Heritage site

Banteay Chhmar

បន្ទាយឆ្មារ

Banteay Chhmar (បន្ទាយឆ្មារ, Banteay Chhmar) is a temple complex built by Jayavarman VII in Banteay Meanchey province, northwestern Cambodia.[1][2] It is one of the largest Khmer complexes built outside Angkor, known for its reliefs of war with Champa and its many-armed images of Avalokiteśvara.[2][3]

Name

The name is often translated as "Citadel of Cats" or "Cat Citadel," but its meaning is most probably "The Barracks."[4][5] A 1937 account explained it as "narrow citadel," for the long, drawn-out plan of the complex.[6]

History

Surveys indicate that the site was occupied continuously from prehistoric times to the present.[3] Banteay Chhmar was created by Jayavarman VII during the Angkor period and flourished between the 12th and 13th centuries C.E.[1] UNESCO's listing gives his reign as about 1122 to 1218. The Global Heritage Fund dates it from 1181, when he became king after a Khmer force drove back Cham invaders in 1178.[3][7] A 1937 study of the ruins estimated that the building took at least 60 years of steady work and proposed that the central complex was begun by about 1140. Inscriptions show that the great temple was complete within Jayavarman VII's reign.[6]

Banteay Chhmar stood strategically on royal roads reaching the northwestern limits of Jayavarman VII's territory. It was one of his largest building projects, raised in a politically sensitive region during the last years of his reign.[3] The temple was commissioned in honor of five heroes, among them the king's son, who died defending the Khmer Empire against Champa.[2] UNESCO's listing names them as Prince Srindrakumara and four companions who saved his life in battle against the Cham.[3] Archaeologists have interpreted the site as a possible city or periodically inhabited garrison-temple with religious, political or military functions.[1] The Angkor Database calls it both a massive temple and a large garrison.[5]

When Hinduism returned as the state religion in the 13th century, Buddha images at many of Jayavarman VII's temples in Angkor were destroyed. The thousands of Buddha images at Banteay Chhmar were left in place.[2][7] Étienne Aymonier, around 1883, and Lunet de Lajonquière, around 1903, called it the most ruined and the hardest to read of the Khmer monuments they had explored. By 1937 the temple was almost entirely collapsed. That year a team of 40 laborers spent 15 days at the site, which could be reached only about two months a year, and opened about a third of the areas that had been out of reach.[6]

Cambodia's civil war in the 1970s reached Banteay Chhmar. During the Khmer Rouge years the site was left unattended, and many temples were swallowed by forest.[2] Near the complex lies Boeung Cheung Kru, known as the Killing Baray or Pol Pot Baray, a reservoir built under the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s rather than in the Angkor era.[8] Banteay Chhmar was one of the last strongholds of the Khmer Rouge, and the minefields around it were not cleared until 2007.[7] The site passed decades in isolation during the war and the years after.[5]

After the Khmer Rouge period the site suffered heavy looting of reliefs and statues.[2] In the late 1990s, looters removed sections of the western gallery and stole reliefs of many-armed Avalokiteśvaras. The World Monuments Fund dates this to 1999, when two large sections of the wall were taken apart. The Global Heritage Fund places the attack in the mid-1990s and records that looters used jackhammers and took four of the eight Avalokiteśvaras to Thailand.[2][7] Looting continued as late as 1998, mostly by people coming from Thailand.[5] Two of the stolen Avalokiteśvara panels were later returned to Cambodia; the others are still missing.[7]

