The real pain of a King is the pain of his subjects - Jayavarman VII

"ទេហនាន្ទេហ រោគោ យ​​ន្មនោរោគោ រុជត្តរាម៑​ ​ រាឞ្ត្រទុះខំហិភត៌្ឫុណា​ ​ន្ទុះខន្ទុះខន្ទុនាត្មនះ "

"dehinām deha rogo yanmanorogo rujattarām

rāṣṭra duḥkham hi bharṛrnān duḥkhan duḥkhan tu Nātmanaḥ"

"the bodily pain of the diseased became in Him (the King) a mental agony more tormenting than the former. For the real pain of a King is the pain of his subjects, not that his own (body)" 

Cambodia's "second Angkor" stirs to life

Tuesday, January 3, 2012
DENIS D. GRAY, Associated Press

BANTEAY CHHMAR, Cambodia (AP) — It's still entwined in mystery and jungle vines, but one of Cambodia's grandest monuments is slowly awakening after eight centuries of isolated slumber, having attracted a crack archaeological team and a trickle of tourists.

"It takes awhile to unfold this temple — and everywhere there are enticements," says John Sanday, the team leader, as he navigates through tangled undergrowth, past dramatic towers and bas-reliefs and into dark chambers of the haunting monastic complex of Banteay Chhmar.

What drove Jayavarman VII, regarded as the greatest king of the Angkorian Empire, to erect this vast Buddhist temple about 105 miles (170 kilometers) from his capital in Angkor and in one of the most desolate and driest places in Cambodia remains one of its many unsolved riddles.

At its height in the 12th century, the empire extended over much of Southeast Asia, its rulers engaging in a building frenzy which produced some of the world's greatest religious monuments.

Called the "second Angkor Wat," Banteay Chhmar approaches it in size, is more frozen in time than the manicured and made-over superstar, and has so far been spared the blights of mass tourism of recent years at Angkor.

Restoration of Banteay Chhmar temple

In this photo taken Dec. 12, 2011, using a crane, workers move heavy sandstone blocs from a tower within the Buddhist temple of Banteay Chhmar, Cambodia. It's still entwined in mystery and jungle vines, but one of Cambodia's grandest monuments is slowly awakening after eight centuries of isolated slumber, having attracted a crack archaeological team and a trickle of tourists. Photo: Denis Gray / AP

In this photo taken Dec. 12, 2011, using a crane, workers move...

 In this photo taken Dec. 12, 2011, restoration work continues around one of 34 towers at the Buddhist monastery of Banteay Chhmar in northwestern Cambodia. It's still entwined in mystery and jungle vines, but one of Cambodia's grandest monuments is slowly awakening after eight centuries of isolated slumber, having attracted a crack archaeological team and a trickle of tourists. Photo: Denis Gray / AP

 In this photo taken Dec. 12, 2011, workers use a crane to move sandstone blocs as they restore one of the damaged towers at the 800-year-old Buddhist temple of Banteay Chhmar in northwestern Cambodia. A team from the US-based Global Heritage Fund and the Cambodian government is reviving one of the masterpieces of the Angkorian Empire. Photo: Denis Gray / AP

 In this photo taken Dec. 12, 2011, Cambodian children from a nearby village sit amid the ruins of Banteay Chhmar, a vast, remote temple built around 1200. It's still entwined in mystery and jungle vines, but one of Cambodia's grandest monuments is slowly awakening after eight centuries of isolated slumber, having attracted a crack archaeological team and a trickle of tourists. Photo: Denis Gray / AP

 In this photo taken Dec. 12, 2011, with the help of a crane, workers gently remove a section of a bas-relief at the 800-year-old Buddhist temple of Banteay Chhmar in northwestern Cambodia. The relief, one of only a few at temples from the Angkor era, depicts a battle in vivid detail. It's still entwined in mystery and jungle vines, but one of Cambodia's grandest monuments is slowly awakening after eight centuries of isolated slumber, having attracted a crack archaeological team and a trickle of tourists. Photo: Denis Gray / AP

 In this photo taken Dec. 12, 2011, a Cambodian boy leans against one of the mythical figures that guard the approaches to Banteay Chhmar, an 800-year-old temple from the days of the great Angkorian Empire in northwestern Cambodia. The spectacular complex, which still draws few tourists to its remote location, is ringed by a traditional rural village. Photo: Denis Gray / AP

