Cambodia 2007, Banteay Srei

2007-1-13

Banteay Srei means Citadel of the Women or Citadel of Beauty. It was also known simply as the Lady Temple or the Pink Temple because of the pink sandstones used in its constructions. It was located on the road going to the Thailand border. It was only about 20 km from Angkor, but it seemed taking a long time to get there due to the bad shape of the road. It was asphalted but there were a lot of large and deep potholes. It reminded me of the road going to Kerinci in Padang. I like taking photos from inside the car as we traveled. But on this trip, I could hardly make it. I was surprised to see that some tourists were taking the motor-bike-trailer transport. It was not only very uncomfortable; I was worried that it could easily tip over. Fortunately, I did not see any accidents on the road. Strangely, I didn’t see many trucks at all. The driver said that the section of the road near the border had been re-surfaced, but on this side, the government was waiting some financial helps from Thailand or other countries to complete it. Many manufactured goods sold in Cambodia, like bikes, motor bike etc, came from Thailand. On the road, I saw a man on a motorbike carrying pig-lings in a cage fasten to the back seat of his bike. He took them to villages looking for their foster homes; he would come back when the pigs were ready for helping to solve the hunger in human.

The stilted houses along the road were much simpler than what I saw on the road to Bakong Temple. Instead of wood, they used leaves from nepa palm not only for roofs but also for walls. And the leaves were not thickly overlapped to stop winds and rains. The yards were generally kept clean and tidy. There were many sugar palm trees along the road. The villagers were cooking the sap to turn it into dark brown and fragrant palm sugar, and sold them on a primitive table set up on the road side. We also passed a village where there were many roadside stalls selling beautiful bamboo baskets etc.

Unlike the other temples that we had visited, this temple was not a royal temple. It was built by a king’s counselor Yajnavaraha in 967 AD and was discovered in 1914. Most of the surfaces in all building were covered or decorated with beautiful bras-relief and statues. And it was surprising that there was not much serious damages on them. Many of the bras-reliefs are still very sharp and deep. All buildings were not very tall, and their lintels and pediments were almost on the eye level. It was a photographer paradise.

The temple complex had four concentric rectangular enclosures. The gate or gopura was opened at the east and the west walls and numbered in descending order from outside to inside. The outter most gopura was therefore called gopura IV. Presently, only the gopura on the east wall was in good shape. The wall itself, however, didn't survive and there was no remnants of it could be found. The bas reliefs on the pediment of this gopura showed Indra on his three headed elephant. This gopura was connected to the next gopura by a 70 m long causeway lined with 32 stone posts on both sides. There were two galleries on the sides of the causeway, and they had some interesting bras-reliefs. 

The remaining three enclosures were in good condition, and they were about 1.5 m low walls built by stone blocks. The third enclosure measured 95x110 m, and the other two was 38x42 m and 24x24 m. The third and the second enclosure were separated by moat.The narrow space, about 7 m, between the second and the first enclosure was taken up by two long galleries on the north and south sides, and two pairs galleries on the east and the west side. Looking from the wall of the third enclosure, the whole temple complex was like a miniature version of temples in Angkor.

There were gopura on the east and the west walls of the third enclosure. On the pediment of the Gopura III east, the bas relief showed a scene from the Ramayana in which a demon seizing Rama's wife Sita. We didn't go to look for the gopura on the west wall. We crossed the dirt causeway and reached Gorupa II east.

The inner enclosure contained the sanctuary, which consisted of a mandapa and a row of three towers forming a T. The mandapa was connected to the middle tower of the three towers. At the north-east and the south-east corner of the sanctuary were two libraries facing east. The bras-relief on the pediment of the eastern face of the north library depicted the following story quoted from my book “Indra, God of the sky, riding his three headed elephant Airavata and creating rain to put out a fire on the Khandava forest, created by the God Agni in order to kill the naga Taksaka who lived in the forest. The God asked Krishna and his brother Balarama to help, and they positioned themselves on either side of the forest, to stop the animals from fleeing”.

The apsara in this temple seemed not wearing any head dress, and braided their hairs like what Fong had in Kuta. It was also possible that their head dress were flat. According to my book, the carving on one lintel shows Narasimba clawing Hiranjakasipu. But to me it was more like a light pornography.

On the way back, we stopped at a ruined brick temple at the road side. I didn’t remember its name.


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