Architecture and layout

The complex covers about nine square kilometers (3.5 square miles) and includes eight temples surrounded by a moat, recalling the major temple complexes at Angkor.[2] The Global Heritage Fund gives the whole archaeological site as about 12 square kilometers (4.6 square miles).[7] The outermost of its five enclosures measures 2.2 by 1.7 kilometers (1.4 by 1.1 miles). Within it, a rectangular moat 63 meters (207 feet) wide surrounds the main temple buildings, which cover about 770 by 690 meters (2,530 by 2,260 feet).[3] The Global Heritage Fund measures the moat at about 60 meters (197 feet) and the main temple at about 750 by 700 meters (2,460 by 2,300 feet); the 1937 survey gave the moat as 65 meters (213 feet) wide and 3.6 meters (12 feet) deep.[7][6] Four causeways cross the moat, with railings of gods and demons pulling nagas, or serpents.[3] Six satellite temples stand inside the outer earthworks and two more outside, to the north and west.[3]

The temples were built of sandstone and laterite, an iron-rich stone. The blocks were reportedly brought by raft, elephant and cart, stacked roughly shaped from the foundations up and then carved in place.[3] The main towers face the four directions, and the layout represents Mount Meru, home of the gods and axis of the universe.[3] The 1937 survey counted 56 towers, rising from about 6 to 7 meters (20 to 23 feet) at the edges to about 20 meters (66 feet) at the center.[6] Architect Olivier Cunin estimates that the complex once held more than 40 face towers; only a few remain.[8] The face towers here are regarded as models for those of the Bayon.[7]

The sacred center expanded into three connected walled complexes arranged on a horizontal rather than concentric plan.[3] Each served a different worship. The Sanjak cult was practiced in the eastern complex. Members of the royal family were deified in the center, and Buddhist forms of Hindu and local gods were installed in the west.[3] The face towers rise above buildings of every religion practiced at the temple, not over the shrines of one cult alone.[3] The architecture shows signs of haste, and parts appear to have been left unfinished.[3]

To the east, the reservoir measured approximately 1.6 by 0.8 kilometers (1 by 0.5 miles) and contained an artificial island with a sanctuary.[3] Rice now grows in the reservoir around the crumbling island temple.[3] The temple stood at the heart of a new city on a dry plain, and a water system brought water from the Dangrek Mountains through natural channels to irrigate the rice fields.[3] The Baray Mebon reservoir held about 2 million cubic meters (71 million cubic feet).[3] Moats, canals and catchments stored water in the dry season and drained it in the wet season.[1]

Art and inscriptions

Banteay Chhmar follows the Bayon style associated with Jayavarman VII and incorporates Buddhist and tantric imagery, including multiarmed Heruka dancing deities and Lokeśvara.[1] Its iconography joins Buddhist and Hindu belief with themes of royal power.[3] Reliefs depict Khmer and Cham battles on land and water, preparations for war, processions, royal audiences and a multi-armed Avalokiteśvara.[3] Chariots, horses, elephants and foot soldiers fill the war scenes, and one carving shows a ceremony blessing medicine.[1] Other scenes show floral designs, daily life, religious events and the Churning of the Ocean of Milk.[3]

Eight Lokeśvara images were placed in reliefs beside the western gatehouse of the third enclosure.[3] They follow the forms of Avalokiteśvara given in the Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra, a Sanskrit text written in Kashmir in the fourth century CE, about 800 years before the temple.[3] Only two of the eight survive complete.[8] The largest known statue of Bhaisajyaguru, the Buddha of Medicine, was found at Banteay Chhmar.[8]

Much of the temple's history is recorded in sandstone inscriptions. They describe the use of the temple and sometimes give names, facts about the kingdom and details of Hindu practice.[2] Surviving inscriptions record the names of deities and people who were posthumously commemorated at the temple.[3]

Significance and conservation

The site's inscriptions and architecture document a major Mahāyāna institution in which Buddhist authority was emphasized alongside Hindu and indigenous Khmer traditions.[3] Its temples, reliefs and hydraulic system provide evidence of Angkorian religious ideas, political power, military systems, transport and water management.[1] Banteay Chhmar remains a place of veneration and worship for local people.[2][1]

The archaeological complex is recognized by the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. The Permanent Delegation of the Kingdom of Cambodia to UNESCO submitted it to the Tentative List on March 27, 2020.[1][9] It is protected under Cambodia's Act on Ancient Monuments, Antiques, Objects of Arts, as amended on January 6, 1996, and by a Royal Decree of March 11, 2003.[3]

