Heritage site

Pre Rup

ប្រាសាទប្រែរូប

Pre Rup (ប្រាសាទប្រែរូប, Prasat Pre Rup) is a temple mountain at Angkor, built by King Rajendravarman II (រាជេន្ទ្រវរ្ម័នទី២) in 961 south of the East Baray.[1][2] It housed the king's linga, the stone emblem of Shiva that bore his name, and shrines that honored his relatives.[3][2] Its builders used laterite and brick for nearly all of it.[1]

History

Charles Higham dates to 921 the move of King Jayavarman IV (ជ័យវរ្ម័នទី៤) and his court from Angkor to a new city at Koh Ker (កោះកេរ្តិ៍)[2], to the northeast.[3] Chun Chanboth gives 928 as the year Jayavarman IV took the throne there.[2] Rajendravarman II came to the throne in 944 and brought the capital back to Yasodharapura (យសោធបុរៈ), the city at Angkor.[2][4] In 952 he built the East Mebon (ប្រាសាទមេបុណ្យខាងកើត), a temple with five towers on an island in the middle of the East Baray.[2][5] Nine years later he built Pre Rup to the south, about 500 meters (1,640 feet) beyond the reservoir's southern dike, on the same axis and in the same style, also with five towers.[5][1][2] Chun Chanboth wrote that the king built the second temple because ceremonies were hard to hold at the East Mebon, which stood in the middle of the reservoir.[2] The chronology of Angkor's monuments drawn from the inscriptions places Pre Rup in 961, between the East Mebon in 952 and Banteay Srei (ប្រាសាទបន្ទាយស្រី) in 967.[2][6]

Where the king's own city lay is less certain. Higham wrote that Rajendravarman chose the area south of the East Baray as his capital, with Pre Rup and the East Mebon as its two surviving temples.[3] Lawrence Palmer Briggs placed the king's central temple, probably, at Phimeanakas (ភិមានអាកាស), near the center of the later Angkor Thom.[4][2] Maurice Glaize saw Pre Rup, overlooking a broad cultivated plain watered by the reservoir, as the heart of a large settlement that Philippe Stern called the "eastern city". He added that this need not mean the king had abandoned the older Yasodharapura, centered on Phnom Bakheng.[1]

The inscription

The temple's foundation stele, a large stone carved on both faces, was found in a gallery near the northeast corner of the enclosure.[1] Cataloged as K. 806, the inscription traces Rajendravarman's descent, using the Sanskrit compound vrahmaksatra for his line, as the East Mebon inscription does.[7][1] It gives the founding date of 961 and names the temple Rajendrabhadresvara, after the linga set in the central sanctuary.[1][7] It also records that the king used 100 kalasa, ritual water vessels, in each month of Pusya.[7]

The inscription names the statues in the four corner towers. Glaize identified them as one of the king's maternal ancestors, in the form of Vishnu, and his maternal aunt, as the goddess Uma. The third was King Harshavarman II (ហស៌វរ្ម័នទី២), as Shiva, the god of the king's own cult.[1][2] Glaize calls Harshavarman the aunt's son and the king's half brother, while Chun Chanboth calls the two kings cousins.[1][2] The text explains that the king's royal essence lived in his own image, which was set up during his lifetime.[1] The temple served the Brahmanic cult of Shiva.[1]

Architecture

Pre Rup is a pyramid that stands for Mount Meru, the home of the gods, crowned by five towers in a quincunx: one at the center and one at each corner.[1] Glaize called it the last temple mountain built before continuous galleries came to surround the central pyramid.[1] Its laterite and brick walls carry sandstone only in a few parts, since builders of the period used that stone sparingly.[1] Two enclosures surround it, each entered through four gateway pavilions (gopuras).[1] The outer wall, of laterite, measures 120 by 130 meters (394 by 427 feet). Long halls with sandstone pillars or laterite walls and wood and tile roofs once lined the outer courtyard as rest rooms for pilgrims.[1] Inside the inner wall, long galleries for the temple's servants ran around the whole complex, and many decorated roof tiles were found in the rubble.[1]

The pyramid rises in three narrow tiers to more than 12 meters (40 feet), from 50 meters (164 feet) across at the base to 35 meters (115 feet) at the top. A stairway climbs the middle of each side between seated lions.[1] The two lower tiers are of laterite and the third is of sandstone.[1] Twelve small shrines holding lingas stand on the tiers, as at the earlier temple of Bakong.[1] The central sanctuary rises more than 4 meters (13 feet) above the others on a double sandstone base. Its chamber is 4.2 meters (13.8 feet) square, and in 1944 it held two standing Buddha images of a later period.[1]

