Choan Sram Temple

Also recorded as Prasat Chin Srom, it’s a remote but large ancient temple site that dates to around the 10-11th century. It’s a fascinating site that’s made all the more interesting by its nowadays remote location north of Koh Ker and nearby the small village of Prey Veng.

The site is cleared (01/23) and consists of a quincunx of brick temples rising up on bi-level platform that’s fronted by the remains of two library buildings on the east side, surrounded all the way around by long laterite halls, and enclosed by a laterite wall with sandstone gopura on the east and west side. The site is further enclosed by a north and south wall that helps to create four enclosures, one at each corner. Of these four enclosures, the two on the east side enclose basins. Further to the east, as seen on satellite, there is the outline of a large baray (reservoir).

Quite strangely, no inscriptions were ever recorded at the site, nor was there any statuary found, although the site does not appear to be a partially completed site. It features impressively detailed lintels, door columns and the like. So, where are the stele and statues which were not seen even by the French in the 1900s? Either they never existed, surely unlikely, or were moved to another site, which seems more likely or let’s hope a research team discovers a buried stele at the site revealing its founder and era :). However, there is at least one inscription, with seven lines of text on the doorjamb of the central tower but I am yet to find any notes on a translation for it.

The state of preservation of the eastern gopura and the incredible detail that is seen across the remaining lintels, sandstone false doors and elsewhere is quite something to behold, it really is a very special site. With the major site of Koh Ker nearby, sadly the site is rarely visited even though it seems attempts have been made in the past. That said, think temple fans and students of Khmer art will not be disappointed and it’s a very worthwhile journey.

More to come…

The gopura

The shrines

The lintels – a common theme is Indra on his elephant airvata, whilst Shiva on Nandin is also seen. The lintel of the east gopura and central tower, the last three pictures below, are especially beautiful noting all the naga in the last picture

The longs halls/ashrama

Enclosure and eastern causeway

Layout (Based on Henri Parmentier, 1939)

What follows is a site report from Henri Parmentier published in 1939. Apologies for the less-than-perfect translation, if you are a French reader please see here.

Prásat Can Sram 284 (M.H. 267).

This important monument is located in the grounds of Khum Yan village which depends on Mlu Prei; as the crow flies, it is 19 km away from Koh Ker, 16 from Phnom Sandak, 7 from Pr. Komphus 284.2. It is a set of five sanctuaries arranged in staggered rows, with a raised center on a laterite pyramid with two steps. Built in brick, they are in a sorry state. This group was accompanied by two libraries; they are completely ruined; it is enclosed in a framework of long laterite buildings with roofs surrounded by an enclosure also of laterite opening to the east and west with fine sandstone gopuras. A second enclosure circumscribes it, admirably preserved; it encloses basins to the east and west, while leaving wide access to the gopura; this surface was perhaps formerly occupied at the east extremity by a laterite terrace. The whole is oriented directly to the east.

This group is preceded by 1 km in the same direction by an uninterrupted square of ditches, 10 m wide and 150 on the outer side. In the space thus rendered inaccessible, the locals affirm that there is no vestiges: the place is called Kbal Rap. To the west, less than a kilometer away, is another simpler enclosure, but perhaps more important: the point is called Trapân Kbal Khmoi; the frame here is made up of earthen levees.

Of the five towers, the central one greatly dominates the other four, and the northeast tower is the only one which still has part of its superstructures. The others have lost them and have, as a result, their interior filled. The central tower is razed to the level of its lintel. The four lower towers are not much better preserved and while they have retained part of their upper floors, these are amorphous. Let us briefly note the state of these buildings. In the middle tower, the east and south doors are complete; only part of the western one remains and little of the northern one. It is the same with the northeast tower, it is the south face which is ruined at the southeast tower, the four faces at the southwest tower, whose south lintel has been preserved on the ground, while in the northwest tower only the west side has lost its lintel.

We can only glimpse the cella of the southeast tower, and especially that of the northwest tower; the interior is square with a simple ogee cornice and a very inclined vault with almost continuous corbels. The door opens to the east under an ordinary relieving arch which ends under the cornice. The true trunnion lintel does not go all the way to the inner wall. It was continued by a beam whose embedding in the walls of the door is well marked. Doorframe and false doors are in sandstone, with a beautiful molded frame assembled with a miter, chiseled false leaves, octagonal columns, monoliths, free, a little heavy; entirely chiseled, they have five elements, with fairly frank bare faces with two opposite friezes, their support dice are invisible. They carry a rich lintel with an upper decorative band, generally with triple movement and sometimes with three axis. The head of the garuda holds an important place in their decorative system ratative. Little remains of the four secondary towers.

