Date: Late 12th century
Style: Bayon
Reign: Jayavarman VII
Visit: 30 to 45 minutes
Highlights
This unusual small monument (pronounced ‘Neak Pouan’), a cruciform arrangement of ponds with a sanctuary tower on a circular island in the middle, is pure symbolism. Set in the middle of the Jayatataka baray on what was formerly an island, it may represent the sacred Himalayan lake of Anavatapta.
This lake was famous for its miraculous healing properties and as the source of four great rivers issuing through the mouths of a lion, an elephant, a horse and an ox. However, this Buddhist symbolism only came later, during a period of rebuilding, and it was originally a royal Hindu site; the stele of Preah Khan gives its name as Rajyasri – ‘the Fortune of the Kingdom.
This lake was famous for its miraculous healing properties and as the source of four great rivers issuing through the mouths of a lion, an elephant, a horse and an ox. However, this Buddhist symbolism only came later, during a period of rebuilding, and it was originally a royal Hindu site; the stele of Preah Khan gives its name as Rajyasri – ‘the Fortune of the Kingdom.
In the 13th century, Zhou Daguan gave a description that is precise about the temple’s location, but different in a number of other respects: “The Northern Lake lies one and a quarter miles to the north of the Walled City. At its centre stands a square tower of gold with several dozen stone rooms. If you are looking for gold lions, bronze elephants, bronze oxen, bronze horses, here is where you will find them.”
Plan
Like West Baray and East Baray, each with their Mebon, the baray of Preah Khan was also designed with an island temple in its middle. Although the Jayatataka is now dry, the island was a substantial 300m square. At its centre is the main pond, 70m square, with four smaller ponds, each 25m square, joined to it at the cardinal points. In the centre of the main pond, a tiny circular island 14m in diameter supports a sanctuary tower. Surrounding these restored parts were another eight ponds, now dry.
Visit
The path reaches Neak Pean from the N. Walk around the edges of the small northern pond to the main pond. The circular island in the middle is encircled at its base by two naga serpents, their heads on its E side and their tails entwined on the W. They seem to represent the naga kings Nanda and Upananda, linked in Hindu mythology with Lake Anavatapta, and give the monument its modern name, which means “entwined serpents”. The top of the circular steps that form the temple’s platform is ringed by lotus leaves. Another set, inverted, forms the base of the tower.
The sanctuary opens to the E, with blind doors on the other three sides. Originally the temple was cruciform with doors on all four sides. Later the doors were closed and elephants were placed at the corners making the temple round. A standing Lokesvara is carved on each of the blind doors. Above the one facing you on the N side, whose head was recently stolen, the pediment shows the ‘Great Departure’. On the E pediment is the cutting of Siddartha’s hair, on the W pediment the Buddha in meditation under the bodhi tree, while that on the S is unrecognizable. The tower itself is ogival and topped with a lotus bud.
Just to the E of the island, the statue of a flying horse rises from the water. Clinging to its tail and its flanks is a group of men. Although unfinished, the horse is clearly Balaha, one of the forms taken by the compassionate Bodhisattva Lokesvara, and in this instance he is helping seafaring merchants escape from an island inhabited by an ogress. Balaha also appears in the hidden part of the Terrace of the Elephants in Angkor Thom. Stone images were found on the other three sides of the island: a statue of Vishnu to the West, some lingas to the North, and an unrecognizable image to the South
Four small chapels link the main pond with the smaller ones; only their vaulted roofs appear above the level of the terrace surrounding the pond, and these are decorated with pediments and half-pediments. Enter from the side of each small pond. Inside, at the end, is a sculpted fountainhead. It seems that water would emerge when visitors poured water from the main pond into the small receptacle in the steps above. This then passes through a conduit to emerge from the mouth. That in the eastern chapel, in the form of a man’s face, is the best carved; the others are a lion in the southern chapel, a horse in the W, and an elephant in the N. Apart from the replacement of an ox with a man, these correspond with the legend of Lake Anavatapta. The Buddha on the E pediment of the N chapel has been transformed into a linga, during the reign of King Jayavarman VIII.