 In this photo taken Dec. 12, 2011, Cambodia workers haul an ancient sandstone bloc from a bas-relief at Banteay Chhmar, one of the greatest and least known temples of the Angkorian Empire in Cambodia. The relief is one of several sites at the temple being restored by the California-based Global Heritage Fund and the Cambodian government. Photo: Denis Gray / AP

In this photo taken Dec. 11, 2011, John Sanday, a British conservation architect, walks through a chamber in the vast 800-year-old temple of Banteay Chhmar in northwestern Cambodia. Sanday leads a team from the U.S.-based Global Heritage Fund to restore the monument after centuries of neglect, war and looting. Banteay Chhmar is one of numerous remnants of the once powerful Angkorian Empire. Photo: Denis Gray / AP

Unique Khmer Silver Plate Has Been Returned To Cambodia From Hungary

"An object of great cultural and historical significance has been returned to Cambodia by the Zelnik István Southeast Asian Gold Museum, Budapest, The inscribed 12th-century Khmer silver plate was donated to the National Museum of Phnom Penh by Dr István Zelnik. The director of the Cambodian UNESCO heritage site stated that the donation was a major highpoint in international cultural heritage protection.

Source: Goldmuseum.hu

Considerable international and Cambodian interest was focused on the donation ceremony in Phnom Penh on 15th December, during which Dr Istvan Zelnik of Hungary, founder of the Southeast Asian Gold Museum, Budapest, handed over the silver plate. It is inscribed in old Khmer and was donated in 1199 to the Banteay Chhmar sanctuary founded by the grandmother of Jayavarman VIIth, Cambodia's greatest sovereign.

The priceless artefact is considered unique by art historians, historians and ephigraphists because so few inscribed metal objects from the golden age of the Angkor Empire era have survived.

Angkor Wat - City of The Gods

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOD3Ol9xfeU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3J2KEbcDf0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqyCMdph1Ds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkNu3TcXD7s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV6JO1yD0BA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoyQ4B-EG6A

The Stele of Preah Khan of Angkor by George Coedes (1941) including transliter​ation, translatio​n and inscriptio​n rubbing (in French)

Gentlemen,

Of the 23 Angkorian Khmer provinces/principalities listed in the Preah Khan inscription (of Javavarman VII), we can identify following: Svanpura is currently Suphanburi, Lavodayapura is Lopburi, Javarajapuri is Ratburi, Jayasimhapura is Muang Sinh (all in Thailand). Phisanolok (vishnu loka) is also an ancient placename of the current place/thai province, probably dated back to Angkor era. On the map by Simon de la Loubère (1693), it was misspelled as "perselouc".

Attached is G. Coedes, "Le Stele du Prah Khan d'Angkor", Bulletin E.F.E.O (1941), texts including transliteration, translation and inscription rubbing.

Regards
Bora Touch

Excerpt with English translation by KI-Media:

LA STÈLE DU PREAH KHAN D'ANGKOR

par G. CŒDÈS

La stèle sur laquelle est gravée l'inscription étudiée ici a été découverte au Preah Khan d'Angkor le 13 novembre 1939 par M. M. GLAIZE, Conservateur d'Angkor, sous les éboulis qui emplissaient la galerie formant bas-côté Nord dans l'avant-corps Ouest du gopura I Est. Elle gisait sur le sol, intacte, mais sans doute déposée là après avoir été enlevée de son emplacement primitif. Celui-ci a pu être déterminé grâce à la mortaise retrouvée dans le dallage de l'avant-corps Ouest du gopura, un peu au Sud de l'axe principal Est-Ouest.

C'est une grande stèle de section carrée, moulurée à la base et décorée d'une fleur de lotus stylisée sur a face supérieure. Elle est identique à la stèle de Ta Prohm dont elle a à peu près les dimensions (1 m 85 de hauteur et om58 de côté) ; son inscription comporte le même nombre de lignes, soit 72 sur cha¬que face, de la même écriture anguleuse caractéristique du règne de Jayavarman VII. L'état de conservation est bon, sauf sur la troisième face qui présente quelques lacunes.
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The Stele of Preah Khan of Angkor

By George Coedes

The stele on which the inscription studied is engraved here was discovered in Preah Khan of Angkor on November 13, 1939 by Mr. M. GLAIZE, the Curator of Angkor, under the debris that filled the gallery forming the north aisle in the front of the western Gopura I East. It was laid intact on the ground, but it was probably put there after being removed from its original position. This could be determined by the mortar found in the paving of the front building of the western Gopura, located just south of the main east-west axis.