Of the composition of the facades we only know this small detail that the base was unique, the same on the body and on the pilasters of the doors. The basement-terrace which unites and raises the five towers has two steps, the lower one with a beautiful cove profile and bare laterite wall with seven steps protruding perron. It bears a laterite basement with sandstone steps.

Of the libraries, only formless heaps of bricks remain. They were open to the west.

The series of rooms that form the frame are better preserved, especially the two buildings at the southwest corner; it appears that the buildings are of two types and that each of these types is represented in this angle. mon shorter with, at the end, a two-span portico, the other longer, but without a portico.

Along the eastwest axis the west building of the soutwest begins with the portico with two spans of fairly low pillars, with base and capital, pillars which are very far apart and which must have carried wooden architraves. Behind this entrance portico, the building appears to have been in three sections, each provided towards the interior of the temple, in the laterite walls, with a sandstone window with five balusters. Its walls are opened with large single-framed doors. The west wall is complete. The west building of the south face still offers a room with three sections; it has no portico, but the extreme section forms an entrance. It is indeed pierced in the eastwest axis by a large break between pillars leaning against the wall. This vestibule leads through a cross-section door into the large central room with a lining beam in the gable above. The interior wall, here north, had three large bays with balusters, the exterior wall, that is to say south, two recumbent windows with seven balusters, corresponding to the two extreme windows of the other. A wide empty space separates the buildings that are on the side faces; another smaller spreads them on the east and west faces.

The inner laterite enclosure wall has a low bell cut coping on a finely molded cove cornice in laterite; a base responds to it at the bottom and rests on a laterite rite base with opposite coves around a central ring. The coping has a top of this same delicately molded material. The wall comes up against the gopura on a bare surface.

Of the two gopura the eastern one is by far the best preserved, but the western one, gutted, allows a more complete study; they have the greatest compositional relationship with the gopura of the Royal Enclosure in Ankor Thom.

The building is composed of a square central tower, with floors, vaulted on the outside in the eastwest direction. and ended with gables in this direction. Of this central building depart from the side wings with two decreasing sections, illuminated on the outside in the elongated northsouth face. Inside, the central hall is cross-shaped and in the middle space the wings open to the full width available. The vault lacks frankness and is normal only on these; it lengthens there in an ogival cradle northsouth it continues in the center a little higher and is cut by the reliefs of the lintels, reliefs which are superimposed on support beams. On the edge of this volite northsouth opens a fireplace, small for the floor; the final cradle takes on its normal East-West direction.

Outside, the central edifice is accentuated by its angles. They show base and corcove niche with plinth and picture rail with diamonds and bare walls. At the east ledge suspended a frieze with hanging garlands; the cornice bears a credenza and on this one, at each angle, a damping in pràidr. These four elements frame a storey with bare side walls, with false bays on the E. and O. faces in an ogival fronton of foliage.

The wing has its decreasing molding elements as well as the base. It is decorated, in addition to the profiles and the frieze with hanging garlands, only by its openings with a molded frame, assembled with a miter, with five bamboo balusters. Its cornice carries by two nets the ends of false lotus tiles which end a roof vault in the form of a bare bell, stopped by the projection of the same type of pediment. The interior face is smooth and has no false windows. The extreme wing descends in turn by all its elements and raises its bare gable above the surrounding wall.

The door forms, quite rarely, the same E. or O. wing; it has a molded frame assembled with a miter, small columns similar to those of the towers, a type III lintel with decorative bands which together correspond to the height of the cornice crowning the pilasters; these are herringbone and have an ogival rampant fron similar to the previous one, enclosing a tympanum of foliage on a lotus line. The gopura is carried by a credenza and a base that decrease rapidly lie and jump from the central part to the wall, where only the base remains.

Decorated steps open onto the axis.

The outer laterite enclosure wall has a wide coping in the roof section with flat faces, quite low. It extends to enclose four square basins, generally dry, which are reached by means of simple doors pierced in the wall parallel to the east-west axis.

The monument allows few detailed observations: no statue, no inscriptions were found there.