The World Monuments Fund placed the site on its World Monuments Watch in 1998, 2000 and 2002 because of the threat from looting, and it worked with the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts in those years.[2][3] By the late 1990s, visitors unaware of the danger of the unstable buildings were arriving, and important parts of the temple were at risk of collapse. The southwestern tower fell in 2003.[2] World Monuments Fund supported vegetation removal, structural stabilization, archaeological study and improved security after the collapse, with funding from American Express.[2] The conservation program trained Cambodian participants and involved the Royal University of Fine Arts in an architectural and historical study.[2]

Since 2005 the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts has carried out study, clearance, conservation and restoration, funded by the Royal Government and local donations.[9] In 2007 John Sanday, who had led a team to assess the site in the early 1990s, became the Global Heritage Fund's field director for Asia and renewed work at Banteay Chhmar.[7] From 2007 to 2012 the fund and the ministry ran a conservation training project and prepared a master plan to protect the relief galleries and stabilize the central temple.[3] A team of eight local workers recorded fallen stones on a grid of one-square-meter squares and began to reassemble them.[7] More than 75 percent of the arcaded galleries and reliefs had fallen and lay buried under rubble. Monsoon rain, weak foundations and fast-growing shrubs had brought them down.[7] Many carvings are still buried, and only a few looted sculptures have been returned.[3] In 2020, four large guardian lions were rescued from the muddy ground of the walkway to the Mebon basin.[5]

Community

The Global Heritage Fund, Heritage Watch and the Provincial Government have supported local community-based tourism, education, training and site preservation.[1] Community-based tourism began in 2007 with assistance from Agir Pour le Cambodge and has linked heritage protection with local economic and social benefits.[4] Visitor income goes back into village projects such as waste collection, a children's library and a local restaurant.[4] Families in the area mostly live by farming, fishing and handicrafts.[10]

Visiting

The temple stands in Banteay Chhmar commune, Thma Puok district, about 65 kilometers (40 miles) north of Sisophon by Road 56 and about 110 kilometers (68 miles) from the Angkor World Heritage Site.[3] It faces the Dangrek Mountains to the north and is surrounded by four villages: Banteay Chhmar West, Banteay Chhmar North, Banteay Chhmar South and Chrey.[3] The Thai border lies about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) away.[7] The Banteay Chhmar Community-Based Tourism group arranges homestays, guides, cooking and other services.[10] Its program includes temple visits, community tours, traditional meals and Khmer music.[4] A modern shrine opposite the dharmasala, or house of fire, receives offerings from visitors and residents.[8]

References

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 Wikipedia
  2. ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 World Monuments Fund, Banteay Chhmar Temple of Jayavarman VII
  3. ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16 3.17 3.18 3.19 3.20 3.21 3.22 3.23 3.24 3.25 3.26 3.27 3.28 3.29 3.30 whc.unesco.org, The Archeological complex of Banteay Chhmar - UNESCO World Heritage Centre
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Stories Ethically Sourced, EXPLORING BANTEAY CHHMAR - A HIDDEN KHMER GEM
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 Angkor Database, Prasat Banteay Chhmar 3D Reconstruction, 6 (2021-12-10)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 Devata.org, Banteay Chhmar in 1937: Ancient Khmer City in Cambodia
  7. ↑ 7.00 7.01 7.02 7.03 7.04 7.05 7.06 7.07 7.08 7.09 7.10 7.11 Global Heritage Fund, Saving Banteay Chhmar (PDF, 2011)
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 Sailingstone Travel, Banteay Chhmar: The Khmer Empire's Second City
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 UNESCO Centre du patrimoine mondial, The Archeological complex of Banteay Chhmar (2020-03-27)
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Visit Banteay Chhmar, official visitor site of the Banteay Chhmar Community-Based Tourism group
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This page was last edited on 2 October 2026, at 01:35.