NUN BY THE DOOR

NUN BY THE DOOR

The outer gallery encloses a courtyard in which there are two libraries (one on either side of the east entrance). 16 chapels formerly in this courtyard were demolished by Jayavarman VIII. The inner gallery is raised above ground level and has doubled corners, with the original redented cross-shape later filled out to a square. Its bas-reliefs, later additions of Jayavarman VIII, are in stark contrast to those of the outer: rather than set-piece battles and processions, the smaller canvases offered by the inner gallery are decorated for the most part with scenes from Hindu mythology. There is however no certainty as to what some of the panels depict, or as to their relationship with one another. One gallery just north of the eastern gopura, for example, shows two linked scenes which have been explained as the freeing of a goddess from inside a mountain, or as an act of iconoclasm by Cham invaders (Freeman and Jacques). A nearby series of panels show a king fighting with a serpent and dying, and have been connected with the legend of the leper king. Less obscure are depictions of the construction of a Vishnuite temple (south of the western gopura) and the Churning of the Sea of Milk (north of the western gopura).