Suryavarman II

Every king of the Khmer had to build a temple. This was part of being a GodKing. The origins as we have discovered for much of the Khmer world are from India.

The King who actually built Angkor Wat was called Suryavarman II.Suryavarman defeated rivals and reunited the Khmer empire after more than 50 years of unrest in 1113 A.D.. Warlike and ambitious, he expanded the limits of Cambodia to include much of what is now Thailand; his kingdom stretched as far west as the frontiers of the Burmese state of Pagan, south to the coast of the Gulf of Thailand, and east to the kingdom of Champa in the southern part of what is now Vietnam. Khmer holdings also included part of the eastern coast of the Malay Peninsula.

Suryavarman was formally crowned in 1113, with his guru, the powerful priest Divakarapandita, presiding.
The king was a religious reformer who blended the mystical cults of Vishnu and Shiva, supreme Hindu deities, and promulgated Vaisnavism as the official religion, rather than Buddhism, which had briefly flourished under his predecessors.
One can still find traces of Buddhism within the art of Angkor Wat however.

Angkor Wat, dedicated to Vishnu, was begun in the early years of Suryavarman's reign and was not finished until after his death.
Surrounded by a wall and a moat, the building is decorated with sculptures portraying Suryavarman as Vishnu; he is shown reviewing his troops, holding audiences, and performing other functions of a sovereign.

Suryavarman also sponsored the construction of several other temples in the style of Angkor Wat.
Angkor Wat is but one of many temples because GodKings had to build their own temples to glorify their status as gods on earth.
The role of the god king was to make the waters fill the Tonle Sap and bring glory to the Khmer world.

So they performed ceremonies at the beginning of the monsoons and they went to war.
This story is of one of the central events in the ever-continuing struggle between the devas (gods) and the asuras (demons, or titans) - good and evil. The gods, who had become weakened as a result of a curse invited the asuras to help them recover the elixir of immortality from the depths of the cosmic ocean.

Mt. Mandara, a spur of the world axis, Mt. Meru, was torn out to use as a churning stick and was steadied at the bottom of the ocean by Vishnu. Vishnu supported the pivot by being reincarnated as the tortoise (representing half a globe). The devas positioned themselves at the head of a naga (a serpent or snake) and the asuras at the tail of the naga. Together they began to churn the Sea of Milk. Eventually, the elixir emerged but neither side could stop churning long enough to drink it. The asuras began to suspect the plan and attacked the devas. Vishnu intervened in the battle to help the devas defeat the asuras, but Vishnu left with the elixir to keep it safe and to free the world of greed. Indra was crowned king of the Gods to rule with "joy".

The journey into the world of Angkor Wat is full of symbolism. It is full of mathematical functions that wrap themselves around a world of myth and religion. Angkor Wat afterall is the home of the Gods. It is a temple built by humans and for some even today it is a design of a cow stable delivered by Vishnu to mortals living on the surface of the earth. It is a sacred place where gods dwell and a GodKing reigns.
Suryavarman II, son of Ksitindradity and Narendralakshmi, Khmer king renowned as a religious reformer and temple builder. Under his rule the temple of Angkor Wat, the world's largest religious structure, was constructed.