Preah Pithu

Preah Pithu (ព្រះពិធូ) is a group of five small temples and their terraces at the north end of the royal square in Angkor Thom. Its main buildings are dated to the first half of the 12th century, the period of Angkor Wat.

One of the temples of Preah Pithu in Angkor Thom, 2017. Photo: Jakub Hałun, CC BY-SA 4.0

Heritage site details
Khmer name	ព្រះពិធូ
Site type	Temple group
Location	Angkor Thom, Angkor, Siem Reap province
Country	Cambodia
Period	12th century
Subjects	Religion & Spiritual Life; History & Remembrance

Location

North of the Bayon, two roads running side by side from north to south frame the royal square of Angkor Thom. On the west side stand the Baphuon, the Terrace of the Elephants and the royal palace with its temple, the Phimeanakas. Preah Palilay, Tep Pranam and the Terrace of the Leper King are also on that side. To the east stand the towers of Prasat Suor Prat, the two Kleangs and Preah Pithu. The group lies at the far northern end of the square, on its east side, opposite Tep Pranam. Hello Angkor places it northeast of the former royal palace. It is among the well-known sites within the walls of Angkor Thom. Long Ton, writing in Cambodianess, listed the Preah Pithu temple among the sanctuaries of the city other than the larger Bayon and Baphuon, and wrote that they suit visitors who seek peace and quiet.

Maurice Glaize, in his guide to the Angkor monuments, wrote that the five temples stand in no clear order. The temples are also known by letters, such as Preah Pithu T and Preah Pithu X. Preah Pithu T, also called Kor Sak Temple, was once ringed by a moat. It shared this island with Preah Pithu U, or Chorm Temple, which stands directly to its east. The island was reached only by the western terrace.

Dates and religion

Glaize dated the group to the early 12th century. He placed its main buildings in the first half of that century, in the style of Angkor Wat, on the quality of their carving. Two temples seemed to him later, the third and the fifth. The sanctuary of the third, left unfinished, seemed to him to belong to a later period, and he held that it must have been Buddhist. The fifth appeared to him to fall between the time of Angkor Wat and that of the Bayon. Hello Angkor also dates Preah Pithu T to the early 12th century. It also notes sandstone blocks from sites of the 11th and 13th centuries reused inside the temple's walled area.

Glaize gave the cult of the group as Brahmanic, except for one Buddhist sanctuary. The first, fourth and fifth temples each held a linga, one of the forms of the god Shiva. Hello Angkor wrote that Preah Pithu T was first dedicated to Vishnu.

The temples

First temple

A cruciform terrace on two levels leads from the road to the first temple. Fluted columns hold up its edges, and its balustrades carry sweeping nagas, mythical serpents. Glaize compared them with the nagas in front of Preah Palilay. A sandstone wall encloses an area of 45 by 40 meters (148 by 131 feet). Its coping is carved to look like the vaulted roof of a gallery. Small entrance pavilions, or gopuras, open in it to the east and west.

The sanctuary rises on a carved base of three tiers, six meters (20 feet) high in all, with a stairway on each side. Its chamber, three meters (10 feet) square, opens on all four sides and holds a linga one meter (3.3 feet) tall on its pedestal. The walls are cut off above the niches that hold devatas, female divinities. Glaize found these figures especially fine, though their feet are shown in profile. Their skirts carry small flowers, a motif that became common in the Bayon style. Bands of small dancing figures surround them. The western lintel shows the Churning of the Ocean in a highly stylized form. Its small columns are richly carved and have sixteen sides, so they look almost round.

Second temple

The second temple stands on the same axis as the first, in an enclosure of 35 by 28 meters (115 by 92 feet) with simple doors and no gopuras. Its sanctuary follows the same plan on a smaller scale, with a chamber of two meters (6.6 feet). Its walls are carved all over. Small devatas, with their feet facing forward, give way beside the doors to dvarapalas, guardians of the temple. Small scenes with figures fill blind arches at the foot of the pilasters, a common practice in the Angkor Wat period.

Glaize described three of its lintels. The southern one, left unfinished, shows Krishna standing on the head of Kala, a monster's head. The northern one shows the Churning of the Ocean. The western one shows the Trimurti: a many-armed Shiva dancing on a Kala head, between Vishnu and Brahma.

