The Legend of the Bayon's Many Faces
The Bayon Temple at Angkor Thom is famous for its 216 massive stone faces gazing in all four directions — and Khmer legend offers a mystical explanation for their origins. According to tradition, King Jayavarman VII, the great Buddhist monarch who built Angkor Thom, had a vision in which the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (the embodiment of compassion) appeared to him with faces looking in every direction. The bodhisattva told the king that these faces represented the all-seeing compassion of the Buddha, watching over the Khmer Empire to protect it from harm. Local folklore adds that the faces ar