Angkor Wat is a temple at Angkor, Cambodia, built for the king Suryavarman II in the early 12th century as his state temple and capital city. As the best preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have stayed an important religious centre since its foundation first Hindu, dedicated to god Vishnu, then Buddhist. The temple is epitome of high classical style of Khmer architecture. It has become a symbol of Cambodia, appearing on its national flag. Angkor Wat has become a major tourist destination. In 2004 and 2005, government figures suggest that, respectively, 561,000 and 677,000 foreign visitors arrived in Siem Reap province, approximately 50% of all foreign tourists in Cambodia.
Angkor Wat combines two basic plans of Khmer temple architecture the temple mountain and the later galleried temple, based on early South Indian Hindu architecture, with key features such as the Jagati. It is designed to represent Mount Meru, home of the devas in Hindu mythology within a moat and an outer wall 3.6 kilometres or 2.2 miles long are three rectangular galleries, each raised above the next. At the centre of the temple stands a quincunx of towers. Unlike most Angkorian temples, Angkor Wat is oriented to the west.
The modern name, Angkor Wat, means "City Temple". Angkor is a vernacular form of the word nokor which comes from the Sanskrit word nagara meaning capital or city. Wat is the Khmer word for temple. Prior to this time the temple was known as Preah Pisnulok, after the title of its founder, Suryavarman II. Angkor Wat lies 5.5 km north of the modern town of Siem Reap, and a short distance south and slightly east of the previous capital, which was centred on the Baphuon. It is in an area of Cambodia where there is an important group of ancient structures. It is the southernmost of Angkor's main sites.
The initial design and construction of the temple took place in the first half of the 12th century, during the reign of Suryavarman II. Dedicated to Vishnu, it was built as the kings state temple and capital city. In 13th century, King Jayavarman VIII, who was Hindu, was deposed by his son in law, Srindravarman. Srindravarman had spent the previous 10 years in Sri Lanka becoming intended as a Buddhist monk. Hence, the new King decided to convert the official religion of the empire from Hindu to Buddhist
The first Western visitor to the temple was Antonio da Magdalena, a Portuguese monk who visited in 1586 and said that "It is of such extraordinary construction that it is not possible to describe it with a pen, particularly since it is like no other building in the world. It has towers and decoration and all the refinements which the human genius can conceive of". However, the temple was popularised in the West only in the mid-19th century on the publication of Henri Mouhots travel notes. Mouhot, like other early Western visitors, was unable to believe that the Khmers could have built the temple, and mistakenly dated it to around the same era as Rome. The true history of Angkor Wat was pieced together only from stylistic and epigraphic evidence accumulated during the subsequent clearing and restoration work carried out across the whole Angkor site.
Angkor Wat, located at is a unique combination of the temple mountain, the standard design for the empire's state temples, the later plan of concentric galleries, and influences from Orissa and the Chola of Tamil Nadu, India. Angkor Wat is the prime example of the classical style of Khmer architecture the Angkor Wat style to which it has given its name. By the 12th century Khmer architects had become skilled and confident in the use of sandstone as the main building material.
The outer wall, 1024 by 802 m and 4.5 m high, is surrounded by a 30 m apron of open ground and a moat 190 m wide. Access to the temple is by an earth bank to the east and a sandstone causeway to the west; the latter, the main entrance, is a later addition, possibly replacing a wooden bridge. The outer wall encloses a space of 820,000 square metres or 203 acres, which besides the temple proper was originally occupied by the city and, to the north of the temple, the royal palace. The temple stands on a terrace raised higher than the city. It is made of three rectangular galleries rising to a central tower, each level higher than the last. Mannikka interprets these galleries as being dedicated to the king, Brahma, the moon, and Vishnu.
The Archaeological Survey of India carried out restoration work on the temple between 1986 and 1992. Since the 1990s, Angkor Wat has seen continued conservation efforts and a massive increase in tourism. The temple is part of the Angkor World Heritage Site, established in 1992, which has provided some funding and has encouraged the Cambodian government to protect the site. The German Apsara Conservation Project is working to protect the devatas and other bas reliefs which decorate the temple from damage. The survey found that 20% of devatas were in very poor condition, because of natural erosion and deterioration of stone. World Monuments Fund began work on the Churning of the Sea of Milk Gallery in 2008.
The influx of tourists has so far caused relatively little damage, other than some graffiti ropes and wooden steps have been introduced to protect the bas-reliefs and floors, respectively. Tourism has also provided some additional funds for maintenance as of 2000 approximately 28% of ticket revenues across the whole Angkor site was spent on the temples although most work is carried out by foreign government-sponsored teams rather than by the Cambodian authorities.
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