The solidity of Cambojan architecture is connected with the prevalence of inundations.  With such dangers it was of primary importance to have a massive substructure which could not be washed away and the style which was necessary in building a firm stone platform inspired the rest of the work.  Some unfinished temples reveal the interesting fact that they were erected first as piles of plain masonry.  Then came the decorator and carved the stones as they stood in their places, so that instead of carving separate blocks he was able to contemplate his design as a whole and to spread it over many stones.  Hence most Cambojan buildings have a peculiar air of unity.  They have not had ornaments affixed to them but have grown into an ornamental whole.  Yet if an unfavourable criticism is to be made on these edifices—­especially Angkor Wat—­it is that the sculptures are wanting in meaning and importance.  They cannot be compared to the reliefs of Boroboedoer, a veritable catechism in stone where every clause teaches the believer something new, or even to the piles of figures in Dravidian temples which, though of small artistic merit, seem to represent the whirl of the world with all its men and monsters, struggling from life into death and back to life again.  The reliefs in the great corridors of Angkor are purely decorative.  The artist justly felt that so long a stretch of plain stone would be wearisome, and as decoration, his work is successful.  Looking outwards the eye is satisfied with such variety as the trees and houses in the temple courts afford:  looking inwards it finds similar variety in the warriors and deities portrayed on the walls.  Some of the scenes have an historical interest, but the attempt to follow the battles of the Ramayana or the Churning of the Sea soon becomes a tedious task, for there is little individuality or inspiration in the figures.

This want of any obvious correspondence between the decoration and cult of the Cambojan temples often makes it difficult to say to what deities they were dedicated.  The Bayon, or Sivasrama, was presumably a linga temple, yet the conjecture is not confirmed as one would expect by any indubitable evidence in the decoration or arrangements.  In its general plan the building seems more Indian than others and, like the temple of Jagannatha at Puri, consists of three successive chambers, each surmounted by a tower.  The most remarkable feature in the decoration is the repetition of the four-headed figure at the top of every tower, a striking and effective motive, which is also found above the gates of the town.  Chou Ta-kuan says that there were golden statues of Buddhas at the entrance to the Bayon.  It is impossible to say whether this statement is accurate or not.  He may have simply made a mistake, but it is equally possible that the fusion of the two creeds may have ended in images of the Buddha being placed outside the shrine of the linga.