Phnom Banan Temple

Phnom Banan, also known as Wat Banan, is a must-see ancient site located around 20 km south of the city of Battambang. From its eastern side, a grand terrace platform with naga balustrade precedes a staircase flanked by lions rising 400m to the grand temple featuring five ancient ruinous towers, albeit not in a quincunx pattern they are reminiscent of the penultimate level, or the Bakan, of Angkor Wat.

At the base of the mountain is the contemporary pagoda of the same name, Wat Banan, and a small lake that’s surrounded by bamboo huts for relaxing and eating whilst further around to the north is the popular Banon Bamboo Train. Further around the southern side is the entrance to what becomes a large cave, more on that here.

Also at the base of the mountain, flanking the east entrance, is the remains of an ancient laterite building. It’s quite ruinous but its crude construction techniques are plain to see, one might wonder whether it was a “firehouse” built during the 12th century from recycled material of a prior temple or structure.

There are staircases on each side of the mountain but only the eastern entrance reaches ultimately to ground level offering access up to the top. The staircase is flanked by lions along the way and quite curiously, lions of three different styles which may be a reflection of the history of the site. It’s believed that the site was originally founded in the 11th century and later redeveloped in the 12-13th century.

Reaching the top, there are beautiful views over the plains below and the remains of a galleried enclosure wall with a grand towering gopura at each cardinal point enclosing the grand central tower. Laterite is predominantly used in the construction of the base platform, the enclosure, and the gopura with sandstone accents and features whilst the central tower is built entirely of sandstone. The central tower is somewhat of an oddity, featuring a mix of sandstone types noting the grey sandstone and pink sandstone used.

On the central tower, you can still see the carvings of devata on the outer walls and looking up the tower, artwork in the pediments. There are also several lintels resting at ground level around the site, along with the torso of a Dvarapala, and inside the central shrine, you can see inscribed sandstone plinths and a collection of sculptures, contemporary and ancient.

Lintels at the site

Small structure at the base of the hill

Photos from the visit in 2017

Nearby Phnom Banan

On the eastern side and north of the entrance road there are bamboo huts by the water’s edge where you can eat and relax, on the east side to the south of the entrance road is Wat Banan featuring an older and new pagoda while on the southern slope of the mountain, there is an entrance to a cave that features a contemporary Buddhist shrine. Over to the north side of the mountain is the Banon Bamboo Train, and further around to the north-western side of the mountain is Wat Neang Romsay Sak.

Historical Notes

These historical notes come from Lajonquire in the early 1900s who followed earlier visits by Delaporte, Moura, and Aymonier, providing insight into the state of the temple and the location of items. What follows is a machine translation from French (with time I’ll see to improving it)

The Banon monument is built in a very picturesque way on the eastern spur of a series of heights which come to an end about 100 meters from the left bank of the Stung Sang Ke and about twenty kilometers upstream from Battambang. From the road that runs along the river you can see its towers and the ruins of its enclosure, dominating the plain from a height of more than 100 meters; the dark color of the materials used, the projections of the gopuras, and the corner towers would give the impression of a medieval fortified castle if the silhouette of the domes did not recall its exotic origin. The head of this spur has been shaved and flattened to serve as a base for the various following constructions:

1. The sanctuary. This one presents quite particular characteristics that certain monuments of the region of Angkor and the Banteai Teap (n° 388) could make foresee without them having received a development as important as in Banon. On the main E.-O. (fig. 114), we find in it a square central room, open on its four sides to which are extended by forebodies. These arrangements have so far been very normal, but here is what comes out of the ordinary rules: the forebodies east and west are shorter than the other two, and in fact doubled by dark side corridors which open out through narrow openings. in the N. and S. forebodies. These are themselves, by the way, similarly accosted, but on half of their development only, by side corridors which are, here, however, simple dark recesses closed towards the outside and only opening in the side corridors of the avant-corps E. and O It follows from these arrangements that the E. and W. facades of this sanctuary are more developed (8 meters) than the side facades (only 6 meters). In spite of these special provisions, a single dome and sensibly square at the base covers the central cella of the monument, rising externally in steps, following the ordinary rule. As for the double avant-corps, they are covered with the usual ogival vaults. accosted by half-windows which shelter the corridors and side cul-de-sacs.

From the point of view of materials, we see. at first sight, in this monument, a total lack of homogeneity. Only sandstone is used there, but it is a sandstone of mixed origins, and the superimposed blocks are of various tints, yellow. grey, pink, violet, without any sorting, or any connection having been attempted. One can even distinguish, here and there, blocks covered with ornamental motifs which are not in place, although masonry in the middle of the facades or the steps, and which certainly come from either the demolition of a monument that originally occupied the same site or from a nearby sanctuary.

