East Mebon

East Mebon (ប្រាសាទមេបុណ្យខាងកើត) is a 10th-century temple on an island in the middle of the East Baray (បារាយណ៍ខាងកើត), at Angkor. King Rajendravarman II (រាជេន្ទ្រវរ្ម័នទី២) built it, and its five brick towers stand on a low platform rather than a stepped pyramid. Set in open water, the temple could be reached only by boat. It was dedicated to Shiva. Its inscriptions record images of Shiva and Parvati made in the likeness of the king's parents.

A tower on the upper terrace of East Mebon, 2019. Photo: No(0)GoodNamesLeft, CC BY-SA 4.0

Heritage site details
Khmer name	ប្រាសាទមេបុណ្យខាងកើត
Site type	Temple
Location	Angkor, Siem Reap province
Country	Cambodia
Period	952
Subjects	Religion & Spiritual Life; History & Remembrance

History

Rajendravarman II came to the throne in 944. He brought the royal capital back to Angkor from Koh Ker (កោះកេរ្តិ៍), where King Jayavarman IV (ជ័យវរ្ម័នទី៤) had moved the court. In the eastern part of the city, he built the East Mebon in 952 or 953, at the center of the great reservoir of King Yasovarman I (យសោវរ្ម័នទី១). Glaize dates the reservoir to the end of the 9th century, in Yasovarman's reign. Magli wrote that Yasovarman probably began it around the start of the 10th century. The inscriptions call the reservoir the Yasodharatataka (យសោធរៈតដាក). The dating of Angkor's monuments from their inscriptions places the East Mebon after the Koh Ker group and before Pre Rup (ប្រាសាទប្រែរូប) in 961 and Banteay Srei (ប្រាសាទបន្ទាយស្រី) in 967.

Charles Higham wrote that the king chose the area south of the East Baray for his capital, and that the East Mebon and Pre Rup are the two of his temples that survive there. Each held a central shrine for a state linga that bore the king's name, with smaller shrines honoring his ancestors. Higham describes a linga as a stone phallus. Nine years after the East Mebon, the king built Pre Rup to its south, with the same form and the same five towers. Magli wrote that the East Mebon was placed "on the same meridian" as Pre Rup. He put the phrase in quotation marks because the line runs at about 178 degrees rather than due north to south. The conservator Maurice Glaize called the two temples identical in style. Chun Chanboth wrote that the king built the second temple because ceremonies were hard to hold at the East Mebon, out in the middle of the reservoir.

In his chapter on the temple of Banteay Samre, Glaize relates a legend as told by Baradat. In it, a farmer named Pou, chosen as king by the "Victory Elephant", held the funeral ceremony for his predecessor at "the Mebon" and the cremation rites at Pre Rup. Glaize's guide uses the name "the Mebon" for the East Mebon.

The inscriptions

The foundation stele is dated 952, nine years before Pre Rup. With several other inscriptions found nearby, it records the placing of a linga named Rajendresvara for the king, along with a number of statues. Among them were Shiva and his consort Parvati, made in the likeness of the king's mother and father, and Vishnu (ព្រះវិស្ណុ) with Brahma. Eight more lingas, standing for eight forms of Shiva, were set in the eight small towers of the courtyard. Chun Chanboth wrote that the temple was dedicated to the king's mother and father, to his other ancestors and to a linga of Shiva. Glaize placed the East Mebon among the temples built in memory of deified parents. During clearing, workers found a statue of a female deity, which was taken to the storerooms; Glaize thought it was likely the Parvati that the inscription names.

Inscriptions from the East Mebon are cataloged as K. 528. Like the Pre Rup inscription, K. 806, they describe Rajendravarman's line of descent with the Sanskrit compound vrahmaksatra, which marks a line that was at once Brahmin and Kshatriya. Glaize placed the inscribed stele just inside the outer enclosure, to the right of the entrance. A note in the English edition of his guide says the stele was not in place.

The island

The East Baray measures about 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) from east to west and 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from north to south. The island at its center is 120 meters (394 feet) across. Judging from the laterite steps around the island, Glaize put the reservoir's original depth at 3 meters (9.8 feet). By 1944, the reservoir bed had been given over to rice fields. The temple of Lolei (ប្រាសាទលលៃ) stands in the same way on an island in the middle of an earlier reservoir, the Indratataka (ឥន្ទ្រតដាក). Roland Fletcher and his colleagues wrote that the East and West Mebon (ប្រាសាទមេបុណ្យខាងលិច) and Neak Poan show beyond doubt the ritual meaning of the baray.