This is a large square stele, molded at its base and decorated with a stylized lotus flower on the top face. It is identical to the stele of Ta Prohm which has measures roughly 1.85 m high and 0.58m side length; the inscription has the same number of rows: 72 on each side, and it bears the same angular writing typical of the Jayavarman VII reign. The preservation status of the stele is good, except on the third side which has some shortcomings.

http://www.box.net/shared/8rmprfcy97b9h5ihyp9p

Big Buddha unearthed at Ta Prom

A two-metre section of a Buddha statue unearthed this week sits on blocks at the Ta Prom temple, in Siem Reap province. (Photo Supplied)

Thursday, 27 October 2011
Bridget Di Certo
The Phnom Penh Post

The largest Angkorian-era Buddha statue to be discovered since the Khmer Rouge regime ended was unearthed at Ta Prom temple last Friday, an official from the Indian embassy confirmed yesterday.

The Ta Prom temple, at the world-famous Angkor Wat temple complex in Siem Reap, has been under restoration by a team of Indian Government-funded technical experts since 2004.

Indian Embassy First Secretary Saurav Ray said the Buddha statue, found in the Hall of Dancers at Ta Prom, was the “largest Buddha statue discovered so far in Cambodia since the Khmer Rouge era”.

“The statue is incomplete – missing a large buddha head with a naga snake fan and part of the base,” he said, adding that the portion of the statue found was a massive two metres high.

“We have had 151 local people employed on the restoration work, and this is an amazing discovery,” Ray added.

Decline and Fall of an Empire: Causes and Interpretations

Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Op-Ed by School of Vice

 

School of Vice Notes: King Jayavarman VII, first of Khmer Rulers believed to have adopted Theravada Buddhism and restored the Khmer Empire to its pre-Champa invasion. The King may also have been the first to have introduced various forms of public welfare system throughout the Empire on an unprecedented scale, whilst many of his stone monuments and carvings depict scenes of daily life of his beloved subjects rather than those of the Royal Court. Many monuments and statues at Angkor Thom today also confirm the co-existence of two of Cambodia's great religious strands i.e. Brahmanism and Buddhism. The pose shows the King in deep meditation at a stage of the practice where the serene expression or slight smile on the face would become palpable. However, some writers venture to suggest that the “enigmatic” expression betrays the uneasy relationship that may have vexed his person between the pacific teachings of the Buddha on the one hand, and the Empire's temporal preoccupations on the other, that usually yielded to the need for physical violence in some form.

“Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made”

It is, perhaps, often overlooked that the historical Buddha himself was a Brahmin (Hindu) just as Jesus Christ was very much a Jew. Both these influential figures had been the by-products of the religious traditions prevailing in their environments and emerged out of those environments somewhat disgruntled with the decaying and corrosive outgrowth of the moral, ethical religious standards found within the traditions to which they inextricably belonged. In this sense, at least, these figures were attempting to defend their ancestors' respective religious heritage and to ‘cleanse’ it of those corrosive influences that vexed their conscience and troubled their soul deeply vie-a-vie ordinary people's mounting misery. Jesus' trouble was that he took on an officialdom that was quite content and, powerful enough, to preserve existing arrangements as they were because such arrangements allowed them to keep on accumulating wealth at public expense, rather than caving in to the demands of a bunch of so-called religious "heretics" and "fanatics" like Christ and his followers. Moreover, although, Jesus (like most Jews) couched his sermons and teaching in religious terms, there was no concealing his sense of outrage and protest against the perceived injustices meted out to the common man by the ruling politico-religious classes of his time. There was religion in the mix of it all, but the immediate and real issues were undoubtedly socio-economic in focus. Jesus, like the Buddha (Gautama) is thus described by some as a social “revolutionary”, or even a "Marxist communist" of his time.

Upstate man uncovers lost story of 12th century king

Riverside High School world history teacher Steve Johnson spent two summers doing research in Cambodia. / Steve Johnson/Reader submittted

Riverside High history teacher did his research in Cambodia

Aug. 28, 2011
Anna Lee | Staff Writer
GreenvilleOnline.com (USA)

Some stories take years to tell and thousands of miles to find.

