Landscape
Ta Prohm BUDDHIST TEMPLE
The final Indiana Jones fantasy, Ta Prohm is cloaked in stippled darkness , its crumbling towers and walls locked in the relaxed, muscular embrace of enormous main systems. If Angkor Wat, the Bayon and other temples are proof to the gifted of the ancient Khmers, Ta Prohm reminds us equally of the great fecundity and strength of the jungle . There is a romantic cycle to this admired , with humanity earliest discovering nature to promptly create, and natural world once again conquering humanity to unhurriedly ruin .
Ta Prohm, which was built from 1186 and firstly known as Rajavihara (Monastery of the King) , was a Buddhist temple devoted to the mother of Jayavarman VII. Ta Prohm is a temple of towers, close courtyards and narrow corridors. Very old trees tower overhead, their leaves filtering the sunshine and casting a green pall over the whole scene. It is the closest most of us may get to feeling the charm of the travellers of old.
Phnom Bakheng HINDU TEMPLE
Around 400m south of Angkor Thom, that hill’s main draw is the sunset view of Angkor Wat, though this has turned into something of a circus, with hundreds of travellers jockeying for space. Built by Yasovarman I (r 889–910), the temple, has five tiers with seven levels.
Preah Khan BUDDHIST TEMPLE
(Sacred Sword) The temple of Preah Khan (Sacred Sword) is one of the greatest constructions at Angkor, a maze of vaulted corridors, fine carvings and lichen-clad stonework. Built by Jayavarman VII, it covers a very large area, but the temple itself is within a rectangular wall of nearly 700m by 800m. Preah Khan is a genuine combination temple, the eastern entrance devoted to Mahayana Buddhism, with equal-sized doors, and the other cardinal directions devoted to Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma, with successively smaller doors, emphasising the unequal nature of Hinduism.
Preah Neak Poan BUDDHIST TEMPLE
Another late-12th-century work of – no surprises here – Jayavarman VII, this small temple just east of Preah Khan has a large square pool surrounded by four smaller square pools, with a circular ‘island’ in the middle. Water once flowed from the central pond into the four peripheral pools via four ornamental spouts, in the shape of an elephant’s head, a horse’s head, a lion’s head and a human head.
Roluos Group HINDU TEMPLE
The monuments of Roluos, which served as the capital for Indravarman I (r 877–89), are among the earliest large eternal temples built by the Khmers and mark the dawn of Khmer classical art. Preah Ko, dedicated to Shiva, has elaborate inscriptions in Sanskrit on the doorposts of each tower and some of the best surviving examples of Angkorian plasterwork. The city’s central temple, Bakong, with its five-tier central pyramid of sandstone, is a representation of Mt Meru. Roluos is 13km southeast of Siem Reap along NH6.
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