latform inspired the rest of the
work. Some unfinished temples reveal the interesting fact that they were
erected first as piles of plain masonry. Then came the decorator and
carved the stones as they stood in their places, so that instead of
carving separate blocks he was able to contemplate his design as a whole
and to spread it over many stones. Hence most Cambojan buildings have a
peculiar air of unity. They have not had ornaments affixed to them but
have grown into an ornamental whole. Yet if an unfavourable criticism is
to be made on these edifices--especially Angkor Wat--it is that the
sculptures are wanting in meaning and importance. They cannot be compared
to the reliefs of Boroboedoer, a veritable catechism in stone where every
clause teaches the believer something new, or even to the piles of
figures in Dravidian temples which, though of small artistic merit, seem
to represent the whirl of the world with all its men and monsters,
struggling from life into death and back to life again. The reliefs in
the great corridors of Angkor are purely decorative. The artist justly
felt that so long a stretch of plain stone would be wearisome, and as
decoration, his work is successful. Looking outwards the eye is
satisfied with such variety as the trees and houses in the temple courts
afford: looking inwards it finds similar variety in the warriors and
deities portrayed on the walls. Some of the scenes have an historical
interest, but the attempt to follow the battles of the Ramayana or the
Churning of the Sea soon becomes a tedious task, for there is little
individuality or inspiration in the figures.

This want of any obvious correspondence between the decoration and
cult of the Cambojan temples often makes it difficult to say to what
deities they were dedicated. The Bayon, or Sivasrama, was
presumably a linga temple, yet the conjecture is not confirmed as one
would expect by any indubitable evidence in the decoration or
arrangements. In its general plan the building seems more Indian than
others and, like the temple of Jagannatha at Puri, consists of three
successive chambers, each surmounted by a tower. The most remarkable
feature in the decoration is the repetition of the four-headed figure
at the top of every tower, a striking and effective motive, which is
also found above the gates of the town. Chou Ta-kuan says that there
were golden statues of Buddhas at the entrance to the Bayon. It is
impossible to say whether