Boeng Veng Temple

Located north of the main group of temples in Koh Ker, it’s also known as Prasat Beng Veng and Prasat Ben Ven. Still standing today is one brick shrine in what is recorded as a group of three built upon a common laterite base and opening to the east. The site is notable for featuring two sets of inscriptions on door jambs, one of which is still in situ. Several remnants including a deposit stone, several pedestal, and octagonal decorated door columns can still be seen.

Inscriptions

• K. 822 – 21 lines of Khmer – IC VI, p. 113
• K. 823 – Khmer – IC VI, p. 113

PRASAT BEN VEN PIEDROITS

(K. 822 and 823)

Prasat Bĕn Vên, located in the province of Promtép, carries two 10th century Khmer inscriptions which are in very poor condition. That of the side of the east door (h.: 0 m. 60; 1.: 0 m. 40) has 21 lines written in large characters. It began with a date that is no longer legible, and consisted essentially of a list of si and tai slaves arranged in two columns.

The inscription on the southern abutment of the western door (K 823) has around sixty lines. It is also made up of a list of slaves arranged in two columns, but the date given in the first line is still legible: 862 caka (940 A.D.).

Inscriptions Du Cambodge, VI, George Coedes

Historical Notes

This point is north of Prán, 2 km. 600 approximately, a little to the east of a levee which seems the distant prolongation of the E. levee of the Rahal. These are the ruins of a brick group which appears to be oriented true east. A causeway in front passes between two ponds; that of the South is the Trapln Vên.

The group consisted of two buildings: the first in the East, very ruined, offers at the S.-O. a pilaster facing with thin profiles This building, which may have been long, has a false door to the north whose side wall E is engraved with a careless inscription of 17 lines. this piece of sandstone has 1 m. 20 high and om. 40 aside. The same door still shows an octagonal column with bares cut through the middle with a band of pearls; she has o m. 18 in diameter by 1 m 20 high

Of the W building, only the frame of the E door remains, assembled with a miter with true lintel and dowel holes on the W side, the S pedestal is engraved with about fifty poorly preserved lines: the sandstone room, covered with writing all the way down, a o m. 41 per side and a length of 1 m. 40. These inscriptions received the numbers 822. 823

L’Art khmer classique. Monuments du quadrant nord-est, Henri Parmentier, 1939

Rodney Charles LHuillier

Living in Asia for over a decade and now residing in beautiful Siem Reap. Rodney Charles L'Huillier has spent over seven years in Cambodia and is the author of Ancient Cambodia (2024) and Essential Siem Reap (2017, 2019). Contact via [email protected] - more..