Steve Johnson found his story an hour’s motorbike ride out of the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, where a Buddhist temple sits halfway up a small mountain.

For the last two years, Johnson, a Riverside High School world history teacher, has spent his summers talking to natives about King Jayavarman VII, who ruled from 1178-1219 and was considered the greatest of the Khmer (Cambodian) kings.

“He’s kind of like the George Washington and the Abraham Lincoln all in one of this country, yet no one knows his story,” Johnson said. “I researched every book I could find on the subject, but there were still some holes in the story that needed to be filled in.”

To find someone who knew the entire tale meant traveling to Wat Tamov temple, where a handful of Buddhist monks who survived Pol Pot’s Communist regime lived on the edge of a tiger sanctuary.

More than a million Cambodians were killed when the Khmer Rouge took over in 1975, and “anyone that was educated or any kind of religious leader was hunted down and killed,” said Johnson, whose wife is Cambodian.

"The sorrow of the people is the king's sorrow": Jayavaman VII

Angkora.co​m - Info Express - Film "The Great Khmer Empire"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqTjeP93mok&feature=player_embedded

Bonjour,

Simplement pour vous soumettre les infos du Cambodge,

Un Nouveau film "Le Grand Empire Khmer " va sortir dans 3 ans, ça va coûter 70 millions de dollars US, à ce moment là, les combodgiens seront fier de son histoire, fier de son passé glorieux, et on ne se pose plus de question si le temple de Preah Vihear appartient au Cambodge ou à la Thailande,

http://www.angkora.com/viewupdate.php?id=135

Le film va faire le tour du monde, et le monde connaitera le Cambodge

Pour plus info : www.angkora.com

Cordialement,

Angkora.com

----------

Unofficial translation from Khmer

Hello,

Just to send you here information about Cambodia:

A new film "The Great Khmer Empire " will come out in 3 years, it will cost US$70 million and, then, the Cambodians will be proud of their history, proud of their glorious past, and nobody will ever doubt who Preah Vihear temple belongs to: Cambodia or Thailand. http://www.angkora.com/viewupdate.php?id=135

The film will be distributed throughout the world and the world will know about Cambodia.

For more information: www.angkora.com

Cordially,

Angkora.com

King Jayarman VII according to Khmer inscriptio​ns by Professor Vong Sothera, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

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Bangkok continues to reject Indonesian observers; Claim that Jayavarman VII is “THEIR” king

If Thailand accepts Jayavarman VII as their king, will they also accept the fact that Thailand belongs to Cambodia?

11 April 2011
By Meas Mony
Free Press Magazine Online
Translated from Khmer by Soch
Click here to read the original article in Khmer

Bangkok confirmed its stance to reject Indonesian observers to be stationed within the 4.6-square-km zone. It also claimed that King Jayavarman VII was their king.

Thai PM Abhisit Vejjajiva told the news media that Bangkok does not welcome the presence of Indonesian observers in the 4.6-square-km zone if there is no prior new discussion. Abhisit’s declaration was met by Cambodia’s disappointment again and again.

Hor 5 Hong, the Cambodian minister of Foreign Affairs, told reporters last Saturday, following the border meeting between the two countries in Bogor, Indonesia, that the Thai government has no intention of resolving the dragging border dispute between the two countries. The General and the Joint Border Meetings held on 7-8 April were not attended by Prawit Wongsuwam, the Thai minister of Defense, nor by Kasit Piromya, the Thai minister of Foreign Affairs. Only Tea Banh, the Cambodian minister of Defense, and Hor 5 Hong, the Cambodian minister of Foreign Affairs, were sitting lonely in the meeting room.

Recently, Thai TV channel 5, a station owned by the Thai army, commented by saying that King Jayavarman VII was a king of the Thais who built many temples, including those along the border. In the similar vein, in 2003, a Thai star allegedly claimed that Angkor Wat belonged to Thailand. That alleged claim led to protest in front of the Thai embassy and the burning down of several Thai commercial buildings in Cambodia, the damages amounted to $50 million.

