Chikreng Khang Kaeut Temple

The original site is currently recorded as located 300m south-southeast of Wat Chikreng. While nothing remains, remnants found at Wat Chikreng may include some from this site. In some historical records, the lintel pictured above (EFEO Fonds) is noted as originating from this site, yet other records note it as coming from a site further to the west. Lanojquire’s notes below describe only one lintel, differing from what is pictured. See here for a broader area view.

The site also carries two significant inscriptions related to the 10th century, one noting a unique Buddhist triad featuring Ekadasamukha, see Phnom Kambot.

Historical Notes

L. Lajonquire, 1902, on Prasat Chikreng (East) – IK 200 (Chikreng Khang Kaeut (Pr.))

Prasat Chikreng (East). The ruins of two sanctuaries are still visible to the west from the Chikreng pagoda, located 2 kilometers upstream from the residence of the governor of the province on the right bank of Prek Chikreng. They are placed on a line E.-W. and about 800 meters apart.

The Prasat Chikreng (East) was a square, brick shrine, open to the east without forebody. All that remains is a pile of bricks on a hill covered with tall trees. From this cluster emerge the two sandstone uprights of the door, which have the particularity that each upright with its small column is cut from the same sandstone monolith (fig. 142.)

At the foot of the mound, a decorative lintel. which probably comes from the sanctuary, lays among the tall grasses. It is of type III. Its ornamentation with very accentuated reliefs is interesting. In the center, an ogival niche frames the group formed by Visnu on Garuda; the figure of the god has disappeared, removed, it seems, with a chisel, his legs are passed over the shoulders of her mount, his front arms rest on his thighs and the rear left hand holds an attribute which appears to be a conch. Three naga heads pass under each of Garuda’s arms: their bodies become the generative garlands which end, in extensively worked foliage, in the lower corners of the panel. This decorative lintel is currently deposited in the Ecole Museum.

Inscription of Prasat Chikreng (East). A sixteen-line inscription is engraved on the left door jamb. The characters are clean and well engraved, only the first and last lines have been damaged. (Khmer inscription of 894=973 A.D.).

Inscriptions

• K. 168 – 16 lines of Khmer – IC VI, p. 168

The Khmer inscription of 16 lines engraved on the southern jamb of the gate of Prását Čikrèn East was analyzed by AYMONIER as early as 1883. Dated 894 c. (972 A.D.), it lists the gifts of slaves, cattle and produce of the land offered by a Khloñ and two Vap to a triad of Buddhist deities bearing the names of Ekādaçamukha, Lokeçvara and Bhagavati.

Bhagavati must here be an appellation of Prajñāpāramitā. As for Ekadaçamukha, although the deity bearing this name, which means “eleven faces”, is distinct from that which bears the name Lokeçvara, it is probable that it also corresponds to a representation of Lokeçvara. The existence of images of this bodhisattva with eleven heads, known from the texts and statuary of India and Tibet, is not to my knowledge attested in Khmer iconography. It is the Prajñāpāramitā who is commonly represented with eleven faces.

Inscriptions du Cambodge VI, George Coedes

• K. 417 – 13 lines of Sanskrit – IC II, p. 48

The inscribed sandstone block (0.59 x 0.51 x 0.28), preserved at the Musee Louis Finot (Hanoi) under the mark B 3.2, was found between the Prasat Cikren West and the Prasat Cikren East: , abandoned in the tall grass. It entered the EFEO Museum in 1901, following the Phnom Pen Agricultural Competition, where it was exhibited by the Governor of Cikrèn (Kompon Them province), with other ancient fragments.

The inscription, which is completely different from two inscriptions reported by AYMONER at Prasát Cikrên, includes 13 lines in Sanskrit language forming 9 stanzas: 3 vasantatilaka, 2 arya, 3 çloka, 1 sragdhard, L. FINOT who analyzed it, describes the text as a donation, undated, made to Lokeçvara, and according to him the donor, name- mée Uma, would be the daughter of the famous Sangrama, general of Udayadityavarman II, and author of the Práḥ Nôk stele. But L. FINOT did not realize that stanza IV clearly dates the donation from 892 c. (970 A.D. ), which takes us back a century before the time of the Sangrama in question. Uma’s father is another character of the same name, who lived in the 10th century. On the other hand, her husband Cri Mahidharavarman is very probably the Mratan Khlon of this name mentioned the previous year, in 891 ç. (969 A.D.) in an inscription by Svay Prähm. Finally, the inscription does not come from Umã herself, but from her elder brother Hrdyacarya who offered Lokeçvara two ornaments called ardhaprasāda

Inscriptions du Cambodge II, George Coedes