Heritage site

Lolei

ប្រាសាទលលៃ

Lolei (ប្រាសាទលលៃ, Prasat Lolei) is a brick temple of four towers that King Yasovarman I (យសោវរ្ម័នទី១) founded in 893 at Roluos (រលួស), east of Siem Reap.[1][2][3][4] It was built on an island in the Indratataka (ឥន្ទ្រតដាក), the great reservoir of his father, King Indravarman I (ឥន្ទ្រវរ្ម័នទី១).[1][4][5] With Bakong (ប្រាសាទបាគង) and Preah Ko (ប្រាសាទព្រះគោ), it is one of the three temples of the Roluos group.[6][4] They mark the site of Hariharalaya (ហរិហរាល័យ), the royal city of the 9th century before Angkor.[6][7][2]

History

Maurice Glaize wrote in his guide to the Angkor monuments that the name Lolei comes from Hariharalaya.[6] Indravarman I ruled at Hariharalaya from 877 to 889.[5][4] He had the Indratataka dug north of the city.[4] The inscriptions say that digging began five days after his consecration;[1] Charles Higham dates the king's promise to begin the work to 879.[5] The reservoir gave the city its water and irrigated the plain around it.[1][4] Its water was also carried south to fill the moats of Preah Ko and Bakong.[5] Glaize gives the reservoir as 3,800 meters (2.4 miles) from east to west and 800 meters (2,600 feet) from north to south.[1] Higham gives it as almost 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) long, and Radio Free Asia's history series as 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) long; both give it as 800 meters wide.[5][4] The foundation stele of Bakong also records its digging.[6]

Yasovarman I, Indravarman's son, came to the throne in 889.[5][4][7] In the year of his accession he ordered a series of hermitages built across the country, each named Yasodharasrama (យសោធរាស្រម); Radio Free Asia's history series puts their number at 100.[4][1][5] George Cœdès took the stele of Lolei for the founding charter of these hermitages.[1]

Yasovarman raised Lolei on an island in the middle of his father's reservoir, and it was completed in 893.[1][2][7] The temple lies on the same north to south line as Bakong, which stands 1.8 kilometers (1.1 miles) south of the reservoir's center, and Giulio Magli judged the alignment deliberate.[3] Its stele records a dedication to Indravarmesvara, made in memory of the king's father.[1][5] The four towers honored the king's parents and his grandparents on his mother's side.[4][2] Hello Angkor, citing experts, gives the two principal towers to his parents, Indravarman and Indradevi, and the two secondary towers to his grandparents, Mahipativarman and Rajendradevi.[2] The temple served the cult of Shiva.[1]

Yasovarman also founded a new capital, Yasodharapura (យសោធបុរៈ), around the hill of Phnom Bakheng (ភ្នំបាខែង), about 18 kilometers (11 miles) to the northwest, and Hariharalaya was all but abandoned.[5][4][7] A causeway once ran from the eastern entrance of Phnom Bakheng toward the Indratataka and Lolei.[8] Charles Higham writes that at the new capital he had the East Baray built, a reservoir twice the size of the Indratataka.[5] Giulio Magli writes that Yasovarman probably began it around the start of the 10th century.[3] Glaize compared the setting of Lolei with that of the East Mebon, the island temple of the East Baray.[1]

The temple

Lolei stands on two tiers held by laterite retaining walls, with a stairway on each of the four sides. Lions decorate the side walls of the stairways, and gargoyles carry rainwater off the upper terrace.[1] The lower tier is 9 meters (30 feet) wide, and its edge has a rounded border like the bodies of nagas (serpent figures) lying on the ground.[1] The upper tier measures 90 by 80 meters (295 by 262 feet) and rises 2.4 meters (7.9 feet);[1] Hello Angkor gives the whole platform as about 100 meters (330 feet) square and about 3 meters (10 feet) high.[2] Glaize thought the towers had once stood on a shared base, later buried.[1]