Third temple

Across an old moat, behind the first two temples and 30 meters (98 feet) north of their axis, the third temple stands on a terrace about 40 meters (131 feet) wide and four meters (13 feet) high. Stairways decorated with lions cut through its molded retaining walls. The sanctuary, of two stories, is plain and unfinished, and Glaize held that it must have been Buddhist. Inside its chamber is a double frieze of Buddhas, which Glaize placed in a late period. On its eastern lintel, three more images of the Buddha appear among figures in prayer. Glaize judged all of these to be probably later than the building. Other pediments were found nearby. Glaize singled out a "Cutting of the Hair", which he wrote was kept in the Bayon storeroom.

Farther east lies a Buddhist terrace with a molded laterite wall, ringed by semas, steles that mark out the sacred area. Beyond it, a stairway flanked by two small elephants carved in the round leads down into an old pool.

Fourth temple

North of the second temple stands a fourth, with no enclosure wall and a double vestibule on its east side. Its chamber, more imposing than the others, is 3.8 meters (12.5 feet) square and held a linga 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) tall. Its sacred deposit stone, with sixteen holes, was also found. Work on its outer decoration had only begun, but its pilasters, with lyre-shaped motifs, show the Angkor Wat style.

Fifth temple

Farther north, on a simple mound of earth, the fifth temple has two main buildings joined by a vestibule. The western building is the sanctuary, with a false door on its west side. Its pilasters carry scrolls of leaves that end in birds' heads, and its chamber of 3 by 3.5 meters (10 by 11 feet) held a linga 0.95 meters (3.1 feet) tall. The larger chamber, seven by eight meters (23 by 26 feet), has mostly fallen. Two half pediments survive on its western side. The northern one shows Krishna, riding Garuda, in victory over Bana, an asura or demon; the southern one shows the Three Strides of Vishnu. Glaize wrote that the dedication of this temple remains unknown, though it somewhat resembles the shelters for pilgrims found at the entrances of other monuments.

Preah Pithu T

Hello Angkor describes the temple it calls Preah Pithu T as a stepped pyramid with a stairway on each side. The outer walls of the shrine carry carved devatas, two on each side. A large lintel near the entrance shows a female figure seated above a naga pulled from both ends, a scene like the Churning of the Sea of Milk. As of 2026, a carved linga found at the temple is held in the National Museum in Phnom Penh under the number ka 1687, and it carries the inscription numbered K. 544. French notes of 1918, in the Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient, record three lingas found in the work there. One of them stands 26 centimeters (10 inches) high in all. The linga itself, 16 centimeters (6.3 inches) high, has four arches, each with a figure whose name is carved below it. They are Shiva with his consort on the bull Nandi, Vishnu on Garuda, Brahma on Hamsa and Vaisravana (perhaps Kubera) seated on a lotus.

Preah Pithu X

Inside the central tower of the temple known as Preah Pithu X, thirty-seven images of the Buddha and three worshippers are carved in two rows. The Buddhas are shown in victory over Mara. Some of the rows are badly worn. Martin Polkinghorne, Christophe Pottier and Christian Fischer wrote in 2013 that the marks of a flat chisel appear on changes made to this tower. They wrote that such marks do not appear on stone carved in the Angkorian period, though flat chisels may have been used then and their marks removed by finer tools. They cite de Bernon, who in 2006 linked the thirty-seven Buddhas, through two modern inscriptions, to the "thirty-seven auxiliaries of the illumination". In their account, he took the temple to be a meditation cell for Buddhists at Angkor in the 15th or 16th century.

History

Preah Pithu T appears in the inventories of Aymonier, of 1904, and Lunet de Lajonquière, of 1911. The 1926 list of historic monuments (Liste des Monuments Historiques) entered Preah Pithu as three terraces and three sandstone sanctuaries. Jean Commaille, the first conservator of Angkor, cleared the site in 1908, and Henri Marchal cleared it from 1918 to 1920.

State

In Glaize's account, the temples are badly ruined. Their high bases and what remains of their main levels stand, but their upper parts have disappeared. Parts of several buildings were left unfinished: the small columns and southern lintel of the second temple, the sanctuary of the third and the outer carving of the fourth. As of 2026, a large carved lintel rests by the entrance of Preah Pithu T, and the reused blocks can be seen inside its walled area.

References