Heritage site
Krol Ko
Krol Ko (Prasat Krol Ko) is a small Buddhist temple at Angkor, built under King Jayavarman VII in the late 12th or early 13th century.[1] It stands at the center of the north bank of the Jayatataka, the reservoir of Preah Khan, near the island temple of Neak Pean.[2][1]
Name
Maurice Glaize gave the meaning of the name as "the oxen park".[1] The linguist Saveros Pou rendered it in French as temple-étable (temple-stable). In her account, the name refers to a belief that the small temple once sheltered the sacred bull, the first guardian of the city of Angkor. She noted that it is not to be confused with Preah Ko in the Roluos group.[3] In the Buddhist legend of the founding of Angkor that Pou described, Nandin, the bull who carries the god Shiva, became the guardian of the city and lived in Prasat Krol Ko.[3]
History
Glaize gave the temple's religion as Buddhist. Two of its pediments show the bodhisattva Lokesvara. Glaize thought the temple was probably dedicated to him.[1] Henri Marchal cleared the site from 1922 to 1924.[1]
The great inscription of Preah Khan names a Buddhist shrine in a temple of the sacred white elephant near Preah Khan. In the story of the Buddha's birth, his mother Maya saw a white elephant enter her womb when she conceived him. Thomas S. Maxwell looked at the reliefs that survive on the temples near the former reservoir and found only one scene that matches. It is on Krol Ko.[2] Maxwell called the evidence for which temple the inscription means "only the most slender". He wrote that one small relief "does not prove conclusively" that the white elephant temple was Krol Ko, but that it shows the scene mattered to that temple alone. A short inscription on the door frame inside the gateway would have named the deity set up there, but it has worn away and cannot be read.[2]
Maxwell wrote that the evidence from Krol Ko and the nearby temple of Ta Som suggests that the temples beside the reservoir held the same mix of cults as Preah Khan. These included the Buddha in several forms, Lokesvara among them, Hindu gods such as Vishnu in his form as Krishna, and the personal gods of the Khmer elite.[2]
Architecture
From the east, visitors enter the second enclosure through a plain opening in the outer laterite wall. The inner courtyard is enclosed by a second laterite wall of 25 by 35 meters (82 by 115 feet). A moat lined with steps runs around it on three sides.[1]
The gateway (gopura) is a sandstone building in the shape of a cross, with an entrance hall on the east and a small wing on each side. Its upper part has collapsed.[1] The sanctuary inside is of fair size and in the style of the Bayon, covered in carved decoration, with false windows with blinds. A small building known as a "library" stands in front of it, south of the main axis. It opens to the west, is built of laterite and sandstone, and has a false door on its east side. Glaize judged the rest of the decoration plain and of little interest.[1]
Reliefs
Several pediments have been set back together on the ground on both sides of a small terrace in the shape of a cross. On the right, two of them show Lokesvara standing among praying figures. On the left, a pediment of Hindu inspiration shows Krishna lifting Mount Govardhana to shelter the herdsmen and their animals, with another Lokesvara.[1] Maxwell described this Krishna as shown prominently on a major pediment.[2]
Outside the west entrance of the gateway, on the south side of the doorway, a carved pilaster resting on a lion shows a climbing spiral of leafy stems around seven deities, each set against a lotus flower. The sixth frame from the base sits above images of Lokesvara and the goddess Dharani. In it, a small relief 12 centimeters (5 inches) high shows a standing woman with her hands joined in greeting and an elephant moving toward her through the air. Maxwell read it as Maya greeting her vision of the white elephant, the future Buddha. He found the scene on no other temple near the reservoir.[2]
Visiting
In Glaize's guide, the temple stands about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) beyond Ta Som, just after the 11th kilometer marker stone and 100 meters (330 feet) to the right of the road. Its access track comes about 100 meters (330 feet) before the route that leads to Neak Pean.[1]
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 Angkor Database, Maurice Glaize, The Monuments of the Angkor Group (1944; English translation of the fourth French edition)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Udaya, Thomas S. Maxwell, The Stele Inscription of Preah Khan, Angkor: Text with Translation and Commentary (undated)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Saveros Pou, Les noms de monuments khmers, Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient 78 (1991)