Cheung Tien Temple

A contemporary monastery and pagoda that was built on the grounds of an ancient temple site. Visiting the site today, a large mound surrounded by a line of laterite, and sandstone blocks in places, marks the place of the Buddhist vihara that preceded the contemporary pagoda built to the south of the site.

Working from the historical notes, it appears to have been an early tenth century site, completely in ruin by the time French documentation began in the late 1800s, also noting that it had not been remodelled into a Buddhist vihara at that stage as we see on the images at Cisark here which perhaps date to sometime around 2010.

Historical Notes

Prasat Chöng Tin. It is located about 3 kilometers north, a little east of Spean Töp, near the village of the same name. On a rectangular base, A, made up of a simple base of limonite, stood four sanctuaries arranged in a single north-south line. Three of them formed a regularly arranged and oriented group; square, made of brick, these buildings opened to the east by doors framed in sandstone and decorated, that of the central sanctuary being preceded by a forebody. The fourth, that of the north, of more restricted dimensions, had a small gap. They are all completely ruined and the monks who once occupied this location have scattered the bricks coming from the scree in the intervals of the sanctuaries, so that the whole appears to be part of the same building.

The sandstone pieces of the frames and the ornamentation have remained in their raw state.

A small cruciform brick gopura, B, is still half-standing on the axis of the central sanctuary of the group of three. It marked out an enclosure which was not built and which must nterrupt, on the south face, a false gopura, which is nothing more than a pile of bricks.

The same is true of an annex building, D, regularly placed and oriented, which was also made of bricks.

A second enclosure, the enclosure wall of which was not built, was to be attached to the east face of the first; it is indicated by the remains of the brick gopura, E, built on the axis of the first.

Two brick galleries, F & F, with openings framed in limonite which faced each other, lined the access avenue between these two gopuras. They are totally ruined.

A large rectangular basin, still full of water, occupies the entire east face of this last enclosure and extends up to 400 meters.

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..