Ta Pich Temple (Baray District)

Also recorded as Tuol Ta Pich Temple Base, Ta Pec, and Tuol Don Srei, it’s the site where an important inscribed stele was discovered. It’s located 6km east of the RN 6 in Baray District, and just south of the road, it’s a large moat-surrounded mound accessed from the east. On visiting in Sep 2023, it was a bit overgrown but a standing doorframe can be seen along with colonnette fragments, and two lintels, one well-preserved from around the tenth century or after, and the other quite decayed.

The site was where an important inscribed stele was found along with a fragment of what appears to have been a very beautiful nine-deities panel.

Inscriptions

1. K.834 – stele – 238 lines of Sanskrit

The inscription has provided invaluable chronological data but also some controversy and intrigue, as to why some text was erased and re-inscribed.

An extract of George Coedes notes on the inscription (more in Inscriptions du Cambodge volume five)

The mound which bears the name Tuol Tà Péč is located in the province of Kompon Thom, 7 or 8 kilometers from the village of Baray in the srok of that name. There we see, on a common base, three sanctuaries entirely in sandstone, surrounded by an enclosure interrupted to the east by a gopura. In 1935, a stele there was reported to HENRI MAUGER, then Curator of Monuments of Cambodia, who had it transported to the Phnom Péň Museum.

This fine sandstone stele, with a square section, measures 1.10 m in height and 0.35 m wide. Its four sides are covered with a very carefully engraved Sanskrit inscription in beautiful 11th century writing. The first side has 56 lines, the second 60, the third 62, the fourth 60. These 238 lines form 117 stanzas which are all çloka, with the exception of stanzas LXXIII and LXXIV which are “sragdharā” [….]

Inscriptions du Cambodge, V, George Coedes

An extract from Claude Jacques notes in 1958

The Tool Ta Pec stele, discovered in 1935, was published by G. Cardès in the Inscriptions of Cambodia, volume V. p. 244-269, in 1953; but, as early as 1943, in an article entitled “New details on the dates of accession of some kings of the Angkorian dynasties (B.E.F.E.O., XLIII, p. 12)”, he attempted to remove from this inscription the data which could be of interest to history. Indeed, written to praise a servant of Süryavarman I, Bhüpatindravallabha, it gives the genealogy of the latter and indicates in passing, as often happens, the names and sometimes the dates of accession of the kings that the ancestors of this character could have been used. But the stele presents a curious peculiarity: The passage corresponding to stanzas LXXV XC… reveals a series of erasures affecting around twenty påda. The corrections, whose writing does not differ in any way from that of the rest of the inscription and which is perhaps by the same hand, were engraved after scratching the original text, and these are the very clear traces of this scratching which make it possible to detect modifications made to the text.

The corrections concern the names of the kings and their dates of accession, as well as the relationships and functions of the members of the family of Bhüpatindravallabha […]

VII. Études d’épigraphie cambodgienne. VI. Sur les données chronologiques de la stèle de Tûol Ta Pec (K. 834), 1958, Claude Jaques

An extract from Michael Vickery’s notes

Inscription K.834, however, is a faked text. Much of the original text was cut away and replaced by new text, in which names of kings and dates were changed, and its fakery is plain in that it makes brothers of 13 officials who served a succession of kings for over 200 years. It will not do to accept, as Coedès did, that “the substitution of one king for another led to a corresponding substitution of date… which is rather proof of the accuracy of the date”. The erroneous information is so overwhelming that no detail of this inscription may be taken as valid, as was the conclusion of Claude Jacques

Resolving the Chronology and History of 9th Century Cambodia, 2021, Pr. Michael Vickery

Also see: Further papers referencing K.834

Historical Notes

Tuol Don Srei and Tuol Tà Péc (srok Bàrày; khét Kompon Thom). – These two groups are unique: they are located 7 or 8 kilometers east of the village of Barày.

Tuol Don Srei includes an enclosure (without gopura) inside which three small brick and sandstone sanctuaries dating from the 10th century are raised on a common base. The lintels and pediments (which have all collapsed) are of good quality: we brought to the Museum the fragment of one of them, which is a replica of that of Bantay Srei: Tilottama, Sunda, and Upasunda.

Tuol Tà Péč presents the same overall arrangements; However, it is larger and has a gopura; its three sanctuaries are entirely made of sandstone. This is where we found the pieces which had been pointed out to us by Mr. RESAL, volunteer collaborator of the French School: a fine sandstone stele, inscribed on all four sides, in excellent state of conservation (height, 1 m. 10; side, o m. 35); and a fragment of the nine planets (comprising only the first four deities), each in a reduced prasat. These two pieces were brought back to the Museum.

BEFEO Chronique 1936

Historical Images

Images 1935 EFEO via Fonds Cambodge.

Rodney Charles LHuillier

Living in Asia for over a decade and now residing in beautiful Siem Reap - Contact via [email protected] - more..