Khmer Surin celebrates 1000 years of Prasad Sikhoraphum (2009)

KI-Media thanks Mr. Bora Touch, Esq., for pointing out this video

Angelina Jolie To Feature In A Movie With Cambodian Backdrop

Thursday, September 23rd, 2010
By Monimalika
Entertainment and Showbiz.com

We are not sure whether this one is again a rumor like the one where Angelina Jolie was said to be playing the role of legendary actress Marilyn Monroe. But the buzz is that a movie is being planned to be produced in Cambodia. The announcement was made on Wednesday in Phnom Pehn, by proposed the movie’s project manager Thomas Magyar and the project co-coordinator Tony Schiena. The title of the film is ‘Great Khmer Empire”.

The duo announced that it will be a massive and exhausting project as they will have to consult the Cambodian government and historians to gather accurate history. The film will take almost three years for making and it will cost approximately U.S. $ 70 million.

Schiena and Magyar stated that apart from Jolie they are looking into other famous stars those who can be part of the project. They have in mind the Chinese action hero Jet Li, John Cena of the World Wrestling entertainment and Song Hye Kyo a famous South Korean movie actress. It is likely to be a historical film focusing on the history of Cambodia during the reign of King Jayavarman the VII at 11th and 12th century. It is during this time the Angkor Wat Temple of Cambodia was built.

Angelina Jolie has previously shot her film ‘Lara Croft: The Tomb Raider’ at the Siem Reap province that also has the famous Angkor Wat Temple. She also adopted her eldest son Maddox from Cambodia and was also given Cambodian citizenship for her conservation work there.

Jet Li, Angelina Jolie targeted for new movie in Cambodia

Jet Li
U.S. actress Angelina Jolie poses as she arrives at the German premiere of her new movie "Salt" in Berlin August 18, 2010. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

PHNOM PENH, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- A famous Chinese action movie star Jet Li (Chinese name: Li Lianjie), and American movie actress Angelina Jolie are expected to be included in a new movie to be produced in Cambodia.

In a press conference held on Wednesday in Phnom Penh, Thomas Magyar, a project manager for the planned movie, and Tony Schiena, a project coordinator and a Hollywood star said the film they had planned to produce will be named as "Great Khmer Empire."

They said the film might cost approximately 70 million U.S. dollars and it will need about three years to make it, saying the large time span will be caused by the consultations with Cambodian government and historians on accuracy of the history as well as the script writing.

Both Tony Schiena and Thomas Magyar said, to date, they are looking at several famous movies stars such as Jet Li, Chinese action star, Angelina Jolie, an American movie actress, John Cena, world's famous wrester and South Korean movie actress Song Hye Kyo among others.

The movie will focus on history of Cambodia, especially, during the glorious period in 11th and 12th century under the King Jayavarman the VII, who until today, considered as the great King of Cambodia and who finished up the building of Angkor Wat Temple in Cambodia.

Angelina Jolie adopted a Cambodian son and was granted a Cambodian citizenship.

She was also a star in the famous movie titled "Tomb Raider" which some parts of the episodes were also shot in Siem Reap province where many temples including Angkor Wat Temple are located in.

Japan team excavates ancient statues in Cambodia

Aug. 22, 2010
The Yomiuri Shimbun

SIEM REAP, Cambodia--A team of specialists led by the president of Tokyo's Sophia University has excavated the severed upper halves of six Buddhist statues from the Angkor ruins in northwestern Cambodia.

The Sophia University Angkor International Mission, headed by university President Yoshiaki Ishizawa, excavated the statues from a circular moat at the ruins of Banteay Kdei temple on Friday.

About 60 centimeters tall, the statues are believed to have been produced in the late 12th or early 13th century.

Ishizawa and his team have worked to repair and preserve the Angkor ruins, a World Heritage Site. They also excavated Buddhist statues there in 2001, a discovery that brought certain historical events to light, including the fact that Buddhism was suppressed across Cambodia after the death in 1219 of Jayavarman VII, the king who constructed the temple.

The latest excavation found the pieces neatly lined up in the circular moat, which a team member said was "evidence that the people of those days did not lose faith [in Buddhism] despite the oppression."

Researchers Look Closer at Ancient Angkor

By Sothearith Im, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
22 June 2009

Ancient Khmer art and culture have characteristics distinct from India, though some eas appear to have been borrowed from the tradition, a Canadian archeologist told guests in Washington last week.

Speaking to a small conference at the Freer-Sackler Art Gallery, Mitch Henderickson, director of the Industries of Angkor Project and researcher at the University of Sydney, said he found no evidence after seven years of research indicating that temples or architectural structures like Angkor Wat had been built in India.

