Wat
Wat Khemarangsaram
Wat Khemarangsaram, also spelled Vat Khemarangsaram, is a Khmer Buddhist temple in Bonnyrigg, New South Wales, Australia.[1][2] The Khmer community built it, and Khmer Australians paid for its hall largely on their own.[3][2]
History
In the mid-1980s the Venerable Long Sakkhone, a Cambodian Buddhist monk, came to live in Sydney. Frank Walker, the New South Wales Minister for Housing, arranged the lease of land next to a large shopping plaza at Bonnyrigg to the Khmer Community of New South Wales, to build a community center and temple.[2] The temple was built in 1989, and the Premier of New South Wales, Nick Greiner, opened it on February 10, 1990.[3][2] A 2023 guide gives 1998 as the year the temple was completed.[4] The Fairfield City Heritage Collection includes the temple among its Heritage Listed Sites.[5]
Architecture
The temple's tall, ornate sala, or main hall, stands among the gum trees and red brick houses of suburban Bonnyrigg.[2] It follows traditional Khmer Buddhist design and sits high on a hill beside the car park of the Bonnyrigg shopping plaza.[4] Inside, a large bronze Buddha image is surrounded by smaller images, flowers and candles, and the walls carry pictures and paintings of the Buddha, monks and nuns.[4]
Religious life
The temple holds a weekly holy day, thnai sel, with a sermon and chanting. During the three-month Rains Retreat, or Vassa, the monks chant and meditate every day.[2] Twice a week the monks walk with their alms bowls to Khmer homes in Bonnyrigg and to the Cabramatta shopping plaza to receive food offerings, called dak baat. Elderly devotees live at the temple and cook for the monks each day.[2]
The monks also leave the temple to lead rites for the community, above all at deaths, wakes, funerals and one-month birth anniversaries. They may go to the hospital to perform rites right after a death, and the body may rest overnight at the temple before burial.[2] In 2023 eight monks led the temple's religious life.[4]
The temple marks Pchum Ben, a remembrance of those who have died, each year from September 29 to October 1, and the Cambodian New Year in mid-April.[4] On the New Year weekend, which falls near Easter, it holds rituals, a food fair and concerts by singers from Cambodia, drawing both Cambodian and non-Cambodian Australians.[2]
Visiting
As of 2023 the temple was open to visitors from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., and its telephone number was (02) 9724 5455.[4] It is one of the places of worship on the Spirit of Bonnyrigg Walk.[1]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Fairfield City Council, Bonnyrigg
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 Dictionary of Sydney, Cambodians
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Dictionary of Sydney, Wat Khemarangsaram
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 WeekendNotes, The Buddhist Temples of Bonnyrigg (2023)
- ↑ Fairfield City Heritage Collection, Wat Khemarangsaram Cambodian Buddhist Temple