Khleang Moeung

Khleang Moeung (ឃ្លាំងមឿង) is a 16th-century Khmer military leader of legend, venerated as a land guardian spirit, or neak ta (អ្នកតា). His shrine stands about 10 kilometers (6 miles) northwest of the town of Pursat (ពោធិ៍សាត់). The anthropologist Anne Yvonne Guillou calls him one of the most famous guardian spirits in Cambodia.

Illustration, as an impression, of a neak ta shrine marked by a termite mound, the usual sign of an earth spirit.

Historical figure details
Khmer name	ឃ្លាំងមឿង
Also known as	Ta Pech
Roles	Military leader of legend; Guardian spirit
Period	16th century
Country	Cambodia
Subjects	History & Remembrance; Religion & Spiritual Life

Legend

In the legend, Khleang Moeung led the troops of King Ang Chan (1516 or 1517 to 1566) against a Siamese army that had come to support a usurper named Kan. The royal chronicles back the legend. Guillou told The Cambodia Daily that the chronicles were written in the 19th century, three centuries after the events, and that the story is legend resting on real history. Khleang Moeung is at times called Ta Pech. In Guillou's telling, Ta Pech was in the Pursat region when Ang Chan, losing battle after battle, made him his war leader. When the Khmer kept losing, Ta Pech offered to kill himself by throwing himself onto spears, so that among the dead he could raise an army of ghosts. In the legend the ghost army routed the Siamese, and Ang Chan took the throne.

Guillou reads the name as a mix of Thai and Khmer. Moeung is Thai for country or territory, and khleang is close to a Khmer word for strong, so she reads the name as the country's strong man. In an earlier paper she gave its meaning as "central pillar of the district", from the Thai.

National hero

Guillou writes that Cambodians across the country have honored Khleang Moeung as a national hero since independence in 1953 or earlier. School textbooks and radio programs are devoted to him. She told The Cambodia Daily that she believes he grew into a national hero under the Sangkum government of the 1960s. In the early 1970s the singer Sos Math recorded a song called "Khleang Moeung's Advice", about a man taking leave of his family on his way to war. Cambodian soldiers have long seen him as a hero and protector.

Shrine

The shrine is in Snam Preah commune, Bakan (បាកាន) district of Pursat province, on the main road from Phnom Penh to Battambang, near Wat Bakan (វត្តបាកាន). Guillou describes his domain as the whole of the land west of the Tonle Sap lake. Before the Khmer Rouge period it was a modest shrine, where he was shown only as a termite mound, the usual sign of an earth spirit. The shrine was pulled down in that period to dig an irrigation canal. In 1980, just after the Khmer Rouge years, an official from another province joined Pursat's culture department. Over time he took the place of the shrine's ritual keeper, and then started a large building program to draw wealthier visitors.

Until 2010 the shrine held stone statues of Khleang Moeung in court dress, with his wife, Khan Khiev, at his side. A statue made for the culture department in 2010 shows him seated on a throne under a parasol. The gardens hold sandstone statues of his four sons on horseback and statues of the twelve animals of the Khmer calendar.

An annual homage ceremony takes place in the lunar month of Pisakh, in April or May. In May 2016 the province held a ceremony at the enlarged shrine with about 100 Buddhist monks and 12 soldiers, led by the provincial governor, Mao Thonin. On other days families hold small private ceremonies there to make offerings they promised in return for his help. Villagers tell of punishments for people who take wood from the shrine's land without his leave. He is also worshipped by Cambodians in Long Beach, California.

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