“In the past it was interpreted as a direct diffusion of Indians and Indian ideals into Cambodia,” he said. “It has only been, say, in the last 10 years that we have truly understood how Brahman and Buddhist ideals have been brought into Cambodia and whether the actual Brahman or monks were giving the ideas.”

Some architecture and arts were now thought “uniquely Khmer,” he said, “because there are no temples in India that are built in the same way. They don’t follow the idea of building a ‘baray’ with a ‘mebon’ in the center, which is the representation of Mount Meru in the Sea of Milk [epic]. There’s nothing like that i​n India. So, the idea is that now we realize that Cambodia took the ideas that they wanted and modified them to suit the purpose and goals of the rulers and kings.”

Henderickson said Angkor was the biggest industrial site in the world at that time. His findings show that the Khmers had infrastructure spanning their empire.

Roads started from modern northern Cambodia and reached northern Thailand and southern Laos, spreading south to present-day Kampong Thom province. Every road was accompanied by ponds and rest-houses to facilitate people’s travel and transportation.

Irrigation systems were established as water sources for agriculture.

Evidence now pointed away from such structures being built by King Jayavarman VII, he said, and now indicated they were done by King Suryavarman I.

An ancient text he had studied “doesn’t say [Jayavarman VII] built roads, it doesn’t say he built bridges, and it doesn’t say he built the ponds, but we have all the evidence in the landscape,” Henderickson said. “And we also know that the Khmers were expanding across this territory 200 years before Jayavarman VII. So, it is more realistic to think that the road system that we see today is the product of Suryavaraman I, and possibly an earlier king.”

Cambodia is much loved for its ancient architecture and culture, but much remains unknown. Tourism is the second-highest outside earner for the country, after garment manufacturing.

The remnants of the Khmer empire continue to draw tourists from abroad, while capturing the imagination of local visitors, but the country continues to lose its heritage to looters and grave robbers.

There are two kinds of looting, said Dougald O’Reilly, a colleague of Henderickson who also attended last week’s talk, said: temple looting and looting of ancient cemeteries.

“The second one is mostly driven by people poverty,” said O’Reilly, who is also an archeologist and is the director of Heritage Watch, a non-profit group that seeks to protect Cambodia’s artifacts.

“The international market is a driving force, so people who are poor, they need to make money, and they are encouraged to loot by people who are middlemen in this trade,” O’Reilly said. “So, often we have Cambodian and Thai people asking villagers if they have antiquities, etc.”

People who feel guilty looting temples may not feel the same way about ancient cemeteries, he said.

Heritage Watch has a variety of programs, such as publishing comics and children’s books, a Heritage Friendly Tourism Campaign that encourages tourists to buy products from businesses that are “heritage friendly.”

The organization hopes to educate local people to understand the importance of Cambodia’s cultural past, which attracts tourists—and income.

“Cambodia really represents the best of the best in heritage,” he said. “So, people come there for heritage, but at the same time it has been chipped away and destroyed at rather alarming rate. If Cambodia wants to build a sustainable and a long term tourism industry, it’s crucial that they preserve and protect not only the monuments but also the ancient sites.”

Scientists need these sites to understand how Angkor came to be, and what happened to it, he said. “But if these heritages are lost, we can’t answer these questions.”

Coaxing a Khmer Temple From the Jungle’s Embrace

June 3, 2009
By ROBERT TURNBULL
The New York Times

To reach the temple of Banteay Chhmar from the Cambodian town of Sisophon in the dry season involves a two-hour drive through parched forests coated with brown dust. The temple is breathtaking. Bas-reliefs depict naval battles between ancient Khmers and their Cham rivals in remarkable detail. Giant sandstone faces loom over thick vegetation strewn with collapsed lintels and broken naga heads.

Visitors to Angkor Wat will have seen something like this. But the glory of Banteay Chhmar is its raw, unadulterated state. Sitting 100 kilometers, or about 60 miles, northwest of Siem Reap, this is Cambodia’s “forgotten” temple. You will probably find yourself alone, able to rekindle the experience of colonial French explorers as they first stumbled upon Khmer antiquity.

But the same isolation was not lost on those who vandalized Banteay Chhmar in the late 1990s. The Cambodian military not only mined the complex but made off with large sections of bas-relief destined for private homes in Bangkok and beyond. Local guides like Seng Samnang remembers the oxcarts loaded with artifacts being wheeled out of the temple. “There was nothing we could do,” he said. “If we had challenged these men we would have been killed.”

