using earlier descriptions of Angkor, together with his own first-hand knowledge of the site, Aymonier attempted to provide an historical context and sequence for the main temple remains. However, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the central interior of the city of Angkor Thom was still heavily forested, and was accessible only by narrow paths through the trees. At this time, the main path leading from north to south across the center of Angkor Thom passed along the western side of the Bayon temple, which was completely hidden from view (Aymonier 1904: 96–7). Deceived by this, Aymonier therefore placed the Bayon in the eastern half of the city (Figure 3.1), wrongly arguing that the Baphuon must have been the central temple of the city enclosure, ‘situé à peu près au centre géométrique du rectangle occupé par la ville d’Angkor Thom’ (Aymonier 1904: 113). Based on this misperception, Aymonier identified the Baphuon with the golden tower described as rising at the center of the city of Angkor in the account of Zhou Daguan, a Chinese emissary who had visited Cambodia at the end of the thirteenth century.3 Moreover, following this identification, he also compared the Baphuon to other epigraphic references to a hill or tower of gold. The earliest of these references was to a ‘Hemaśr .n . gagiri’, or ‘mountain of the horn of gold’, constructed by Jayavarman V in 900 śaka (c. 978 CE) together with the palace of Jayendranagarī (Aymonier 1904: 121).4 In addition, Aymonier also associated the Baphuon with other golden temples, including the ‘Hemagiri’ of Sūryavarman I, mentioned in the Takeo inscription5 , and with the ‘Hemaśr .n . gagiri’ and 03 ISEA.indd 25 6/6/08 9:33:04 AM 26 WILLIAM A. SOUTHWORTH Fig 3.1 Early plan of Angkor Thom: the Baphuon is the unmarked square immediately south of the ‘palais’. (From Aymonier 1904: 92, fig. 15) ‘Svarnādri’ of the inscription from Lovek.6 This last inscription had been translated by Auguste Barth in 1885 and described the consecration of a golden Śivalin . ga by the King Udayādityavarman II, in a golden temple built on a golden mountain at the center of his capital (1885: 122–40, No. XVII). Aymonier suggested that all these references related to the Baphuon, and that the temple must therefore have been constructed during the reigns of Jayavarman V and Sūryavarman I in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, before being restored and completed in the mid-eleventh century under Udayādityavarman II (1904: 495). The true location of the Baphuon in relation to the walls of Angkor Thom (Figure 3.2) was only securely established in 1908, when clearance of the main temples under Jean Commaille and mapping by Lieutenants Ducret and Buat first revealed the central position of the Bayon (École Française d’Extrême-Orient 1908: 292). Aymonier’s identification of the Baphuon however...