1ST ENCLOSURE, BANTEAY SAMRE (1113 - 1150) 

The photo above of t Banteay Samre's 1st enclosure shows, from left to right, the southern porch of the shrine, the mandapa, the 1st east gopura, the 1st or inner gallery, the 1st south gopura's protruding northern porch, and in the foreground, the 1st gallery's inner plinth and  naga balustrade. The shrine's southern porch (at left,) like that at Thommanon, emerges more than half its width directly from the square sanctuary and also has attached pilasters framing the portal. The porch has an aedicular half-story above it, indented like its pilasters or the tiers of a shikhara; both portal and half-story are surmounted by pediments one behind the other. The mandapa has a lateral portal, dormer and single pediment; its nave has projecting aisles and eaves, and an aedicular half-story with barrel-vaulted shala roof. In contrast with Thommanon, the shala roof of the 1st east gopura is oriented laterally, not axially, like its elongated central chamber, the porches next to it and the 1st gallery (covered in this photo by the southern gopura's porch, at right.) 

Clearly delineated in the view, at left, are the three bases on which the central block rests: 1) the jagati, platform or plinth of the temple, originally lapped by water; 2) above it, the five courses of the upapitha, a projection on which the walls rest; 3) the adhisthana, the base or dado of the wall of the jangha or pada, the central section of the wall with its window and frame.  Banteay Samre employs the full range of Khmer moldings, further ornamented with incised patterns. For example, the jagati is decorated with a battle frieze, floral scrollwork with intertwined figures, (a motif from lintel garlands,) rows of square projections, (resembling a prati, triglyphs or joists,) an eave overhanging a gala recess (a kapota) and, as its base, crosses inside diamonds and roundels.  These horizontal courses trace and reinforce the outline or footprint of the shrine and find a distant parallel in the canonical six friezes beneath the kaksasanas (seatbacks) of Hoysala temples. What is more surprising is that these friezes would have been hidden below the waterline, unless they temple was only flooded on ritual occasions. 

WEST-FACING PEDIMENT, SOUTH LIBRARY, BANTEAY SAMRE (1113-1150) 

Banteay Samre's pediments, in common with its other sculptural embellishment, exemplify the fluency of line and narrative concision of mature Angkor Wat style bas relief. This pediment closely follows the iconic representation of the Hindu creation myth found throughout Khmer art.  In the Indic cyclical view of time, Brahma lives for 100 Brahma years, equal to 311,040,000 000 solar years, known in Sanskrit as a mahakalpa or "great moment," after which the universe is annihilated, no residue of its divine origins remaining.  Vishnu then sleeps for an equal period in the primal but inert "Ocean of Milk" on the back of the sea serpent, Ananta (Sans. > "not ending" or "eternity,") an ouroboros or snake biting its own tale. This serpent is sometimes called Shesha, in which case it is an avatar of Lakshmana or Balarama, Rama and Krishna's brothers respectively, and, in some versions of the Dashavatara, the eighth of Vishnu's ten avatars.The universe is then reborn when a lotus sprouts from Vishnu's navel on whose petals sits a reborn Brahma who creates the next worlds. Hindu chronometrics are summarized in appendix II; and the Dashavatara described in appendix VI. 

This myth bears comparison with the classical "umbilicus mundi" or "omphalos,"  the chthonic navel and dark center of the earth from which the world emerged, symbolized by the serpent Python, son of Gaia, the Earth Mother of pre-Indo-European, Mediterranean and Near Eastern vegetation cults. His shrine was at Delphi and his oracle, Pythia, until the Aryan/ Olympian god of light and sun, Apollo, killed her, after which her prophetic function was assumed by his priests, cf. Euripides' Ion. For this impiety, Zeus ordered Apollo to perform a ten year penance and sponsor the Pythian Games. Later, the same significance was attached to a marble block, the umbilicus urbis Romae in the Forum from which all distances in the Roman Empire were measured; it is not clear if Rome was the mother of the empire or the empire the mother feeding Rome.

The lower register of the pediment at left shows the climactic battle of the Ramayana between Rama, an avatar of Vishnu, and the demon Ravana, the rakshasa king of (Sri) Lanka, who had abducted his wife, Sita. The demon is readily identified by his ten heads and twenty arms, indicating his supra-natural powers, received as a devotee of Shiva. In the lower right lobe, he is shown in triumph riding to battle or perhaps abducting Sita.  In the upper cusp of the trefoil, the rakshasa is shown sprawled on his back, dead, his multiple limbs and heads scattered at the feet of Rama. The demon was felled by the peerless arrows given by Brahma to Agastya, the Vedic sage, who then passed them on to Rama, as the defender of dharma. The hero is depicted surrounded by his monkey allies and, at the upper left, Sita, the wife he rescued from Ravana (and whom he would subject to trial by fire to prove her chastity to his skeptical subjects.) The apex is occupied by a multi-tiered miter or honeycomb crown, a headdress often worn by Vishnu, the "preserver" of rightful power in the "three worlds,” of whom Rama is an avatar incarnating the ideals of feudal kingship. 

A similar distinctive form appears in the same position on the west-facing pediment of Banteay Samre's 1st east gopura, at right. There it clearly stands  for Mt. Meru since it is placed above Surya, the Vedic sun god, seated before his solar disk and symbolizing the sidereal world, the upper limit of the material spheres; realms even more ethereal than Mt. Meru are suggested by the layers of clouds around it.  In this detail from the pediment, a chariot and driver are seen on the left; this could also represent Surya and his seven horses in their diurnal crossing of the heavens similar to Apollo in the Olympian firmament.  (It is not uncommon for a figure to appear twice in the same pediment, cf. Ravana  in the  example above.) The chariot. however, seems to be storming the citadel from below and the horses faltering. Since no mortal or demon in Hindu myth reached Mt. Meru, such a figure would be destined to the fate of Phaeton or Icarus, Greek counterparts in hubris. The asuras’ or demons’ perennial sallies on these sacred aeries were futile, analogous to the troglodyte Giant or  Titans' assaults on their more than human progeny, the Olympians. The pediment's significance, however, lies in its clear depiction of the home of the gods as a temple with porches, cella and shikhara with at least four aedicular tiers each with convex antefixes, in short, a portrait of the temple, Banteay Samre,  of which it is a part. This confirms again that the Khmer temple (and perhaps Vishnu’s  crown in the preceding pediment) were symbolic equivalents of Mt. Meru.