Heritage site
Ta Som
Ta Som is a small Buddhist temple at Angkor, built in the late 12th century in the reign of King Jayavarman VII.[1] It stands at the eastern end of the Jayatataka, the reservoir of Preah Khan, on the same east to west line as Preah Khan and Neak Poan.[1][2]
History
Maurice Glaize, in his guide to the Angkor monuments, wrote that Ta Som "must represent" a "single unified development", typical of the temples of the last period of the Bayon style.[1] He wrote that it appears to be laid out exactly like the outer enclosures of Ta Prohm and Banteay Kdei.[1]
The stele of Preah Khan, the foundation inscription of that temple, lists the deities Jayavarman VII installed in temples outside Preah Khan.[2] One verse names a pair of reservoirs belonging to a Buddhist temple called the Yogindravihara, the temple of the Lord of Yogins, a title of the Buddha. Inside the outer wall of Ta Som, the path from the east gate is flanked by two laterite ponds, each about 22 by 16 meters (72 by 52 feet). Ta Som is the only temple near Preah Khan built with such a pair, and Thomas S. Maxwell wrote that its identification as the Yogindravihara "seems conclusive".[2] The stele gives 16 deities to each of the two ponds and 16 to the temple itself, so the whole site would have held 48.[2]
Images and dedications
The main image of the central tower showed the Buddha in meditation, seated beneath the protective hood of a naga (serpent).[2] The World Monuments Fund excavated the statue in August 2001 from under the floor of the central sanctuary, where it lay buried beneath a pedestal later used for a linga, an emblem of the god Shiva.[2][3] The image faces east, and a zodiac circle is carved on its back, without the planetary positions that would have dated its installation.[2] Martin Polkinghorne, Christophe Pottier and Christian Fischer note that the image is in the Bayon style. In their view, its small size and overall form rule out linking it with the Buddha of the Bayon.[3]
Inscriptions on the doorframes name other deities of the temple. The north doorway of the central sanctuary records a goddess, Indresvari, who stood for the spirit of a woman named Indralakshmi.[2] The four gateway shrines of the first enclosure held Tribhuvanadeva ("God of the Triple World") on the east, Vriddhesvara ("The Old God") on the south, Dharmasenapatindra on the west and Sugataraja on the north, Sugata being a title of the Buddha.[2] A god named Narendradeva, standing for a man whose name is illegible, was set up in the shrine in the northern courtyard.[2]
The temple
Ta Som has three enclosures. The outer one is a laterite wall measuring 200 by 240 meters (656 by 787 feet), entered on the east and west through cruciform gateway pavilions (gopura), so the temple has a double entrance.[1] Glaize describes one of them as a four-faced tower of Lokesvara, wrapped in the roots of a giant fig tree; some roots had broken through the vault and reached the ground inside the passage.[1] Its western lintel shows the standing bodhisattva (a being on the way to becoming a Buddha) among worshippers. The eastern gopura has the same pediment and a small terrace edged with naga balustrades.[1]
Past the first gopura, a paved way lined with nagas and large garudas (divine birds with human bodies) crosses the moat.[1] The laterite wall of the second enclosure opens east and west through sandstone gopuras with small side wings and windows with turned stone bars.[1] The first enclosure is a gallery of laterite and sandstone measuring 20 by 30 meters (66 by 98 feet), with corner pavilions and four sandstone gopuras, each a tower of two diminishing upper tiers.[1] Throughout, the walls carry false windows with lowered blinds, small female divinities (devata) and dense carved foliage.[1]
Inside the courtyard stand two small "library" buildings facing east, and the main sanctuary, cross-shaped with a vestibule on each side and open in all four directions.[1] The pediments of the gopuras are carved in bands. On the south face of the north gopura, four figures in prayer surround a fifth, standing on a lotus, which was defaced during the Brahmanic reaction of the 13th century.[1] Two sandstone pillars, like those at Preah Khan, Ta Prohm and Banteay Kdei, stand at the western corners of the courtyard.[1]
Condition and restoration
Henri Marchal cleared the site in 1930.[1] Glaize describes the temple as in an advanced state of ruin, with the north-east corner of the first gallery collapsed and the courtyard covered in fallen blocks; the standing buildings had received only temporary consolidation and basic clearing.[1]
The World Monuments Fund returned to Angkor in 1991 for a conservation program at Preah Khan, and later carried similar programs to Ta Som and Neak Poan.[4] Dozens of Cambodians took part in the World Monuments Fund's training at Preah Khan and Ta Som.[4]
References
- ↑ 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 Angkor Database, Maurice Glaize, The Monuments of the Angkor Group (1944; English translation of the fourth French edition)
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 Udaya, Journal of Khmer Studies 8, Thomas S. Maxwell, The Stele Inscription of Preah Khan, Angkor: Text with Translation and Commentary (undated)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Angkor Database, Martin Polkinghorne, Christophe Pottier and Christian Fischer, One Buddha Can Hide Another, Journal Asiatique 301.2 (2013)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 ICC-Angkor, 20 Years of International Cooperation for Conservation and Sustainable Development (undated)