Baksei Chamkrong Temple
"The bird that shelters under its wing"
Date 947
King Rajendravarman
Cult Brahmanic
Clearing by H. Marchal in 1919
Baksei Chamkrong locates on the foot of Bakeng Mountain. The word Basei Chamkrong means” a bird used its wings to cover a baby”. Today this name has become a popular fable in Cambodia.
Style
Baksei Chamkrong measures 27m by 27m and its tower is 23m high. Its base was designed with four levels built of laterite, but its tower was built of brick. There’re four staircases but today the south staircase is the easiest to climb up and down. Its central tower has a reclining Buddha statue built in the 16th century. This Buddha was replaced a golden Linga which had gone away.The tower has a real door facing east while other three doors at other sides are blinds. The carvings on blind doors and lintels are still in good condition. Baksei Chamkrong has one entrance to the east but it only remains the foundation, sandstone pedestal and one lion statue. The enclosing wall was built of brick and it only remains some trace.
Situated 150 metres north of the main axial stairway to Phnom Bakheng, this small temple appears in a frame of beautiful trees to the left of the road as a stepped pyramid, fine in proportion and warm in hue - since it is built in laterite and brick as the construction materials typical of the 10th century. The surrounding brick enclosure wall has almost entirely disappeared, though to the east, the remains of an axial gopura with sandstone steps are still visible.
The pyramid measures 27 metres across at the base and 15 at the summit for an overall height of 13 metres. In laterite with four tiers it follows the usual laws of proportional reduction - the first three are simply treated with a plain cladding while the last forms a moulded plinth for the sanctuary tower. Four steep stairs rising in a single flight mark the axes, framed at each change in height with side walls that restrict access to the various levels - which remain quite narrow. The visitor wishing to ascend to the upper platform should climb these stairs with extreme caution, since some of their treads are badly eroded.
The sanctuary tower is in brick - as usual with no use of mortar in the joints, which remain filiform. Measuring 8 metres each side, it stands on a moulded sandstone base leaving a narrow surround. Its mass is considerable with respect to the proportion of the pyramid and continues the ascending lines - though it is rounded at the summit since the upper tiers have lost their sharp profiles to the action of the vegetation.
The sanctuary opens to the east. False doors on the other sides are, with the colonnettes and lintels, the only sandstone elements, which are carefully ornate with an intricate decoration. On the false doors one should note the vertical bands of foliated scrolls, while on the branch end of the eastern lintel, a Ganesha sits astride his trunk in a motif one also finds at the Mebon Oriental. Its centre is marked by the image of Indra on a three headed elephant, while above the whole composition is a frieze of small figures.
The external decoration in lime based mortar has virtually disappeared - though one can still see on the facing brick of the corner piers the outline of the devatas, destined for a coating of plaster and given form to avoid an excess of its thickness. The interior of the tower has its floor level set a metre lower, is well preserved and shows the regular brick corbelling of the vault and the diminishing bands corresponding to the reducing sections of the upper tiers. A more recent reclining Buddha lies against the back wall.
Door jamb inscriptions date from the reign of Rajendravarman and mention the setting in the temple, in the year 947, of a golden statue of Shiva, implying that the building dates from this time.
History
Between the entrance and the temple structure, there’s a deep hole which was dug by the Khmer Rouge soldiers to look for treasure in the 1980s.
In 943 AD, king Rajendravarman II who returned from Koh Ker to Angkor city put a golden Linga sculpture in the central tower of this temple and he also remained a very important inscription in its door piers.
The inscription tells us the legend of the word Kambujadesa which was this country’s original name. Depending on the legend, there was a hermit called Kambu married to Mera who was a very beautiful princess from the heaven. Both of them give birth as the people who called themselves as Khmer. The word Khmer or Khemara is from the combination of Kambu with Mera. The Khmer people called their country as Kambujadesa which meant who people of Kambu. Today Kambujadesa has become Kambuchea and Cambodia is the English word of Kambuchea.
"The bird that shelters under its wing"
Date 947
King Rajendravarman
Cult Brahmanic
Clearing by H. Marchal in 1919
Baksei Chamkrong locates on the foot of Bakeng Mountain. The word Basei Chamkrong means” a bird used its wings to cover a baby”. Today this name has become a popular fable in Cambodia.
Style
Baksei Chamkrong measures 27m by 27m and its tower is 23m high. Its base was designed with four levels built of laterite, but its tower was built of brick. There’re four staircases but today the south staircase is the easiest to climb up and down. Its central tower has a reclining Buddha statue built in the 16th century. This Buddha was replaced a golden Linga which had gone away.The tower has a real door facing east while other three doors at other sides are blinds. The carvings on blind doors and lintels are still in good condition. Baksei Chamkrong has one entrance to the east but it only remains the foundation, sandstone pedestal and one lion statue. The enclosing wall was built of brick and it only remains some trace.
The pyramid measures 27 metres across at the base and 15 at the summit for an overall height of 13 metres. In laterite with four tiers it follows the usual laws of proportional reduction - the first three are simply treated with a plain cladding while the last forms a moulded plinth for the sanctuary tower. Four steep stairs rising in a single flight mark the axes, framed at each change in height with side walls that restrict access to the various levels - which remain quite narrow. The visitor wishing to ascend to the upper platform should climb these stairs with extreme caution, since some of their treads are badly eroded.
The sanctuary tower is in brick - as usual with no use of mortar in the joints, which remain filiform. Measuring 8 metres each side, it stands on a moulded sandstone base leaving a narrow surround. Its mass is considerable with respect to the proportion of the pyramid and continues the ascending lines - though it is rounded at the summit since the upper tiers have lost their sharp profiles to the action of the vegetation.
The sanctuary opens to the east. False doors on the other sides are, with the colonnettes and lintels, the only sandstone elements, which are carefully ornate with an intricate decoration. On the false doors one should note the vertical bands of foliated scrolls, while on the branch end of the eastern lintel, a Ganesha sits astride his trunk in a motif one also finds at the Mebon Oriental. Its centre is marked by the image of Indra on a three headed elephant, while above the whole composition is a frieze of small figures.
The external decoration in lime based mortar has virtually disappeared - though one can still see on the facing brick of the corner piers the outline of the devatas, destined for a coating of plaster and given form to avoid an excess of its thickness. The interior of the tower has its floor level set a metre lower, is well preserved and shows the regular brick corbelling of the vault and the diminishing bands corresponding to the reducing sections of the upper tiers. A more recent reclining Buddha lies against the back wall.
Door jamb inscriptions date from the reign of Rajendravarman and mention the setting in the temple, in the year 947, of a golden statue of Shiva, implying that the building dates from this time.
History
Between the entrance and the temple structure, there’s a deep hole which was dug by the Khmer Rouge soldiers to look for treasure in the 1980s.
In 943 AD, king Rajendravarman II who returned from Koh Ker to Angkor city put a golden Linga sculpture in the central tower of this temple and he also remained a very important inscription in its door piers.
The inscription tells us the legend of the word Kambujadesa which was this country’s original name. Depending on the legend, there was a hermit called Kambu married to Mera who was a very beautiful princess from the heaven. Both of them give birth as the people who called themselves as Khmer. The word Khmer or Khemara is from the combination of Kambu with Mera. The Khmer people called their country as Kambujadesa which meant who people of Kambu. Today Kambujadesa has become Kambuchea and Cambodia is the English word of Kambuchea.
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