The exterior decoration had to be very complete; it is sketched and even finished in several parts, either from the facades of the main body, or from those of the upper tiers; of the Devata lean on the picture rail of the first, and their doors have their ornamental apparatus more or less well preserved. Three of the decorative lintels are quite distinct, that of the interior door Erest and those of the two doors D. of the middle avant-corps. They are both of type III and rest on banded octagonal columns. The first has as its central motif a figure of Garuda represented felt standing, facing, right foot resting on an elephant, left foot on a tortoise, and holding in his hands the garlands of rice; the second, at the outer door O., has as its central figurine an image of the Buddha seated on the padmasana; about the decoration of the third, at the inner door O., is a smaller reproduction of the previous one.

2nd Enclosure. A system of four galleries in limonite, completely ruined, delimits, around this monument, a square enclosure having 35 meters of side inside. Face 0. is closer to the sanctuary, so as to clear the main entrance cipale which is to the east. These galleries are almost completely razed, perhaps they were not completed. They intersect at the angles under domed constructions in the form of sanctuaries of which only two facades are visible and occupied by false doors. These limonite constructions are fairly well preserved, their coarse steps ending in a crowning system in sandstone, in the shape of a lotus flower, with a central knob and a double row of open petals.

The galleries are, moreover, interrupted, at the point of intersection of the axes of the sanctuaries, by gopuras with a single passage which crosses a cruciform room preceded by two obverse avant-corps, opposite and communicating with small side rooms. also obscure. They are in limonite and of fairly large dimensions; the three steps of their dome end, like those of the angular towers, with a crowning in sandstone, central lotus bud with, at the base, two rows of open petals. Like the angular constructions, they are still well preserved. It should be noted that the frames of their doors, although in sandstone, are not monolithic and that the ornamental pieces of these are missing in most cases, or are unfinished like those of gopura east. At the inner east gate of the gopura. the central group of the decorative lintel (type III) which represents the Buddha seated on his throne, his hands on his knees, while, kneeling in front of him and on the sides, worshipers offer him an urn and a flower.

Many Buddhist statues, a Prah Bat and false pedestals are gathered in the cella of the sanctuary; many certainly date from the time of its construction or restoration. In front of the gopura east, on the exterior facade, a large sandstone Dvarapala is still standing.

Access, four stairways leading from the outer doors of the gopuras descend fairly steep slopes of the hill, but only the eastern stairway goes down to the foot, the others stop a few meters from the doors and are currently lost in the forest.

The east staircase adapts to changes in slope, sometimes made up of very steep steps, in limonite or brick (these may come from a fairly recent renovation), sometimes with more or less inclined landings. The lowest of these landings, a few meters above the plain, was bordered laterally by naga railings.

A straight causeway starts from the foot of the eastern stairway heading towards the river. It is interrupted, a few meters away, by the weir of a vast unfinished basin and of undecided shape to the south of the roadway and which one crosses on a wooden bridge. A few meters from the mouth of this bridge is a small sanctuary in sandstone and limonite, square, open to the south, remained unfinished, is hidden in the surrounding bush. The absence of any figure of Brahmanic divinity and the obvious traces of reconstruction allow us to suppose that this monument was, during a rather clumsy restoration and for that material from other sanctuaries were used, devoted to Buddhist worship on the very site of a temple who had a completely different ordination.

Banon inscriptions. In neither of the two modern pagodas, which have moreover been moved since the passage of Mr. Aymonier, have we found, nor the modern inscription of which he states is unreadable, nor the three other ancient inscriptions, moreover in very poor condition, that there are stamped, one on a stele that dates from the 9th or 10th-century caka, the other two on pedestals, one of which gives the date 972 caka (1050 A.D).

Inventaire descriptif des monuments du Cambodge, E. Lunet de Lajonquière

Inscriptions

• K, 201 – stele – 14 lines of Khmer text – location unknown
• K. 202 – door frame – 35 lines of Khmer text – IC VII, p. 40
• K. 203 – 2 lines Khmer – IC VII, p. 40

Regarding the three, George Coedes notes

Of the three inscriptions stamped by AYMONIER at Bànan in Battamban, none was found by L. DE LAJONQUIÈRE, and the EFEO has no stampings. Apart from the modern stele (K. 201), an inscription of 2 lines on a base (K. 203) gives a date 972 caka which is moreover the only legible element, and the stamping of an inscription of 35 lines Khmères on a side wall (K. 202) allows us to decipher a few words and a few phrases. It is a deed of gift which appears to have been drawn up in the ordinary form, and Aymonier is probably correct in attributing it to the reign of Rajendravarman

Inscriptions Du Cambodge, Coedes

Historical photos (© EFEO)

Photos of remnants discovered at the site by the EFEO in the early to mid-1900s.