About 115 pieces, a truckload, have been recovered and they are sitting in the National Museum in Phnom Penh. Of the rest — there is allegedly much more — reports of Buddha heads appearing in Thai generals’ gardens have done little to ease longstanding tensions over Thai claims to Cambodia’s patrimony, an issue that resurfaced last year, and remains unresolved, at the northern temple of Preah Vihear.

Banteay Chhmar is returning to the spotlight, but now the news is good. In 2008 the Culture Ministry handed control of the temple to Global Heritage Fund, an organization in California that tries to safeguard the world’s most endangered sites. Established in 2002, the fund has a budget of $6 million and 44 employees to rehabilitate the temple, the eventual aim being its inclusion on Unesco’s World Heritage List.

John Sanday is leading the project. He is a British architect who first set foot in Cambodia in 1992 to work on the 12th-century Preah Khan, a temple famous for its outer wall of garudas, the mythic birds of Hindu legend. To help attract financing, the savvy Mr. Sanday, a former employee of the World Monument Fund, managed to persuade a number of private individuals to “adopt” a garuda for $30,000.

Like Preah Khan, Banteay Chhmar was built as a monastic complex by Jayavarman VII, the king who converted Cambodia to Buddhism. But the paucity of surviving inscriptions make it unclear exactly when and why. Writing in 1949, the historian Lawrence Palmer Briggs claimed the temple “rivaled Angkor Wat in size and magnificence.” It has four enclosures surrounded by a moat, a vast artificial lake, or baray, and could sustain a population of at least 100,000.

Romantic it may be, but much of Banteay Chhmar today consists of piles of lichen-stained rubble. Of 400 meters (1,300 feet) of bas-relief wall, only 25 percent still stands. Faced with collapsed or collapsing structure, Mr. Sanday and his team must decide what should be rebuilt or merely stabilized. Whether to replace the missing stones with newly quarried or recycled stone is another question.

A simple paradox lies at the heart of the restoration process: The less you notice, the better the job. Mr. Sanday sees overzealous rebuilding as compromising of a monument’s natural history, and much of its beauty. On the other hand, donors to projects such as these usually want to see tangible results, if not the revelation of some architectural marvel.

Mr. Sanday’s solution is to opt for a “presentation” of key areas of the temple, which in the future can serve as a model. Visitors will enter — as did the ancients — past the eastern gopura, along a causeway largely destroyed by 600 hundreds years of monsoons. Once that is rebuilt, they will advance toward the southeastern gallery of bas-reliefs and access the temple’s central areas along suspended wooden boards.

Under Predrag Gavrilovich, a Macedonian architect and colleague of Mr. Sanday’s, the fund is working on the southeastern gallery. Mr. Gavrilovich was responsible for rebuilding Preah Khan’s beautiful Dharamsala and Hall of Dancers almost entirely from scratch. His achievement was to completely disguise that fact by presenting something that seems utterly natural in its decay.

Can he do the same with Banteay Chhmar? His team has already reassembled the gallery’s square pillars and corbel vaulting. But the foundations need reinforcing before those parts can be lifted to their original position. “The building was not well constructed,” Mr. Gavrilovich said. “Maybe it was built in a hurry.”

For the “face towers,” Mr. Gavrilovich will have the benefit of new software developed by Hans Georg Bock at Heidelberg University in Germany. By scanning all the rubble and carefully analyzing each stone, it is possible to create a 3-D database for a virtual reconstruction of the entire monument.

The temple is only one part of Mr. Sanday’s project. His greater challenge is to turn a heavily mined former war zone with “finite” water supplies and massive scars on the landscape into a fertile and “zoned” area for responsible development as well as tourism.

So water has to come from somewhere. The reservoir the ancient Khmers built just north of the temple is heavily silted. Damming by villagers of the temple’s ornamental moat has resulted in flooding and wastage at monsoon time. With no evidence of an underground water table or any deep interventions, Mr. Sanday has invited James Goodman, a hydrologist in Geneva to research and map the course of the old waterways. Mr. Goodman has been looking both at images taken by the colonial École Française d’Extrême-Orient in 1945 and aerial photos used by the United States during the Indochinese war. The idea would be to rationalize water supplies and to create a well-drilling program.

