Mebon Temple (Preah Thkol)

Located at the center of Preah Khan of Kampong Svay‘s baray (reservoir), it’s a man-made island that supports one of the wonders of the ancient Khmer empire. The baray on which it is centered is staggering in itself, measuring some 2.7 km long and 700m wide that has dried out in parts to become farmland with its northern side retaining water and known in contemporary times as Preah Dac Baray. By it’s architectural decoration, it is dated to the late 12th early 13th century.

The Mebon (island) itself measures roughly around 250 m x 170 m occupied at the center by Prah Thkol, a temple with a laterite outer enclosure roughly 45 m x 52 m with four gopura (entrance), enclosing a grand central shrine and two small shrines commonly seen at most sites and held to be libraries. Surrounding this enclosure are four small ponds at each cardinal point.

The highlight, and most stunning feature of the site is grand architectural composition featuring on each corner between the vestibules of the central shrine. It begins with a row of human figures leaning on clubs above which are three elephants, a bouquet of lotuses in the trunk, accompanied, on the right and on the left, by two figures of devata, above which are enormous Garuda (mythical bird) whose claws clutch onto a Kala (a monster like face, representing time personified) flanked by Naga (mythical serpent), above the grand Garuda, a row of Hamsa (sacred geese).

If you look above the doors of the temple to the upper registers and in particular the remains of the pediments, you can see some decayed relief carvings one featuring “flying Apsara”, and worshipers flaking a central idol seated on a pedestals and and hooded by a Naga. One intact pediment depicts a smiling Buddha like figure akin to the nearby Preah Stung. In another higher up pediment a unique “floral hood” that would have had an idol at its center can be seen. This particular figure is interesting as it replicates what is seen in a pediment of unknown provenance at the Musee Guimet labelled MG 18197.

You can still see many lintels above the doors, some with five niches with inset worshipers and idols, some lost to time. Also noting the decorated door jambs typical of temples of the era, some of the medallions featuring the lotus emblem of the era, some with personages and wildlife, while the doorjambs of the central shrine are seemingly unique.

Entering the central shrine, the uniquely redented colonettes support a lintel with five niches whose inset characters are lost to time. A tinge of red and green is seen on the walls and looking up, some magnificent woodwork by the preservation teams.

Decorated door jambs feature a repeating pattern of orchid flowers in circular niches interspersed with random animals and personages. One unusual doorjamb features ached niches on its vertical centerline.

Inside the north library, a lintel with five arched niches enclosing characters lost to time. Notably the colonettes differ in style to those of the central shrine.

Outside the enclosure and the east and west entrance gopura are the remnants of terraces and steps that led to the small basins. The feet of Dvarapala can be seen and numerous pedestals. One pedestal features a rather small spigot hole, to small for the Dvarapala and not suitable for a lion, indicating an unknown statue or feature.

The east gopura is a sprawl of partly buried masonry joining with a small basin.

Inside the east gopura, a terrace connected to the central shrine, and an unusual pedestal and what may be feet of an unknown character are seen.

At the west gopura, two feet of Dvarapala statues are seen, one resting in the basin.

The lesser north and south entrances have mostly collapsed but feature instructive decorative reliefs.

Layout

Historical Images

Theses two beautiful illustrations come from the hand of Louis Delaporte published in the 1880 publication, Voyage au Cambodge. L’Architecture Khmer.

Historical Notes

Historical notes of the site are quite interesting, revealing among many things, the discovery of the statue of a 1.25m tall Radiating Avalokiteshvara (initially thought of as Preah Put, aka the Buddha) in the east gopura (in other reports it states the west gopura) that now resides in the Musee Guimet of France. Also found and now held in the Musee Guimet are a 2.63m tall Dvarapala (guardian) statue and a section of Naga Balustrade. Lions are also mentioned but with little detail.

The below notes are translated from French without editing.

Preasat Prathcol. Central preasat, remarkable, decorated with triple damveys between the doors, statues of bodhisattwas, krouts in caryatids, etc…Enclosure with monumental gates to the east, giants, sinhas; causeways and sras (sandstone).

[….]

PRÉA-PUT (Buddha), in dark sandstone. Height: 1m.30. From excavations carried out under the door of the western entrance to the Préasat-Prathcol monument.