Later buildings were aligned on the island. The main entrance pavilion of the royal palace in Angkor Thom (អង្គរធំ) and the Victory Gate (ខ្លោងទ្វារជ័យ) of the city were placed on its axis. The archaeoastronomer Giulio Magli traced a line about 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) long, running almost due west from the East Mebon to Phimeanakas (ភិមានអាកាស), with the Victory Gate on the same line. He found that the island temple lies on a line at right angles to the north side of Pre Rup, and he took that placement to be deliberate. He thought the Victory Gate was set on the western line for the same reason.

A laterite landing terrace marks each of the four axes of the island. Each is flanked by two seated lions and juts out from the retaining wall, which rests on tiers. Glaize suggested that the open layout, with the movement of pilgrims kept to a minimum because the temple could be reached only by boat, must have made circulation much easier.

Architecture

The East Mebon has the features of a temple mountain, the form that stands for Mount Meru, the home of the gods. In place of the usual stepped pyramid, it has a platform 3 meters (9.8 feet) high that carries five towers in a quincunx: one at the center and one at each corner. Glaize wondered whether the builders avoided a heavier structure because the island was a small mound of earth with water all around it.

A strip of ground 5 meters (16 feet) wide runs around the outer enclosure wall. The wall steps back in front of each of its four gateway pavilions (gopuras), which are built of laterite and sandstone on a cross-shaped plan, each with three passages. By 1944, none of their vaults or roofs remained. Along the inside of the outer wall ran a series of halls with laterite walls, windows set with stone balusters and roofs of timber and tile, used for rest or meditation. Glaize saw them, as at Pre Rup, as forerunners of the continuous galleries that later temples would have. Except on the south side, little of them was left in 1944.

A laterite retaining wall 2.4 meters (7.9 feet) high marks the next level, the first enclosure. Stone elephants, each carved from a single block, stand at the four corners of the platforms of the first and second enclosures, with every detail of their harnesses shown. Glaize found those at the southwest corner the most intact, and judged them finer than those at the temple of Bakong (ប្រាសាទបាគង). Elephants carved in the round are rare at Angkor. They appear mostly at the corners of the stepped platforms of temples from the first half of the classic period, among them the East Mebon, Bakong and Phimeanakas, growing smaller at each higher level.

The wide courtyard of the first enclosure holds eight small brick towers, a pair on every side. Each opens to the east and once sheltered a linga. To the east are three rectangular laterite buildings that open to the west, like the buildings known as libraries. Of the two south of the axis, one contained a "stone of the nine planets", Glaize wrote, and the other one of the seven ascetics. Two similar buildings without windows, opening to the east, stand at the northwest and southwest corners.

A plain sandstone base 3 meters (9.8 feet) high surrounds the upper platform, and lions guard its stairways. A second, decorated base 1.9 meters (6.2 feet) high lifts the central sanctuary above the four corner towers. The towers are built of bricks smaller than those of Pre Rup, 22 by 13 by 5.5 centimeters (8.7 by 5.1 by 2.2 inches), laid without mortar. Figures are outlined on the corner piers of the towers. Glaize describes them as all male except on the two western towers. The towers were once covered in a carved lime plaster that one of the inscriptions mentions. Small holes were bored into the brick to help it grip, but no trace of it remained in 1944.

Each tower opens to the east and has false doors of sandstone on its other three sides. The sanctuary chamber measures 4 meters (13 feet) across in the central tower and 2.8 meters (9.2 feet) in the corner towers. The southeast tower holds a round pedestal of the kind that, at Phnom Bok (ភ្នំបូក) and Phnom Krom (ភ្នំក្រោម), carried a statue of Brahma.

Carvings

Glaize judged the sandstone carving to be close to that of Pre Rup, and the East Mebon's lintels to be far better than Pre Rup's, carved with skill, energy and imagination. On the central tower, the eastern lintel shows the god Indra on a three-headed elephant, the western one the war god Skanda on his peacock and the southern one Shiva on his bull, Nandin. The northwest tower shows Ganesha seated on his own trunk, which he has turned into a mount, and the southeast tower shows the head of a monster swallowing an elephant. On the western gateway of the first enclosure, Vishnu in the form of a man-lion claws at the king of the asuras, who had dared to challenge him. On the eastern gateway of the same enclosure, Krishna wrestles with a serpent, and on a building in the northeast corner, two elephants raise their trunks to pour sacred water over the goddess Lakshmi. The false doors carry a lattice pattern with bands of tiny figures.

Clearing and restoration

Henri Marchal and Maurice Glaize cleared and restored the temple from 1935 to 1939. During the work, the lintels were set back in place on nearly every building.

References