The main entrance approaches the wat on the west, crossing by an immense stone causeway over a deep, wide moat and under a lofty gateway guarded by colossal stone lions hewn, pedestal and all, from a single block. The structure rises in three quadrangular tiers, of thirty feet, one above the other, facing the four points of the compass, on a cruciform platform. Out of the highest central point springs a great tower one hundred and eighty feet high, and four inferior corner-towers rise around. It has been suggested that Mount Menu, the centre of the Buddhist universe, with its sacred rock-circles, is symbolized, the three platforms representing earth, water and wind. Flights of steep stairways, each step a single block and some having fifty or sixty steps, lead from terrace to terrace. Long galleries with stone floors, stone roofs, and walls having a surface smooth as polished marble, covered with elaborately chiseled bas-reliefs, are flanked by rows of monolithic pillars whose girth and height rival noble oaks. The centre compartments are walled in, and the remaining two-thirds of the space consists of open colonnades. The inner walls of these open galleries have blank windows; seven stone bars, uniform in size and beautifully carved with the sacred lotus, form a sort of balcony to each window. The bas-reliefs have thousands of nearly life-size figures, representing scenes from the great Indian epic Ramayana――battle-scenes, processions of warriors, and the struggle of the angels with the giants for the possession of Phaya Naght, the snake god. The majority of these are executed with care and skill, and form one of the chief attractions of the wat. Specimens of the more beautiful, and also casts of the inscriptions, have been transported to the Cambodian Museum of Paris, but, unfortunately, M. Mohl, the celebrated Orientalist entrusted with the task of deciphering these unknown characters, died before reaching any satisfactory conclusion. Scholars seem inclined to regard the inscriptions as derived rather from the Pali or Sanskrit than the Malay or Chinese language.