Heritage site

Ta Prohm

ប្រាសាទតាព្រហ្ម


Ta Prohm (ប្រាសាទតាព្រហ្ម, Ta Prohm) is a Buddhist temple and monastery at Angkor in Siem Reap Province, Cambodia, founded by King Jayavarman VII in 1186.[1][2] Trees grow out of its ruins, and it has been left much as it was found.[3][1]

History

The name Ta Prohm means "the Brahma ancestor." The temple's first name, Rajavihara, means "monastery of the king."[1][2] Its foundation stela, the inscribed stone that records the temple's founding, gives the date 1186, five years after Jayavarman VII came to the throne.[1] It was a Mahayana Buddhist monastery, dedicated to the king's mother.[4][2] The stela records the placing of a statue of her in the form of Prajnaparamita, the "Perfection of Wisdom," and of 260 statues of gods and one of the king's guru.[1][5] In 1191 the king dedicated Preah Khan to his father as Lokesvara, so the two temples honor his mother and his father.[5]

The stela counts 12,640 people living within the temple's enclosure, among them 18 high priests, 2,740 officiants and 615 dancers, and 79,365 people in 3,140 villages served the temple.[1] The stela also lists its wealth, among it five tons of gold in plates, 512 beds of silk and 523 parasols.[1] Other accounts put the number needed to maintain and attend the temple at almost 80,000, including more than 2,700 officials.[6][2]

The temple was not built all at once. It shows many alterations, and some parts are close in style to Angkor Wat while others are close to the Bayon.[1] In the 13th century, under Jayavarman VIII, Buddhist images at Ta Prohm were defaced or replaced with Hindu ones, and the scars remain on its reliefs.[7] Angkor was abandoned between the 15th and 19th centuries.[3]

Conservation work at Angkor began in 1907, much of it by the École française d'Extrême-Orient (French School of the Far East).[8] The school chose to leave Ta Prohm much as the first European explorers had found it, held in the forest. The choice also suited the taste of the time for picturesque ruins. Its work was limited to clearing paths and to keeping the roots and creepers from bringing the buildings down.[1] Ta Prohm was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1992 as part of Angkor.[8]

Architecture and layout

A dark stone doorway almost covered by a web of thick gray roots and green moss.
A doorway at Ta Prohm wrapped in the roots of a tetrameles tree, 2013. Photo: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 3.0

Ta Prohm's western gate stands a kilometer (0.6 mile) south of the road to Ta Keo.[1] It is a flat temple: its buildings stand on a single level, and height comes from the towers and the central sanctuary, not from a series of higher terraces as in a temple-mountain.[1] Three concentric galleries surround the sanctuary, and two outer walls enclose the whole site. The outer wall measures about 600 by 1,000 meters (2,000 by 3,300 feet). The temple itself fills a square of about 100 meters (330 feet) a side within a park of 60 hectares (150 acres).[1]

A main east-west axis runs through a line of towers and passages to the heart of the temple. The outer laterite wall had four gateways, or gopuras. The western one, the least damaged, is a tower in the style of the Bayon with four faces of the bodhisattva Lokesvara.[1] A library stands in the southeast corner of the central courtyard, and small groups of buildings with their own galleries and a central tower stand north and south of the main axis.[1] East of the third gallery, a cloister of 20 by 30 meters (66 by 98 feet), known as the Hall of Dancers, has friezes of apsaras, celestial dancers, above its openings. Glaize thought it might be the "Royal Palace" named in the inscription or a place for ritual dance. Beyond the fourth enclosure, north of the axis, stands a shelter for pilgrims.[1]

Art and inscriptions

A carved pediment shows the Great Departure of Siddhartha, the future Buddha, with gods holding the hooves of his horse to muffle their sound.[1] Devatas, female divinities, line many of the walls, and a dvarapala, a temple guardian armed with a club, stands at one entrance. Large images of the Buddha in the third gallery were destroyed in the religious reaction of the 13th century.[1] The lintels of the Hall of Dancers carry figures of apsaras.[9]

The trees are the temple's best-known feature.[4] The largest are silk-cotton trees and Tetrameles trees.[1][10] Many local people regard the large trees as sacred. Offerings of incense, flowers and food are placed near them or in the temple's alcoves, asking for health, prosperity and protection.[7]

Significance and conservation

Yellow metal scaffolding standing among fallen stones beside a temple gallery.
Restoration work at Ta Prohm, with scaffolding beside a gallery, 2019. Photo: No(0)GoodNamesLeft, CC BY-SA 4.0

The conservation and restoration of Ta Prohm is a partnership of the Archaeological Survey of India and APSARA, the Authority for the Protection and Management of Angkor and the Region of Siem Reap.[11] Work began in 2003, under an agreement India and Cambodia had signed the year before. The Archaeological Survey of India finished its second phase in 2015.[10] The work has restored parts of the temple and opened them to visitors while keeping the trees, which UNESCO and the international coordinating committee for Angkor treat as part of the monument.[11][10] The restored Hall of Dancers was inaugurated in November 2022.[11][10] Since 2023 the two partners have been restoring the South Gate by anastylosis, taking it apart and rebuilding it with its own stones. By mid-June 2026 that work was about 75 percent complete.[12]

Visiting

Ta Prohm was made famous by its part in the film Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001).[11][2] Wooden walkways, platforms and roped railings protect the monument from further damage, and climbing on the damaged galleries is not allowed.[13][2] Entry is included in the Angkor pass, and visitors cover their shoulders and knees.[9]

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 The Angkor Guide, Maurice Glaize, Ta Prohm (1944 guide, English translation; undated)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Lonely Planet, Ta Prohm
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 The Art Newspaper, Darryl D'Monte, The Archaeological Survey of India pledges to restore Ta Prohm temples (January 1, 2003)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Cambodianess, Ky Chamna, Ta Prohm Temple's Hall of Dancers: A Shared Culture and Diplomacy between Cambodia and India (December 27, 2025)
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 P. Nietupski, Medieval Khmer Society: The Life and Times of Jayavarman VII (ca. 1120-1218), ASIANetwork Exchange 26(1) (2019)
  6. ↑ Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., Ta Prohm - Wikipedia (2004-02-01)
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Inheritage Foundation, Ta Prohm Siem Reap Cambodia (2025-11-09)
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Angkor (undated)
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 tour-cambodia.com, Ta Prohm: practical guide - Nomadays - Seripheap (2026-03-28)
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 Cambodianess, Guardians of Stone and Root: India's Long Journey Restoring Cambodia's Temples (October 6, 2025)
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 ThePrint (ANI), Vice President Dhankar to inaugurate restored 'Hall of Dancers' at Ta Prohm temple in Cambodia (November 12, 2022)
  12. ↑ Indochina Voyages, Ta Prohm Temple: A complete guide (2026-08-15)
  13. ↑ Wikipedia
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This page was last edited on 19 October 2026, at 00:15.