Siem Reap : Bakong Temple

Bakong Temple is located in Ovlok Village, Bakong Commune, Bakong District, Siem Reap Province and is located in the center of the capital city of Hariharalaya, south of Preah Ko Temple. Bakong Temple was built during the reign of King Indravarman I in 881 AD. Bakong Temple was considered a royal temple dedicated to the god Isa and dedicated to the king's power, and when he died, the temple was used as his tomb. Bakong Temple, the first temple, was built of sandstone with a beautiful structure, originally called the Stone of Isa, and represented Mount Sumeru. Unlike Lalai Temple, Preah Ko Temple and Prey Mekong Temple, Bakong Temple is in the Roluos group, but is located in the center of the first city of Angkor or Hariharalaya, with a distance of about 12 kilometers from the current city of Siem Reap. The Angkor temples are not far from each other, only 1 to 2.5 kilometers. Bakong Temple is a new name that was given in the Middle Ages.

This temple is a combination of the words Prasat + Ba + Gong. Prasat means the place where the gods live. "Ba" means the ruler, the guardian of the gods. The word "Kong" means an object for making loud sounds and is used by believers in the gods to create a sound that awakens all the gods. According to the inscriptions of this temple, its original name was "Indrasvara".

+.The magnificent architecture of Bakong Temple

Bakong Temple has a high structure built on a three-story platform for placing the Devaraja Linga, called "Indrasvara", which gives value to individualism, which is one of the branches of the Devaraja doctrine. The temple has an outer wall made of limestone, part of which is buried in the forest and the other part is completely destroyed, with a length of 850 meters, a width of 50 meters, and a 60-meter-wide Sindhu (river, ocean, water or water reservoir) surrounding it, but the water of the pond is all gone only in the east, with small temples surrounding it. The main temple is built of gray stone, with vivid designs. The central temple is like a mountain with five levels with stairs going up in all four directions, but the eastern wall is the best. At the eastern gate, there is a giant sculpture of the city of Ravana or Indji, the white-colored telong is formed by the knot of a dragon, surrounding the king with an army of horses. Each level has carvings of stories from the Hindu religion, but unfortunately, most of the carvings have been destroyed, having withstood the elements of heat, cold, rain, and wind for over 1,000 years. According to Khmer historical documents, after ascending to the throne in 877 AD, King Indravarman I came to live in the capital, Hariharalaya or the city of Roluos, which King Jayavarman II had first founded. In addition to the excavation of the Indradattak Baray north of the capital, which is 3,000 meters long and 800 meters wide, which is now completely covered with rice fields, King Indravarman I built the first sandstone mountain temple, Bakong, as the capital's landmark and as a symbol of his power, which extended to the northwest to the sea. According to studies, the central tower or tower of the temple was renovated in the 12th century during the reign of King Suryavarman II, so some of the decorations are in the Angkor Wat style. It should be noted that between 1936 and 1944, the top of the collapsed central tower was repaired by Mr. Hales. Bakong has two walls: an outer wall and an inner wall. The outer wall is 900 by 700 meters, surrounded by a moat, which represents the ocean of the Indian Ocean. There are two entrances to the temple, the east and the west, decorated with a pair of male and female dragons on either side of the road. But now they are almost all destroyed, only the heads and bodies of some of them are left.

The carvings on the walls of the temple are all damaged, except for a stone on the south wall on the fourth level, which is carved with a giant figure. As mentioned above, Bakong Temple is a conical mountain temple in the third wall, the mountain temple, representing Mount Sumeru in the center of the five continents, which are represented here by the five levels of the temple. It should be noted that the four lower levels represent the four planets of the universe, with images of giants, giants, and dragons, etc., on all four sides of the temple, from the lower level to the upper level. The fifth level is the heavenly realm or heaven represented by the central tower, which is considered to be Mount Sumeru itself. Seen from a distance, this central tower rises above the roof of the building, and the surrounding small temples are made of stone, which are annexed temples. Thus, our temple was built according to Indo-Khmer geometry, representing Mount Sumeru and symbolizing the Chakravara. Please note that in the central temple above, in the past, King Indravarman I built an eight-armed Vishnu and a royal lingam called Srei Indrasvara as a symbol of his era. According to the contents of the inscriptions found in 1935, we know that a large baray was built called Indratattaka to provide water for agriculture.