Damrei Temple (Koh Ker)

Prasat Damrei of Koh Ker, also recorded as Damrei Kandoeng, features the remains of a square brick temple fronted by two brick “library” or annex buildings which are all enclosed by a laterite wall.

Whilst today the site is entered by a platform that crosses the south wall, this laterite enclosure originally opened to the east with only remnants of the brick entrance gopura remaining. Inside the enclosure, the two brick library buildings that preceded the main shrine are mostly collapsed also.

The central shrine is built upon a tall sandstone base featuring rich decoration with lions flanking the staircase and elephants at each corner making it one of the must-visit temples of Koh Ker. There are only a few sites that retain their beautiful elephant statues still in situ and those here preserve quite a lot of detail which is not seen in others.

The shrine features one door, open to the east with a doorway flanked by decorated octagonal door columns supporting a fragmented, but artistically beautiful lintel depicting Indra atop a tri-headed Airvata (elephant).

Images from the 2021 tour

Along the entrance path to Prasat Damrei is Khtum Temple.

Historical Notes

Translated from French

To the north, a little west of An Khnå 268.3, i.e. at 1800 m. approximately south of the S.-E. of the Rahal, is Pr. Damrei, oriented exactly, which consists of an important tower, two libraries and an enclosure with gopura, all brick buildings and enclosure of laterite.

It is a large square sanctuary with steps, 6 m. sideways, with door and slightly protruding false doors. The inner room, square, is in a decayed state and three corners out of four are badly cracked. It is covered by a drum vault on corbels by foundations of a brick. There is no interior cornice, but on each side are two stone hooks, no doubt intended to support a light ceiling or a canopy. These hooks are 17 rows of bricks below the first corbelling, at the level of the tip of the gate relief arch. There is no longer a trace of the divinity that this shrine protected, and only shapeless debris remains of its pedestal; only the base with 17 cells remains intact, which measures about o.5 m in all directions; we have so far only encountered this die under the linga or in their vicinity and an inscription indicates that there must have been one here.

The trunnion lintel of the entrance door stops at 5 or 6 cm from the inner wall it was relieved by an equilateral triangular relief arc. Outside, the tower offers a common base for the whole made of five elements, including cove and frieze, supported by a small sandstone sideboard. Above the bare walls is a cornice with probably a sideboard.

The E. door is of a very fine character. Its frame, profiled as usual, is mitered. The octagonal columns, of the ordinary composition with five elements, carries a lintel [….]. The rampant was chiseled in the brick around the plunging bare tympanum. False doors are nothing special.

The cornice and its probable sideboard still support two floors with large false bays with a long and low inverted U-shaped pediment.

The whole of the tower rests on a basement-terrace of a dozen meters on each side, which largely overflows its lower credenza. This sandstone base has a beautiful lotus profile around a flat two-plane ring, the two parts of which are repeated in partial symmetry, but in unequal dimensions, noticeably stronger for the lower. Four steps on the axes are framed by straight figures adorned only with picture rail and plinth. The surplus of the surface of the basement is occupied by four elephants placed diagonally, standing, 1.50m high, and the steps received lions of a beautiful design, very well seated on their hind limbs. The N face and the N-W angle. offer together, well preserved, two lions and an elephant. Both have only simple plinths for support.

The libraries, badly ruined, show a flat false door on the E side and a door on the West side. The frames are bare and the columns, very gnawed, approach the ordinary type with five elements. The secondary ring is still very simple there.

The gopura E. is treated as a tower with two opposite doors. It had a fairly high common base, since its picture rail reigns with the departure of the laterite wall.” This shows the usual form in this group, with a coping in the shape of a roof with curved sides.

The door O., of the gopura E, has inscriptions, unfortunately very erased at the top, on its abutments, 44 lines on the S abutment in Sanskrit, 37 on the N. pillar, in Khmer. The Sanskrit inscription praises Jayavarman IV and mentions the erection of a linga in honor of a certain Rajendravarman, eldest brother of the king; the other is a list of serfs given to the temple.

To the east, a little N. of Pr. Damrei 269, there is a vestige called Kük Khnå and 300 m. approximately, a mound of laterite with the remains of a pedestal is the only remains of a sanctuary whose door seems to have opened to the east.

Further still, 350 m alongside the axis, the survey shows two old basins, that of the North, in length N.-S. at 155m. on 65. that of the South, square, has this last dimension. Continuing for 150 m, you come across yet another basin which appears bent at a right angle, the angle open to the south-west.

L’Art khmèr classique , monuments du quadrant Nord-Est, Henri Parmentier, 1939

Inscription

Translated from French

Prasat Damrei. K. 677.- The western door of the eastern gopura has inscriptions on its two sides which escaped the Comm’ de LAJONQUIÈRE. and which were discovered and stamped by M. PARMENTIER in 1929.

On the south side, the text entirely in Sanskrit comprised about fifty lines, but only 44 can be distinguished, very complete at the beginning, but well preserved towards the end; the northern abutment must have had about forty lines of which the first ten are completely ruined, and the rest without interest.

What remains of the Sanskrit inscription forms 20 stanzas including 3 indravajra (VI, VIII, IX), 8 upajati (11, 111, V, X. XV-XVIII). 7 incomplete stanzas belonging to one or other of the preceding categories (1, IV, VII, XI-XIX). 1 çárdülavikriḍita (XIX) and 1 malini (XX). The first 18 stanzas praise of a king noted as Jayavarman. The foundation that the text commemorates is the erection, in a building covered with stucco (XX), of a linga of Śiva, a work intended to ensure the happiness in the afterlife of Prince Rajendravarman, eldest brother of the king (XIX).

That this king is Jayavarman IV is what was already very likely a priori, given the appearance of the writing, identical to that of the other inscriptions of this sovereign in the Koh Ker group. This inference is fully confirmed by the terms of stanza XV which attributes to him an extraordinary foundation, which two other texts (Prását Andón and Baksei Čamkron) both refer to Jayavarman IV in almost identical terms. and to which I will return at the end of this study on the epigraphy of Koh Ker.

Inscriptions du Cambodge, George Coedes