The doors present the same frame that at the E. door of the central tower tral shows a somewhat special profile, made more energetic by the pendicularity of element a (pl. XXVIII, C). Elsewhere, the setting is less nervous.

The east door of the central tower gives a fine example of small columns. They are heavy with masses, but entirely chiselled; as most often, they are octagonal, monolithic, free. They have five elements and probably a die; he is unseen. The central ring has a flat band with diamonds, rows of lotuses in partial symmetry, net and pearls. The secondary ring offers a diamond torus, loses the lotuses, but increases with a free thread. The capital shows three successive elements, the lower one which is a repetition of the secondary ring, then two elements with a bulbous motif which recall the constant. The nudes, of medium size, are divided into three equal parts, the central one empty, the others occupied by a frieze with three and two half leaves.

L. de Lajonquière, who saw the monument probably less ruined than I found it, believes he can guarantee the following law of placement of the lintels, a law which would be very interesting (cf. I.K., I, p. 382): according to him, the E. lintels would have been consecrated to Indra on Airavata; those in the south at Civa on Nandin; those in the West to Brahmä on the lion; the northern ones at Visnu on Garuda. The law would still be verified today for the series of images of Civa; for the Visnu, there remains only one Garuda, an image which is not very characteristic, and there no longer exists any Brahma. The little that remains, however, seems to confirm the hypothesis. These lintels are very beautiful, without presenting anything special. Despite their height and the presence of an upper, independent or monolithic decorative strip, all of them rise with the cornice on the door pilasters.

Nothing remains of the pediments of the towers. We are happiest at the gopura, especially on the west face of the east gopura and the west face of the west gopura. The gables of the floor, the door and the partitions have rampants in undulating warhead with falling shaft ending in a lion’s head: it serves as the origin of the corner naga with a dog’s head. On the side, the maga comes out of the same lion’s head, then leaning on the last butt of false tile. The tympanum offers a panel, in triangle or ogive of foliage, which is carried by a line of lotuses and is decorated in the middle with a motif: it is Indra on the three-headed elephant on the pediment of the east face of the gopura east. with figures in the corners. These gopura show us corner dampings in pràsát framing the storey with two central gables.

In the absence of any inscription, this monument can only be dated by its architectonic characteristics. It will therefore not be useless to point out the complete similarity of the surrounding long rooms with those I-II of Prását Thom of Koh Ker. But this is a disposition that seems to have lasted quite a long time and we find it in a similar spirit at Práh Ko, at Pré Rup, at Tà Kév, at Bantay Srei. It is more valuable to note the almost complete similarity of the gopuras of Can Sram with those of the Royal Enclosure of Ankor Thom and the parity of the arrangements of ditches or basins enclosed by walls fitted with doors in both cases. We are led, at this stage of study, to relate this enclosure around the Phimanákás to the reign of Jayavarman V and the somewhat convoluted character of the sculpture of the lintels recalls the highly evolved art of this period, of which Bantay Srei is the jewel. On the other hand, the towers of Can Sram give a better impression of the art of Koh Ker and finally it would be rather to a mixed solution, to the reign of Rajendravarman II (944-968) that we would be tempted to attribute the construction of this temple.

This remarkable monument has been the subject of only a few studies. Aymonier (Camb., I, 389) makes only a rather short mention of it with a schematic plan: he soberly indicates the gatehouses; he took the halls for galleries and the great baray which is to the east for a fortified enclosure. The description of the I.K., I, p. 381 is generally fair; but the plan is of inexact proportions and moreover is flawed by the poor reading of the laterite rooms around the central group; I also believe the connection with Pr. Kracap (IK 270) of Koh Ker more than illusory. I myself visited the temple on May 17, 18 and wrote the notice on August 14, 1929.

L’Art Khmèr Classique. Monuments du Quadrant Nord-Est. By Henri Parmentier, 1939

Getting to Prasat Chin Srom – the site can be reached by following a trail north out of the Koh Ker group to the village of Prey Veng. As of 01/23 the dirt road is in good condition bar loose sand in places, taking around an hour by moto. From Prey Veng village, head north and around to the left where you’ll see a signpost to the site, follow that trail until you are parallel with the site, then head east into the west entrance of the site.

Rodney Charles LHuillier

Living in Asia for over a decade and now residing in beautiful Siem Reap - Contact via [email protected] - more..