Kapilapura

Kapilapura is located northeast of Angkor Wat and you can reach the site by foot or bike by following the dirt trail around the north side of the outer moat towards the northeast corner where you’ll notice a trail heading north following that for just a minute or two.

The site included a brick temple opening to the east, a second brick temple in the northeast and also opening to the east, along with a third building opening to the west that was possibly a ‘library’. It also possible that it would have been surrounded by a moat that opened to the east whereas today the site is entered from the west. The remains of the structures can still be seen at the site today.

Inscriptions found at the site in 1925 indicate it was completed in 968 AD, more on that below.

Gallery

Discoveries & Inscriptions

In 1934, Henri Marchal excavated the site revealing the base structures of the prasats, at the same time a small statue of Ganesa was found, a stele with a Vishnu on Garuda and two sandstone lintels noted as being exceptional, one of which featuring a large Garuda.

At this time, the top and bottom of an inscribed stele (est. n. 430) were also found and noted at that time to “commemorate the construction of a temple of Vishnu in 890 caka, in the name of King Jayavarman V, in the place called Kapilapura”. A pedestal was found bearing an illegible inscription while another fragment of it featured an invocation to Vishnu. They also note fragments of an inscribed stele found near where the “Angkor Wat stele” (believed as such by earlier researchers) on which they read the name of the Yashodharatataka (Eastern Baray).

A well-preserved bronze statuette of Harihara was also found here and sent to the Phnom Penh National Museum (first image below).

Historical images from 1924 – via Fonds Cambodge property of EFEO

In 1925, Louis Finot would provide a translation and more notes on the inscriptions

BEFEO 1925 – Finot – KAPILAPURA (Est. n. 428-430)

200m away. from the N.E. corner of the Angkor Wat, not far from the site where the great stele no. LXV of the Corpus was found, the remains of three brick buildings with sandstone doors. In n 1 (building composed of 2 rooms, at the N. of the group). two pieces of a stele inscribed on both sides were found (Est. n. 430). corresponding to the upper and lower parts: the intermediate portion has not been found.

It follows from this text that in 890 çaka (968 A.D.). the same year that Jayavarman V succeeded his father Rajendravarman, the new king commissioned the sená pati Virendravarman to make a foundation (sthapana) and to establish it by an official act (praçasta). This deed is our inscription itself. The foundation consisted of the dedication of a temple to a god who – judging by the fact that the place of supreme exaltation is the “abode of Hari” – had to be Vishnu. This temple stood at Kapilapura, which is obviously the ancient name of the place where the stele was found, northeast of Angkor Wat.

The S. jamb of the E. door of building no. 2 (a square room to the W. of the group) bore an inscription that had been completely erased; a fragment of this right pier, collected nearby, is better preserved (Est. n. 4291)

Finally, three fragments were found near the former location of the Angkor Wat stele (n. 428). Fragments B and C join together; the position of fragment A is doubtful. All three belong to the right part of a stele whose text was written in two columns; only one character remains in the left column.

George Coedes would put those fragments mentioned in the last paragraph together with the broken stele that was held at Angkor Wat to produce the record registered under K.300 (IC IV, p. 254). The inscription from the doorjamb at Kapilapura would be registered under K. 578 (Finot 1925, p. 368) and the stele of Kapilapura would be registered under K. 579 (Finot 1925, p. 366).

In 1934, a “head” from the site was sent to a museum, assumed to be that in the images above.