For the project to work requires the support of the 12,000 or so villagers who might wonder what’s in it for them. Community Based Tourism, a French-inspired organization, aims at rewarding local people with 100 percent of tourist revenue. In 2007 and 2008, 512 visitors showed up. For $7 a night they were offered a tour, a room in a house with hot water and several hours of electricity.

Mr. Sanday is determined to prevent the kind of commercial pressures on temple sites that has dogged Angkor over many years. He said he thinks the authorities are behind him. “The ministry has set out clear zoning rules which dictate the position and size of new building and plans to create a new road that bypasses the temple,” he said.

The Culture Ministry’s heritage police will soon take charge of security. Only then might the return of the original bas-reliefs be possible under an agreement between the culture minister, the Global Heritage Fund and Unesco. That agency’s Teruo Jinnai, for one, welcomed the idea, provided “the security situation meets international requirements.”

It should happen. The return of these priceless bas-reliefs would demonstrate a new spirit of cooperation among those concerned with safeguarding Cambodian heritage. It could also send a clear message to those of ill intent to keep their hands off Banteay Chhmar.

Another temple row heats up

Wednesday August 06, 2008
Bangkok Post

Ta Moan Thom, like Preah Vihear before it, is now occupied by troops protecting a disputed border, writes Piyaporn Wongruang

Situated on top of a remote hill on the Dong Rak mountain range in Surin's Phanom Dong Rak district, Ta Moan Thom is the latest ancient temple caught up in the border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia.

Like the Preah Vihear temple before it, Ta Moan Thom is now occupied by soldiers attempting to protect the boundary line.

''There is almost nothing left of Ta Moan Thom but scars,'' said associate professor Sakchai Saisingh, an archeologist from Silpakorn University, who has been studying Khmer temples in Thailand's northeast.

According to Mr Sakchai, Ta Moan Thom was built around the late 11th century, shortly after Preah Vihear on the same mountain range, in the Baphuon style, a Khmer artistic method dedicated to and influenced by Hindu Gods, and in particular Shiva.

The remains of the temple suggest it was rather compact. It only comprises a main prasat where a linga, built for worshipping, is located. The main prasat is surrounded by galleries.

The temple is accompanied by the two other structures of Ta Moan and Ta Moan Chod, which were built with Buddhism influence about 200 years later, during the time of Jayavarman VII. These add-ons were a rest house for worshippers and a hospital, respectively. Although Ta Moan Thom temple was smaller than the Preah Vihear temple, it was no less significant.

Sitting on top of a hill, the temple signifies the mountain of Sumeru, the centre of the Buddhist cosmos, where the mortal world is linked to heaven by a naga bridge.

Also of significance is that, according to a study by historian Dhida Saraya, the temple was located on an ancient route between the Lower Cambodia Plain and the Korat Plateau, reflecting the cultural dispersal in the area.

Tharapong Srisuchart, the Thai archeological office's director, said the Fine Arts Department registered Ta Moan Thom as a national heritage site over 70 years ago. It then began restoring the temple as well as the accompanying prasats, although intensive work began around 10 years ago. The restoration of Ta Moan and Ta Moan Chod has now been completed, but not Ta Moan Thom.

This is because the department was instructed to suspend the work years ago by the government, which anticipated problems over the unsettled boundary line.

So far, the department had only put back in place some fallen stone blocks. The top of the main prasat is largely untouched, with several blocks lying on the floor, said Mr Tharapong.

Mr Sakchai said it is important the two countries look beyond the boundary line and find ways to manage unresolved problems.

Fixing an idea on a boundary line and being obsessed with geographical ownership can stir up further conflicts among Thais and Cambodians, who might be misled into believing that they own properties and land on the other side, leading to attempts to take them back, he said.

''What we have to realise is that some cultural properties represent the past, and that doesn't necessarily mean it has something to do with the present,'' said Mr Sakchai.

''Cultural properties from the past need to be considered under a specific context of time, and they should not be linked indefinitely to one side.''

Ta Moan Thom temple was pushed into the spotlight on Sunday, when Cambodia accused Thai troops of occupying an area it claimed to be on Cambodian soil.

The Cambodian complaint reportedly came after its soldiers were barred from visiting the temple on Saturday. Thai military officers as well as diplomats rejected Cambodia's complaint, saying Thai soldiers have been stationed around the temple for years.