All five towers open to the east, with false doors of sandstone on the other sides, carved with small figures in a lattice frame.[1] The brick walls were covered in a lime plaster, and the decoration was carved into the plaster itself; traces of it remained in 1944, especially on the southwest tower.[1] The figures on the corner piers are female on the two western towers and male on the eastern ones and the central tower. The southwest tower bears Brahma's consort, a goddess with four faces and four arms. The northeast tower bears a four-armed figure with the head of a boar, the female power of Vishnu.[1]

In the eastern part of the inner court stand two rows of three brick towers on shared bases. The base of one of the six was prepared, and Glaize wrote that its tower was never built, unless its bricks were later taken down for use elsewhere. The inscription does not mention these towers, and Glaize judged them probably later additions, since they were left unfinished.[1] Their bricks measure 30 by 16 by 8.5 centimeters (11.8 by 6.3 by 3.3 inches), larger than usual, and were laid without mortar, rubbed together and joined with a thin plant-based glue.[1] The East Mebon's bricks are much smaller, at 22 by 13 by 5.5 centimeters (8.7 by 5.1 by 2.2 inches).[5] The most complete lintel, on the east face of the southern tower, shows Vishnu as a lion tearing at the king of the asuras, the demons who rivaled the gods.[1] Two buildings of the kind known as libraries flank the eastern entrance. Glaize wrote that they sheltered two stones, one showing the nine planets and one showing seven ascetics.[1]

The reign of Rajendravarman's successor, Jayavarman V (968 to 1001), marked the change from the Pre Rup style to the Khleang style.[3][8]

The name and its legends

The name Pre Rup means "turn the body". It recalls a cremation rite in which the outline of the body, lying in its ashes, is turned to face different directions.[1] Glaize wrote that Cambodians have long given the temple a funerary character, for reasons that are not known.[1] A dressed stone tank lies between the two libraries, near the foot of the eastern stairway, and measures 3 by 1.9 meters (9.8 by 6.2 feet). Some hold that it served in cremation rites, and legend calls it a sarcophagus. Glaize judged otherwise: the tank does not hold water and has a grooved upper edge, so he thought it more likely the base of a light pavilion or of a statue of Nandin, the bull that carries Shiva.[1] Beneath it lay the remains of a pedestal and a consecrated foundation stone bearing a large linga, which may have come from the central sanctuary.[1]

The funerary tradition also appears in a legend of a king who loved sweet cucumbers.[1] In the version Glaize retold in his account of the temple of Banteay Samre, a poor farmer named Pou grew the king's cucumbers and was ordered to kill anyone who entered his field. The king came at night, was taken for a thief and was struck down. A sacred elephant then chose Pou as the new king, and he held his predecessor's funeral at the East Mebon and the cremation at Pre Rup.[6]

Clearing and restoration

Henri Marchal and Georges Trouvé cleared the temple from 1930 to 1935.[1] The brick structures needed careful work to remove the soil, fallen stone and roots that covered them. Rebuilding with the original stones (anastylosis) was not possible, so the work was limited to repairing brickwork and strengthening the structure.[1] A small square laterite building in the northeast corner, open on all four sides, of the type that sheltered a stele, was fully restored.[1]

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 1.29 1.30 1.31 1.32 1.33 1.34 1.35 The Angkor Guide, Maurice Glaize, Pre Rup, 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 Radio Free Asia Khmer, Chun Chanboth, Wars over the throne among kings of the Angkor period, part 11 of a history series (April 9, 2014; in Khmer)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Proceedings of the British Academy, Charles F. W. Higham, The Origins of the Civilisation of Angkor (2003)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 The Far Eastern Quarterly, Lawrence Palmer Briggs, A Sketch of Cambodian History (August 1947)
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 The Angkor Guide, Maurice Glaize, The Eastern Mebon, from The Monuments of the Angkor Group (1944; English translation)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Angkor Database, Maurice Glaize, The Monuments of the Angkor Group (1944; English translation of the fourth French edition)
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Dominique Soutif and Julia Estève, Texts and Objects: Exploiting the Literary Sources of Medieval Cambodia, in The Angkorian World (Routledge, 2023)
  8. ↑ APSARA National Authority, Discover the History and Unique Features of Takeo Temple (July 15, 2026)
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This page was last edited on 11 October 2026, at 13:36.