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Angkor Wat Temple Angkor Wat temple was built by the Khmer king ‘Suryavarman II (1113 – 1150) in the first half of the 12th century. He was a great king who ruled Cambodia during the glorious time of the Khmer Empire. King Suryavarman II fought against Champa and Vietnam (1150) during his reign and we do not know the date of his death. His successor probably was king Dharanindravarman II. Angkor means ‘City or Capital', Wat means ‘ Temple or Pagoda', thus Angkor Wat means ‘The city that is a temple'. Researchers presume that the Angkor Wat temple was dedicated to God Vishnu, who is considered to be the Supreme God of Hinduism. According to Coedes, the French epigraphic archeologist: What we have here is not an orientation suggesting funerary rites, but a well-known architectural arrangement and plan, that cannot denote anything but a temple, If one thinks of the word ‘temple' as I do, not as a place of worship, but as the house of a god, to refuse Angkor this appellation is to deny the evidence. I concede that the presence of skeletons and ashes would explain why the monument faces toward the west, but I refuse to believe that Angkor was only a sepulcher, like the Chinese sepulchers. It is a tomb, in the sense of the resting place of a king after death, but precisely because a Khmer king ‘went to heaven' at his death, this was his habitation in the form of a celestial palace in the centre of which was placed an image of the god with whom the king was identified (Coedes 1963). Symbolism Links: Angkor, Angkor Wat, Preah Vihear, Cambodian Cultural Village
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