Wat Phnom ( km, វត្តភ្នំ,

UNGEGN The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN) is one of the nine expert groups of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and deals with the national and international standardization of geographical names. E ...

: ,

ALA-LC ALA-LC (American Library AssociationLibrary of Congress) is a set of standards for romanization, the representation of text in other writing systems using the Latin script. Applications The system is used to represent bibliographic information by ...

: ; "Mountain Pagoda") is a

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...

( wat), a

pagoda A pagoda is an Asian tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhist but sometimes Taoist, ...

, that symbolizes the name of Phnom Penh, and a historical site that is part of the Khmer national identity. Wat Phnom has a total height of 46 meters (150ft). The pagoda is named after Lady

Penh Penh ( km, ពេញ ), commonly referred to as Daun Penh ( km, ដូនពេញ ; meaning "Grandmother Penh" or "Old Lady Penh") or Lady Penh, was a wealthy woman who is credited as having founded Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, in 1372 AD ...

from the story of the discovery of the five statues: four

Buddha statues Much Buddhist art uses depictions of the historical Buddha, Gautama Buddha, which are known as Buddharūpa (literally, "Form of the Awakened One") in Sanskrit and Pali. These may be statues or other images such as paintings. The main figure in ...

and one Vishnu statue.

History

In 1372, a wealthy old lady named "

" lived on a small hill near the bank of the confluence of the four rivers. One day, when it was raining, Penh went down to the port to take a bath and saw a floating Koki tree in the river and she called the village to fish it from the water. She and the villagers took a piece of wood to scrape off the mud and in the hole of the Koki tree, there were four

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in L ...

statues made of bronze, brass and one made of marble. Another statue was in the form of

Vishnu Vishnu ( ; , ), also known as Narayana and Hari, is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. He is the supreme being within Vaishnavism, one of the major traditions within contemporary Hinduism. Vishnu is known as "The Preserver" withi ...

with the hands holding a staff, a chain, a

snail A snail is, in loose terms, a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class ...

, and a

lotus flower ''Nelumbo nucifera'', also known as sacred lotus, Laxmi lotus, Indian lotus, or simply lotus, is one of two extant species of aquatic plant in the family Nelumbonaceae. It is sometimes colloquially called a water lily, though this more often re ...

. Penh asked the villagers to help retrieve the Koki tree and retrieve the four treasures. Later, Penh assigned the villagers to build an artificial hill and build a small wooden temple on top of the hill to house the statue. She invited

monks A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedic ...

to bless the statues and the monks named the hermitage "Wat Phnom" which is known to this day.

15th century

King

Ponhea Yat Ponhea Yat ( km, ពញាយ៉ាត ; c. 1390 – 1463), also known as Borom Reachea II ( km, បរមរាជាទី២ ; th, บรมราชาธิราช, ), was the last king of the Khmer Empire and the first king of Cambodia. ...

(also known as Barom Reachea I) was King of Cambodia and reigned at Tuol Basan ( Srey Santhor) for nine years. At the time there was severe flooding in that area, during which the capital was flooded deep in 1396 AD. When the water receded that year, He ordered Chao Ponhea Decho, the governor of Samrong Tong Province to build a new palace in Russey Keo village in the area of (Wat Phnom) today. Chao Ponhea Decho ordered the people to dig from an area which is now located where the

Central Market Central Market may refer to: *Central Market, a 2009 album by Tyondai Braxton Fresh food markets * Adelaide Central Market, Australia * Cardiff Central Market, Wales *Central Market, Hong Kong * Central Market, Casablanca, Morocco * Riga Central ...

currently stands. The hole created a lake called Boeung Decho. After a year of flooding, King Ponhea Yat moved his court from Tuol Basan, Kampong Cham province to the confluence of the Tonle Sap River in 1397 AD. After the completion of the palace, King Ponhea Yat ordered the construction of a hermitage hut on the top of the mountain near the temple of Wat Phnom, the hermitage of the district chief, which Cambodians today call Neak Ta Preah Chao and Wat Phnom called "Wat Phnom Doun Penh" "Which marks the name of Grandma "Doun Penh ". After completing the construction of his palace and city, he named the city "Chaktomuk Sakal Kampuchea Thibdey Udiya Mohanakor" in 1416 AD. His reign at Chaktomuk begun the "Chaktomuk Period" of the Kingdom of Kampuchea in 1431. After his death, a large

stupa A stupa ( sa, स्तूप, lit=heap, ) is a mound-like or hemispherical structure containing relics (such as ''śarīra'' – typically the remains of Buddhist monks or nuns) that is used as a place of meditation. In Buddhism, circum ...

was built for him at the top of Wat Phnom.

Architecture

The sanctuary itself was rebuilt several times in the 19th century and again in 1926. The interior has a central altar complex with a large bronze seated Buddha surrounded by other statues, flowers, candles and items of devotion and worship. The walls are covered with murals, especially of

Jataka The Jātakas (meaning "Birth Story", "related to a birth") are a voluminous body of literature native to India which mainly concern the previous births of Gautama Buddha in both human and animal form. According to Peter Skilling, this genre is ...

stories of the Buddha's earlier reincarnations before his attainment of Enlightenment. There are also murals depicting stories from the

Reamker ''Reamker'' ( km, រាមកេរ្តិ៍, UNGEGN: , ALA-LC: ; ) is a Cambodian epic poem, based on the Sanskrit's Rāmāyana epic. The name means "Glory of Rama". It is the national epic of Cambodia. The earliest mention of this epic' ...

, the Khmer version of the

Ramayana The ''Rāmāyana'' (; sa, रामायणम्, ) is a Sanskrit epic composed over a period of nearly a millennium, with scholars' estimates for the earliest stage of the text ranging from the 8th to 4th centuries BCE, and later stages ...

. The newer murals in the bottom tiers are somewhat balanced, traditional and modern. The southwest corner of the temple and stupa, is a small shrine dedicated to Lady

. The front is often crowded with the faithful bringing their prayers and food offerings to the woman deemed responsible for the founding of the wat. File:WatPhnom Crop.JPG, ''Ponhea Yat Stupa'' File:Pagoda of Wat Phnom.jpg, ''The main

on Wat Phnom'' File:Phnom Penh Wat Phnom 04.jpg, ''Main pagoda'' File:Stairs Wat Phnom Cambodia 0536.jpg, ''Main stairway leading to the Pagoda'' File:Thais return Battambang to King Sisowath.jpg, ''Statue of King Sisowath'' File:Wat Phnom Temple-1.JPG, ''Paintings inside the temple'' File:Wat Phnom- Buddha in the Central shrine (14064735240).jpg, ''Buddhist shrine inside the pagoda'' File:2016 Phnom Penh, Wat Phnom (12).jpg, ''Spirit house'' File:Wat Phnom View from Preah Norodom Blvd.jpg, Wat Phnom View from Preah Norodom Blvd File:Wat Phnom August 2022.jpg, Wat Phnom

Cultural references

Wat Phnom appeared on the

Travel Channel Travel Channel (stylized as Trvl Channel since 2018) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, which had previously owned the channel from 1997 to 2007. The channel is headquartered in New York, New York, United S ...

documentary, 1,000 Places to See Before You Die. It also served as the Pit Stop for the fourth leg of ''

The Amazing Race 15 ''The Amazing Race 15'' is the fifteenth season of the American reality television series ''The Amazing Race''. It featured twelve teams of two competing in a race around the world. The season premiered on CBS on Sunday, September 27, 2009, with ...

''.

References

External links