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}} Angkor Wat ((クメール語:អង្គរវត្ត) or "Capital Temple") is a temple complex in Cambodia and the largest religious monument in the world, with site measuring 162.6 hectares (1,626,000 sq meters).〔(【引用サイトリンク】work=Guiness World Record )〕 It was originally constructed as a Hindu temple for the Khmer Empire, gradually transforming into a Buddhist temple toward the end of the 12th century. It was built by the Khmer King Suryavarman II in the early 12th century in Yaśodharapura ((クメール語:យសោធរបុរៈ), present-day Angkor), the capital of the Khmer Empire, as his state temple and eventual mausoleum. Breaking from the Shaiva tradition of previous kings, Angkor Wat was instead dedicated to Vishnu. As the best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious center since its foundation. The temple is at the top of the high classical style of Khmer architecture. It has become a symbol of Cambodia,〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/cb.html )〕 appearing on its national flag, and it is the country's prime attraction for visitors. Angkor Wat combines two basic plans of Khmer temple architecture: the temple-mountain and the later galleried temple. It is designed to represent Mount Meru, home of the devas in Hindu mythology: within a moat and an outer wall 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; scholars are divided as to the significance of this. The temple is admired for the grandeur and harmony of the architecture, its extensive bas-reliefs, and for the numerous devatas adorning its walls. The modern name, Angkor Wat, means "Temple City" or "City of Temples" in Khmer; ''Angkor'', meaning "city" or "capital city", is a vernacular form of the word ''nokor'' (), which comes from the Sanskrit word ''nagara'' ().〔Chuon Nath Khmer Dictionary (1966, Buddhist Institute, Phnom Penh)〕 ''Wat'' is the Khmer word for "temple grounds" ((サンスクリット:वाट) ''vāṭa'' ""enclosure").〔Cambodian-English Dictionary by Robert K. Headley, Kylin Chhor, Lam Kheng Lim, Lim Hak Kheang, and Chen Chun (1977, Catholic University Press)〕 ==History== Angkor Wat lies north of the modern town of Siem Reap, and a short distance south and slightly east of the previous capital, which was centred at Baphuon. In an area of Cambodia where there is an important group of ancient structures, it is the southernmost of Angkor's main sites. According to legend, the construction of Angkor Wat was ordered by Indra to act as a palace for his son Precha Ket Mealea. According to the 13th century Chinese traveler Daguan Zhou, it was believed by some that the temple was constructed in a single night by a divine architect. The initial design and construction of the temple took place in the first half of the 12th century, during the reign of Suryavarman II (ruled 1113 – c. 1150). Dedicated to Vishnu, it was built as the king's state temple and capital city. As neither the foundation stela nor any contemporary inscriptions referring to the temple have been found, its original name is unknown, but it may have been known as "Varah Vishnu-lok" after the presiding deity. Work seems to have ended shortly after the king's death, leaving some of the bas-relief decoration unfinished. In 1177, approximately 27 years after the death of Suryavarman II, Angkor was sacked by the Chams, the traditional enemies of the Khmer. Thereafter the empire was restored by a new king, Jayavarman VII, who established a new capital and state temple (Angkor Thom and the Bayon respectively) a few kilometers to the north. Toward the end of the 12th century, Angkor Wat gradually transformed from a Hindu center of worship to Buddhism, which continues to the present day.〔 Angkor Wat is unusual among the Angkor temples in that although it was somewhat neglected after the 16th century it was never completely abandoned, its preservation being due in part to the fact that its moat also provided some protection from encroachment by the jungle.〔Glaize, ''The Monuments of the Angkor Group'' p. 59.〕 One of the first Western visitors to the temple was António da Madalena, 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."〔Higham, ''The Civilization of Angkor'' pp. 1–2.〕 By 17th century, Angkor Wat was not completely abandoned and functioned as a Buddhist temple. Fourteen inscriptions dated from the 17th century discovered in Angkor area, testify to Japanese Buddhist pilgrims that might had established small settlements alongside Khmer locals. At that time, the temple was thought by the Japanese visitors as the famed Jetavana garden of the Buddha, which originally located in the kingdom of Magadha, India. The best-known inscription tells of Ukondafu Kazufusa, who celebrated the Khmer New Year at Angkor Wat in 1632.