This statue is badly damaged, which makes its interpretation difficult. Its eight arms were broken at the elbows and its legs are broken a little below the knee. – We were at first tempted to see in it the avatar of Vishnu as Buddha, or one of the works of the period when attempts were made to merge Brahmanism and Buddhism; but it is more likely that this statue is simply that of Shakya-Mouni, created by one of those Khmer artists who, like the present-day Cambodians, combined in the same veneration the inhabitants of the Buddhist pantheon and the three hundred and thirty million Brahmanic divinities.

The ornamentation of this statue is one of those feats of patience that the artists of East Asia know how to accomplish. Préa-Pût appears to be wearing a chainmail suit fitted to the body,

held by a belt at the waist and closed at the neck by a collar. On approaching, one recognizes that the links of this coat are composed of as many small Buddhas in the attitude of meditation. – The belt and the collar are also formed of slightly larger Buddhas. – On the chest and on the front of the cranial protuberance, two more visible Buddhas are seated in the same pose; finally the hair of Préa-Pút itself is as many small Buddhas. – Each loop is a Bhagavat.

This statue, in terms of the finesse of its details, far outweighs the famous fantastic camel carrying a tower, whose body is entirely formed of characters and animals.

Croizier, L’Art Khmer, 1875

The next day we went to visit the Prea-Tcôl tower, a ruin haunted, like that of Phnom-Sontuc, by a multitude of monkeys that our arrival put to flight. This construction is announced by two sras separated by a causeway whose ramps are supported by caryatids of krouths or lion cubs. The enclosure is crowned with a series of ogives which each frame a character and simulate small battlements. Two giants, a sort of stocky Hercules leaning on their clubs, and two fantastic lions at rest, guarded the main entrance.

The four peristyles of the prasat (tower) are ruined; but the sculptures which worked it from the base to the summit are still visible. First, there is a line of worshipers kneeling, hands joined, along the base; above, each between two groups of nine figures in prayer, four three-headed elephants emerging from the wall; their trunks, wrapped around foliage, buttress the base and their heads support the first entablature. On the upper floor stand four large krouths, sacred birds of Vishnu, with eagle beaks and women’s bodies; they clasp between their legs four heads of the monster Rheou; on their sides crawl four double polycephalic reptiles that they have tamed, and their heads and arms support a second entablature. Above, we see twenty more birds, half eagles, half owls, similar to those that decorate the bridges of the great temple, and, higher up, floors arranged as in classical towers. Large faces of divinities are framed in the ogive of the triple pediments arranged in tiers above the four entrances; tevadas or angels of heaven, in the form of beautiful half-naked and richly adorned women, occupy-pent on the pilasters of niches surrounded by foliage, and a quantity of light fleurs-de-lis complete this fantastic decoration whose naive execution recalls our works of the Middle Ages.

While digging in the middle of the pile of rubble that replaced the eastern entrance to the enclosure, we unearthed, among other objects, a stone figure whose feet and eight arms were broken, but whose head, full of expression and finesse, had remained intact. The name of Préa Noréai, timidly stammered by a native monk in front of this image, made us take it at first for an incarnation of Vishnu or Buddha of whom it offers the most characteristic features: curly hair, smiling face, half-closed eyes. It seems to us today more likely to place it in this category of similar figures existing as much in Java as in Tibet, and who are regarded as Buddhist saints, recognizable by a common sign: the representation of Préa Pout, engraved on their foreheads.

This statue, which is now part of the Khmer Museum, as well as one of the lions and one of the giants or guardian divinities, and two ornamental heads saved in the collapse of this ancient temple, appears as a summary of the pantheon of Cambodia, unless it was a simple wager of ornamentation. The whole person of the god or saint is formed of a multitude of small divinities, some seated, arms outstretched, seeming to call the worshipers, others in the attitude of prayer or meditation: the links of the coat with which he is dressed are figurines; his belt, his necklace, small gods, his hair even as many dwarf characters.

Our guides, who had agreed without much reluctance to take us to Prea-Tcôl, seemed less eager to go into the forest with us, along an old road that we wanted to follow; they decided to do so, however, on the formal injunction of the mé-srok; but we saw them immediately take on a worried air, murmur prayers, then take out of their bags a few grains of rice, which they threw as offerings to the Néak-Ta or “spirits of the ancestors”, in the first sacred marsh that we reached.

