Tantric Buddhism at Angkor Thom

In preamble: ​‘The early 1190s was probably the period in which the cult of Lokesvara or Avalokitesvara held sway at Angkor. Before its rise, as George Coedès made clear some years ago, the central element of Jayavarman VII’s Buddhism lay in the worship of a triad consisting of Lokesvara, the Buddha, and Prajnaparamita. This triad is found on both a tiny scale and on a grand one-in the temples built by Jayavarman, namely: Preah Khan, the Bayon, T’a Prohm.’

Going back to the different interpretations put forward by major French archaeologists (in particular Jean Boisselier and Philippe Stern), the author summarizes his own outlook on 12^th century Angkorean religious beliefs, asserting that ​‘the identification of the faces on the Bayon towers [points to] the Buddha Vajrasattva. If there is a spiritual path to the Naga-protected Buddha that originally sat in the central sanctuary, there is also a path away from it, and the relationship between the principal image and the faces on the towers is most easily understood from the latter point of view. Structurally considered, the faces on the towers must somehow be tinged with the protective and martial qualities of the guardians and lords of the directions of space that stood in the same place on earlier towers. The central Buddha, therefore, has projections or manifestations with something of a fierce quality.’