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 work = Cambodia Travel )〕 In the mid-19th century, the temple was visited by the French naturalist and explorer, Henri Mouhot, who popularised the site in the West through the publication of travel notes, in which he wrote: "One of these temples—a rival to that of Solomon, and erected by some ancient Michelangelo—might take an honorable place beside our most beautiful buildings. It is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome, and presents a sad contrast to the state of barbarism in which the nation is now plunged."〔Quoted in (Brief Presentation by Venerable Vodano Sophan Seng )〕 Mouhot, like other early Western visitors, found it difficult 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. There were no ordinary dwellings or houses or other signs of settlement including cooking utensils, weapons, or items of clothing usually found at ancient sites. Instead there is the evidence of the monuments themselves.〔''Time Life Lost Civilizations series: Southeast Asia: A Past Regained'' (1995). p.67–99〕 Angkor Wat required considerable restoration in the 20th century, mainly the removal of accumulated earth and vegetation.〔Glaize p. 59.〕 Work was interrupted by the civil war and Khmer Rouge control of the country during the 1970s and 1980s, but relatively little damage was done during this period. Camping Khmer Rouge forces used whatever wood remained in the building structures for firewood, a pavilion was ruined by a stray American shell, and a shoot-out between Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese forces put a few bullet holes in a bas relief. Far more damage was done after the wars, by art thieving working out of Thailand, which, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, claimed almost every head that could be lopped off the structures, including reconstructions. The temple is a powerful symbol of Cambodia, and is a source of great national pride that has factored into Cambodia's diplomatic relations with France, the United States and its neighbor Thailand. A depiction of Angkor Wat has been a part of Cambodian national flags since the introduction of the first version circa 1863.〔Flags of the World, (Cambodian Flag History )〕 From a larger historical and even transcultural perspective, however, the temple of Angkor Wat did not become a symbol of national pride ''sui generis'' but had been inscribed into a larger politico-cultural process of French-colonial heritage production in which the original temple site was presented in French colonial and universal exhibitions in Paris and Marseille between 1889 and 1937.〔Falser, Michael (2011). (''Krishna and the Plaster Cast. Translating the Cambodian Temple of Angkor Wat in the French Colonial Period'' ).〕 Angkor Wat's aesthetics were also on display in the plaster cast museum of Louis Delaporte called ''musée Indo-chinois'' which existed in the Parisian Trocadero Palace from c.1880 to the mid-1920s.〔Falser, Michael (2013). (''From Gaillon to Sanchi, from Vézelay to Angkor Wat. The Musée Indo-Chinois in Paris: A Transcultural Perspective on Architectural Museums.'' ).〕 The splendid artistic legacy of Angkor Wat and other Khmer monuments in the Angkor region led directly to France adopting Cambodia as a protectorate on 11 August 1863 and invading Siam to take control of the ruins. This quickly led to Cambodia reclaiming lands in the northwestern corner of the country that had been under Siamese (Thai) control since 1351 AD (Manich Jumsai 2001), or by some accounts, 1431 AD.〔''Cambodge: The Cultivation of a Nation, 1860–1945'' by Penny Edwards. 2007. ISBN 978-0-8248-2923-0〕 Cambodia gained independence from France on 9 November 1953 and has controlled Angkor Wat since that time. It is safe to say that from the colonial period onwards until the site's nomination as UNESCO World Heritage in 1992, this specific temple of Angkor Wat was instrumental in the formation of the modern and gradually globalized concept of built cultural heritage.〔Falser, Michael: Clearing the Path towards Civilization - 150 Years of "Saving Angkor". In: Michael Falser (ed.) Cultural Heritage as Civilizing Mission. From Decay to Recovery. Springer: Heidelberg, New York, pp. 279–346.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Angkor Wat」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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