What do the Angkor Wat carvings and bas-reliefs on the walls mean?
Posted on Oct 16, 2025 / Travel
The carvings are like an ancient graphic novel carved into stone. They tell stories from Hindu epics like the Ramayana and Mahabharata — full of gods, demons, and heroic battles. One of the most famous panels shows the “Churning of the Ocean of Milk,” where gods and demons team up to create the elixir of immortality. Every wall is packed with symbolism about good and evil, karma, and divine balance. But they also show real-life stuff: soldiers, dancers, elephants, and court scenes that reveal what life looked like back then. You don’t need to be a scholar to appreciate the detail — it’s raw storytelling frozen in stone. It’s art that speaks across a thousand years.
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