Vishnu

Churning of the Sea of Milk
South wing of east gallery
Angkor Wat

At the center of the relief, Vishnu appears in two forms: below, as Kurma, the tortoise upon which the mountain/pivot is set; and above, in four-armed form, holding sword and chakra with two hands and the snake with the other two, as the one who directs the operation. The figure above the pivot (closeup) is either Indra, the king of the gods, or Vishnu again (this depends on which version of the myth one is following). This section of the relief is unfinished - most oddly, since it is arguably the most important in the temple. We know that work on the reliefs was stopped around the time of Suryavarman's death, and it is tempting to speculate that we are seeing here the very moment when the sculptors laid down their chisels.

Like most photos in this chapter, this image has been heavily reprocessed to compensate for the pitifully low contrast of the original image and for the recent cleaning of the lower portion of the relief. For those who are interested, a black-and-white version and the original image are avaliable for comparison.