The four brick towers stand in two rows and open to the east, with the eastern pair the larger.[1][2] Each has four upper tiers.[1] Two rows of two is an unusual plan, as three towers in a row was the norm.[2] The two northern towers line up with the east and west stairways. Glaize took this as a sign that two rows of three towers, as at Preah Ko, had been planned, with two of them never built or pulled down early.[1][2] Each sanctuary is square inside, 4.5 meters (14.8 feet) on a side in the front row and 4 meters (13 feet) in the back row.[1]

Glaize found at Lolei every feature of Preah Ko, except that each doorway is cut from a single block of stone, as at Bakong.[1] At the corners of the towers, door guardians (dvarapala) on the front row and female divinities (devata) on the back row stand in niches carved in sandstone blocks set into the brick.[1][2] Glaize judged the devatas close in style to those of Phnom Bakheng, built at almost the same time.[1] The sandstone lintels show the god Indra on his elephant above the door of the north-east tower.[1][2] The sources place Garuda differently: Glaize puts Vishnu riding Garuda above the east door of the south-east tower,[1] and Hello Angkor names Garuda as the central figure of the lintel over the north-west tower's entrance.[2] Glaize found the carving of the panels and false doors already more detailed than at Bakong and Preah Ko.[1]

The site holds 17 recorded inscriptions: a stele written in Sanskrit on both faces, inscribed door frames in Sanskrit and Khmer, and pillars in Khmer.[2][1] They record the founding date, the dedication of the towers, the duties of the temple's workers, the setting up of statues, among them Shiva and Gauri, and gifts made to the temple.[2]

Condition and restoration

Glaize wrote that the buildings of a pagoda crowded the site, and that the monks' changes and demolitions, mostly to the terraces, had left the original plan hard to make out.[1] The lime stucco (plaster) that once coated the towers had gone entirely, several lintels had decayed or disappeared, and the north-east tower was in the soundest state.[1] Once at the center of the reservoir, the temple stands among fields reached by road, beside a modern Wat.[2]

In 2021 the APSARA National Authority began work on the south-eastern tower, which Khmer Post Asia reported had lain collapsed for hundreds of years through age, natural factors and lack of upkeep.[9] The project began in mid-2021 and was set to end that year. As Khmer Post Asia words its aim, the work was meant to prevent further damage rather than rebuild the whole structure.[9] The authority's excavations uncovered a wall around the temples, an entrance pavilion (gopura), a building that may have been a "library", and urns buried as sacred offerings. Restoration was under way as of mid-2022, and the authority finished restoring the Wat in late 2022.[2]

Visiting

Lolei lies about 13 kilometers (8 miles) east of Siem Reap, a short way north of Route 6, near Preah Ko and Bakong.[2][1] Entry is covered by the Angkor Pass, and the Roluos temples are open from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. (as of 2026).[2]

References

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19 1.20 1.21 1.22 1.23 1.24 1.25 1.26 1.27 1.28 The Angkor Guide, Maurice Glaize, Roluos: Lolei, from The Monuments of the Angkor Group (1944; English translation)
  2. ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17 Hello Angkor, Rodney Charles L'Huillier, Lolei Temple (Roluos Group) (updated January 1, 2026)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Giulio Magli, Archaeoastronomy in the Khmer Heartland (arXiv, 2016)
  4. ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 Radio Free Asia Khmer, Chun Chanboth, Kings of the Angkor period, part 10 of a history series (April 2, 2014; in Khmer)
  5. ↑ 5.00 5.01 5.02 5.03 5.04 5.05 5.06 5.07 5.08 5.09 Proceedings of the British Academy, Charles F. W. Higham, The Origins of the Civilisation of Angkor (2003)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 The Angkor Guide, Maurice Glaize, Roluos: Bakong, from The Monuments of the Angkor Group (1944; English translation)
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Angkor Database, Christophe Pottier and Dominique Soutif, A Bakong Inscription and the Datation of Hariharalaya City (record of a 2014 article; undated)
  8. ↑ Hello Angkor, Rodney Charles L'Huillier, Phnom Bakheng: The Mountain Top Pyramid, History and Highlights (updated January 1, 2026)
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Khmer Post Asia, Thong Sotha, APSARA National Authority restores the southeast tower of the Lolei temple (August 6, 2021)


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This page was last edited on 12 October 2026, at 07:00.