The art and architecture of India - Buddhist, Hindu, Jain (Art Ebook)

CAMBODIA: THE KHMERS 403
central pyramid. Even in such details as the
individual profiles of these mouldings the architectural
motifs appear to be original Khmer
inventions in no way related to Indian models.
As in all its predecessors, the vaulting of the
galleries and towers of Angkor Wat is constructed
entirely on the corbel principle, with
iron dowels used to hold together the superimposed
courses of masonry. 19 The structure is
mortarless and is supported by weight and
gravity. At Angkor Wat we have what is only a
more complicated combination of many small
elements to form a larger whole, a method of
building which, as has already been explained,
was necessitated by the Khmer architects'
ignorance of any but the most primitive types
of vaulting.
What most impresses the visitor to Angkor
Wat beyond its gigantic scale and clarity of plan
is the great beauty and variety of sculptural
ornament. This decoration is not only the finest
achievement of the Cambodian sculptors, but of
tremendous significance for an understanding
of the iconography of the monument as a whole.
The development of relief sculpture in
Cambodia, which attains its apogee in Angkor
Wat, follows step by step the growth of Khmer
architecture from its strongly Indian beginnings
to the final explosive Baroque style of the
last period. In early Khmer architecture, as
illustrated by the temples at Sambor, sculpture
plays a subordinate role; in these buildings that
are so closely derived from late Gupta or Pallava
models the carving is limited to the decoration
of the lintels and tympana and the insertion of
figures in niches let in the walls. Some of the
structures at Sambor are ornamented with
medallions filled with reliefs, a type that almost
certainly stems from the employment of this
lintel and tympanum panels are filled to overflowing
with deeply carved floral motifs or
subjects from the Rdmdyana and the Mahdbhdrata;
the wall is more and more broken up
by niches containing images of deities; every
pinnacle and crenellation is bristling with carving.
As may be illustrated particularly well by
the tenth-century decorations of the Baphuon
[333]<
trie figures and relief compositions are
still confined to the limitation of panels and
frames, as was the case with relief sculpture of
the Gupta Period. The effect of the scenes from
the legend of Vishnu on this monument is not
unlike that of the Gupta stelae at Sarnath, with
separate episodes enacted by relatively few
figures located in a number of superimposed
individual panels.
2,2,3- Angkor Thorn. Baphuon.
scenes from the legend of Vishnu
form at later Buddhist sites like Amaravati. :
During the next three hundred years there is
a marked increase in the amount of sculptural
ornament and in the richness of its carving;