Khleang Khmaut Temple

Located just south of a contemporary monastery. Wat Khleang Khmaut is a large and unique brick stupa/chedi. It features a square base tapering as it goes up with each level and is topped with a large cone that’s then topped with four smiling faces of old Brahma and a further spire.

There are also some attempts at carvings seen on the openings. You can’t actually enter the stupa as there are no stairs nor may it be intended to enter. It could possibly conceal a surprising labyrinth of small chambers around an inner conical sphere as seen elsewhere. A funerary stupa or something else? I don’t know and on this visit didn’t catch anyone there who could shed any further light but surely the abbot would know more.

Wat Khleang Khmaut was noted by the French researcher/explorer Etienne Aymonier in his publication, Le Cambodge 1901, reporting of a monastery that was located atop a mound which he believed to be the site of a former ancient temple with remnants of a Buddha on naga statue seen. However, he did not note any massive stupa which would have been impossible to miss again confirming, as it would also appear, that what we see today was constructed after that time at least.

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..