Lich Temple

The site features scant remains today. It is where the French would discover and record an inscribed stele whose whereabouts is today unknown.

Historical Notes

Translated from French, Inventaire Descriptif Monuments du Cambodge, E. Lajonquiere, 1901

703. Prasat Lich (The Sunken Sanctuary). It is located about 300 meters S. E. of the village of Mong. It is a mound surrounded by a ditch on which there remains only a broken pedestal and fragments of a square red sandstone stele, bearing on one of its faces an image of a divinity and an inscription. .

Inscription of Prasat Lich. The stele is broken into several fragments, buried under the roots of a large religious fig tree. One of the fragments bears, on each of two of its faces, 24 halves of fairly well preserved lines, and two whole lines on the other fragment. 

Inscription

Translated from French, Inscriptions du Cambodge VIII, G. Coedes, 1951

STÉLE DE PRASAT LIC
(Κ. 453 Corpus CXXXII)
The fragments of inscription discovered by L. DE LAJONQUIÈRE 300 meters south-east of the village of Môn, in the north of the ancient srok of Kralan, were part of a square red sandstone stele, covering one of its faces an image of divinity and an inscription.” It should undoubtedly be understood that the stele is square in section, that the image occupies one of its faces. and the registration of the other three. L. de Lajonquière adds that one of the fragments bears, on each of its two sides, 24 fairly well preserved half lines, and two whole lines on the other fragment. The width of each face of the stele, determined by this second fragment, allows us to say that the width of the inscribed parts of the first represents little. about a third (not half) of a side.

The one which appears at the top left on the Corpus plate corresponds to the beginning of the inscription and gives the beginning of 19 lines (and not 24). The other face of this fragment reproduced to its right must, according to Lajonquière’s description, be at a right angle to the previous one; it includes the remains of 21 line fragments. Finally, the long fragment, at the bottom of the plate, has 3 lines (and not 2), the writing of which is much more neglected than that of the other two.

This inscription in Khmer is dated 1128 çaka (= 1206 A.D.) As far as we can judge, it commemorated the installation of several Buddhist images, recounted various donations, and laid down prescriptions. But this text is too fragmentary, and moreover too difficult to read, to allow translation. Its main interest is that it seems to mention a king whose name ends раг yavarmamadeva (I. 1. 4). It can only be Jayavarman VII of which we would thus have the lowest date attested so far.

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