Heritage site
Ta Prohm
ប្រាសាទតាព្រហ្ម
Ta Prohm (ប្រាសាទតាព្រហ្ម, Ta Prohm) is a Buddhist temple and monastery at Angkor in Siem Reap Province, Cambodia, founded by King Jayavarman VII in 1186.[1] Trees grow out of its ruins, and it has been left much as it was found.[2]
History
The name Ta Prohm means "Ancestor Brahma." The temple's first name, Rajavihara, means "Royal Monastery."[2] Jayavarman VII founded it in 1186 as part of a great program of building and public works, in honor of his family.[1] It was a Mahayana Buddhist monastery and a center of learning, dedicated to the king's mother.[1] Its main image showed Prajnaparamita, the personification of wisdom, modeled on her.[1] Satellite temples in the third enclosure honored the king's guru, Jayamangalartha, and his elder brother.[2] Ta Prohm formed a pair with Preah Khan, a temple monastery dedicated in 1191, whose main image of Lokesvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, was modeled on the king's father.[2]
The foundation stele, the inscribed stone that records the temple's founding, lists more than 12,500 people who lived at the temple, among them 18 high priests and 615 dancers. Another 80,000 people in the villages around it supplied services and goods.[2] The stele also records the temple's wealth in gold, pearls and silks.[2] Other accounts put the number needed to maintain and attend the temple at almost 80,000, including more than 2,700 officials.[2][3]
The temple was built largely in the Bayon style in the late 12th and early 13th centuries.[2] Additions continued until the reign of Srindravarman at the end of the 13th century.[2] In the 13th century, under Jayavarman VIII, Buddhist images at Ta Prohm were defaced or replaced with Hindu ones, and the scars remain on its reliefs.[4] After the fall of the Khmer Empire in the 15th century, the temple was abandoned and neglected for centuries.[1] The stones had been laid without mortar, and trees took root as they loosened.[2]
Conservation of the Angkor temples began in the early 20th century.[1] The École française d'Extrême-Orient (French School of the Far East) decided to leave Ta Prohm largely as it had been found, a choice made partly for the taste of the time for picturesque ruins.[2] Ta Prohm was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1992.[1]
Architecture and layout
Ta Prohm stands about 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) east of Angkor Thom, on the southern edge of the East Baray, a large reservoir.[2] It is a flat temple: the central sanctuary does not rise on a series of higher levels as in a temple-mountain.[2] Five rectangular walls enclose the sanctuary.[2] The outer wall measures about 1,000 by 650 meters (3,280 by 2,130 feet) and encloses about 650,000 square meters (160 acres). A town once filled this space, which is now mostly forest.[2]
The temple faces east and has a gopura, or gateway, at each of the four cardinal points.[2] Face towers like those at the Bayon were added to the gateways in the 13th century.[2] The three inner enclosures have galleries. Libraries stand in the southeast corners of the first and third enclosures, and satellite temples lie north and south of the third.[2] The Hall of Dancers stands between the third and fourth eastern gateways, and a House of Fire lies east of the fourth.[2]
Art and inscriptions
Ta Prohm has fewer narrative reliefs than Angkor Wat or Angkor Thom.[2] A badly worn relief shows the Great Departure of Siddhartha, the future Buddha, from his father's palace.[2] Other carvings show devatas (female divinities), meditating monks or ascetics, and dvarapalas, temple guardians.[2] The lintels of the Hall of Dancers carry figures of apsaras, celestial dancers.[5]
The trees are the temple's best-known feature.[2] The larger trees are identified as either silk-cotton trees or Tetrameles nudiflora, and the smaller ones as either strangler figs or gold apples.[2] Many local people regard the large trees as sacred. Offerings of incense, flowers and food are placed near them or in the temple's alcoves, asking for health, prosperity and protection.[4]
Significance and conservation
The conservation and restoration of Ta Prohm is a partnership of the Archaeological Survey of India and APSARA, the Authority for the Protection and Management of Angkor and the Region of Siem Reap.[1] The work has stabilized the structures and opened them to visitors while keeping their overgrown look.[2] By 2013 the Archaeological Survey of India had restored most of the complex, rebuilding some parts from scratch.[2] Renovation of the Hall of Dancers was completed in November 2022.[2] Since 2023 the two partners have been restoring the South Gate by anastylosis, taking it apart and rebuilding it with its own stones. By mid-June 2026 that work was about 75 percent complete.[6]
Visiting
The trees and jungle setting have made Ta Prohm one of the most popular temples with visitors. It is also known for its part in the film Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001).[1] Visitors can enter only from the east and west.[1] Wooden walkways, platforms and roped railings protect the monument from further damage, and climbing on the damaged galleries is not allowed.[1][3] Entry is included in the Angkor pass, and visitors cover their shoulders and knees.[5]
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 Wikipedia
- ↑ 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 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17 2.18 2.19 2.20 2.21 2.22 2.23 2.24 2.25 2.26 Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., Ta Prohm - Wikipedia (2004-02-01)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Lonely Planet, Ta Prohm
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Inheritage Foundation, Ta Prohm Siem Reap Cambodia (2025-11-09)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 tour-cambodia.com, Ta Prohm: practical guide - Nomadays - Seripheap (2026-03-28)
- ↑ Indochina Voyages, Ta Prohm Temple: A complete guide (2026-08-15)