This marsh was an immense, fearsome and wild sra, all covered with large water lilies. In its waters, assure the people country, live monsters as old as the world, who devour all the animals imprudent enough to dare to quench their thirst there; the birds themselves do not fly with impunity above this another Avernus, and if they try to cross it, they fall dead before reaching the opposite shore. As for us, we encountered there only enormous crocodiles which did not even deign to move at our approach, and a troop of peacocks which flew away uttering discordant cries.

Delaporte, Voyage au Cambodge. L’Architecture Khmer, 1880

Prah Thkol. We owe to Mr. Parmentier, archtecte, a resident of the French School of the Far East, who accompanied us for a few days, the following notes concerning the monuments of Prah Thkol and Prah Damrei, neighbors of Prah Khan.

The Prah Thkol monument is a complete building in sandstone and limonite oriented in the same direction as the large Prah Khan monument. -A limonite wall forms the enclosure; it has a limonite coping and a crest with flamed sandstone niches, still in place at a certain number of points.

This enclosure is pierced by four doors. Those which correspond to the E. and W. entrances are real buildings presenting-as the ordinary plan: that is to say three rooms which communicate with each other, the central room forming a passage. The vestibules at the front and at the back have rectangular bays without balusters. The cross-shaped room is not lit, the large arms are extended by two small rooms decorated on the outside with false bays with balusters. All these constructions are in limonite with doors decorated in sandstone. This one presents the same crest as the surrounding walls; an extra thickness of these walls accentuates the importance of the motif of the door.

-Those on the E side. Opens into the interior of the monument onto a terrace lined with någas, ending with a staircase. The någas heads are interesting: they are double-sided, the inner side having the same number of heads as the main side.

The N. and S. doors are very simple, they have two strings: contrary to ordinary usage, the decorative lintel is not supported by small columns, a decorated pilaster holds it.

The path from the E. gate leads to the central aedicule; this one, all in sandstone, is interesting only for its remarkable state of preservation. It has a large cross-shaped room and four vestibules with false windows with balusters. On each side, two doors of the ordinary system follow one another. The four doors of the cross-shaped room were opening, they still bear the trace of the wooden frame where the trunnions were housed.

Two other aedicules occupy the front part of the courtyard: they are not symmetrical. The S. aedicule is elongated and has a door to the E., which seems to have been openable, and a door to the W. under the vestibule. It has on each side a bay in the vestibule and three in the room, the central bay being in a slight forebody. They are all false and have balusters and a figured blind without decoration. The room is covered by a double-curved vault. This building is entirely built of sandstone.

The one on the N., in sandstone and limonite, opens to the W. by dense doors of the ordinary system which are separated by a vestibule with false bays.

The false finials are almost all of the five-niche system and all have been cut down, two are in the S. aedicule, one in the entrance building, one in the N. aedicule, four in the central prasat. another in the W. gopura. One at the N. door: a series of hermits in prayer, kneeling, seen from the front and with their legs to the side: they wear the mukuța, are adorned with jewels and carry a vertically striped sampot; the center is missing. The central sanctuary had at its outer door a decorative lintel whose center represents a four-armed god, with indistinct attributes, dressed in the striped sampot; the head of this figurine has been detached.

Lajonquiere, 1901

The Práh Thkol had escaped DOUDART DE LAGRÉE. DELAPORTE is the first author to have reported it; he gives a general sketch of it. ΑΥΜΟNIER also mentions it, but it is essential to note the error he made in situating it on his general plan, because it is this unique document which until our days gave the general location of the sanctuaries. Finally, LUNET DE LAJONQUIÈRE presents under no. 176 the notes and then the plan of Mr. PARMENTIER.

Following all these authors, I will not repeat the description of the Práh Thkol, limiting myself to giving two photos of the central tower. This decoration is certainly unique for a sanctuary but we remember the motif of the three-headed elephant on the gopura of Ankor Thom, and the corner Garuda on the gopura of Bantay Kděi. Under the legs of this Garuda, we note the presence of a Rahu, arched on the palm of his right hand, crawling with his elbow in the air, in a much more naturalistic attitude than that of the multiple Rāhu of the lintels, pediments, and between the pilasters.

At Práh Thkol we can see lintels with the very characteristic decoration of five Buddhas in niches with squat proportions. This element constitutes a valuable indication for the dating of similar sculptures, which are found in other sanctuaries of the group. It seems useless to discuss the date of a monument which is so typically of the art of Bayon. The Práh Thkol is located at the end of the 12th century, beginning of the 13th.

Mauger, BEFEO, 1939