Krachap Temple

Prásat Kračap 276 (M. H. 265).

Pr. Kračap, the temple “of the inscriptions”, is also called Pr. Rahal by those of the natives who do not know his exact name and call him so because of his proximity to the lake. It is indeed 200 m. barely from its N.-E. angle, almost in line with the N. levee and, facing west, it follows the special orientation of the bardy.

The temple is made up of a quincunx of towers, all open to the west, enclosed in an enclosure to which two opposite gopuras give access: they are accompanied by galleries with pillars facing outwards, where find the inscriptions; a second enclosure, interrupted to the west and east at points where new gopuras in light construction must have existed in the past, encloses the whole. The towers are in brick and the gopura in laterite, with sandstone pillars and tiled roofs that have disappeared. Everything is very ruined, especially the sanctuaries.

The central prását is a rectangular building, provided with an important forebody. The interior is filled; the door of the cella is buried up to the true lintel; the front door has its trunnion lintel, which does not reach the interior wall, relieved by a brick arch; a similar notch corresponds to it on the posterior face of the decorative lintel. These successive doors each had a very crumbling complete frame where the lintels are barely recognizable. The doors have their usual profiled frame and five-part octagonal balusters with nudes cut with a line of pearls. All that can be guessed from the central sanctuary on the outside is that its side faces had no false doors.

Of the four towers of the quincunx, the most ruined are those of the South-West and the North-East that of the North-West has preserved its walls in part; they are naked; we can still see the bottom of the wall E., the molded frame of the door O. assembled with miter, a small column, that of the Sud-Eat, and the high lintel with upper decorative handle; the columns are similar to those of the great tower. I did not find the common laterite terrace with steps to the West and the East that L. de Lajonquière points out. If it exists, it cannot be of plan simply square, because the peristyles of the entrances are inserted between the small towers. Of these gopuras, the western is the best preserved and we will make the description from it. It is a cross room with very short arms. Its walls, full on the NS axis, are pierced with doors with decorative composition on the O.-E axis. and are preceded by porticoes. The door frames are profiled in the ordinary type and miter assembled. The slender columns have five elements with bares cut from a string of pearls and four friezes per bare. The lintels are of a very thin type III; the narrow pilasters, with a cornice twice the height of the lintel, supported corrugated ogival pediment under the seven-panelled roof.

To the west and east project the two single-bay porticoes in the ordinary combination of six pillars; these have a capital with a lotus and a frieze with hanging garlands, bare architraves and gables between curved rampants with crosiers, with an ornate tympanum on both sides.

To the north and to the south lie two covered galleries they are descended likewise; their back wall continues the enclosure of the courtyard, they are finished at the ends by triangular gables with crooks.

Of these gopuras, the western one has preserved the walls of the central hall with their gables with crosses, its peristyles and part of its galleries, in particular the gallery S. almost intact. Gopura E has its hall in much worse condition and its N. gallery is completely ruined, except for its N. gable which is whole and in place, except for the fallen terminal stone and which could easily be put back into crowning. The gables are decorated with foliage around a central figure: this ornamentation is repeated on both sides.

The two surrounding walls have a cupped roof coping with curved sides, in front of the portico of the gopura E. are the remains of a lion very well seated on its hind legs. A beautiful head of a male statue was brought back from this temple by us to the Albert Sarraut Museum under the number B.338. In front of the second enclosure, to the west, can be seen the foundations of the side of a terrace.

The entrance gopura O. has the jambs of its doors, with the pillars of the adjoining galleries, covered with inscriptions, some thirty, in large characters; many are erased. These inscriptions which follow each other and make nearly a thousand lines are, according to Aymonier, only a series of names of workers. They are from the Jayavarman IV era.