The West Mebon (, , ) is a temple at

Angkor Angkor ( , 'capital city'), also known as Yasodharapura (; ),Headly, Robert K.; Chhor, Kylin; Lim, Lam Kheng; Kheang, Lim Hak; Chun, Chen. 1977. ''Cambodian-English Dictionary''. Bureau of Special Research in Modern Languages. The Catholic Uni ...

Cambodia Cambodia, officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. It is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north, and Vietnam to the east, and has a coastline ...

, located in the center of the

West Baray The West Baray (, Romanization of Khmer#UNGEGN, UNGEGN: , Romanization of Khmer#ALA-LC Romanization Tables, ALA-LC: ) or Baray Teuk Thla (, Romanization of Khmer#UNGEGN, UNGEGN: , Romanization of Khmer#ALA-LC Romanization Tables, ALA-LC: ; "Cl ...

, the largest reservoir of the Angkor area. The temple's date of construction is not known, but evidence suggests the 11th Century during the reign of King Suryavarman I and Udayadityavarman II.Higham, C., 2001, The Civilization of Angkor, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Higham, C., 2014, Early Mainland Southeast Asia, Bangkok: River Books Co., Ltd.,

Location

In the dry season today, it is reachable by land. In rainy season, the waters of the 7,800-meter-long baray rise and the temple, located on a site higher than the baray's floor, becomes an island.

Symbolism

Khmer architects typically surrounded temples with moats that represent the

Hindu Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...

sea of creation. The West Mebon, located amid waters so vast that they can seem like a real sea, takes this religious symbolism to the ultimate level.

Architecture

The temple was built to a square design, with sides measuring about 100 meters. Each side had three tower-passages crowned with stone lotus flowers and arrayed about 28 meters apart. In the center of the square was a stone platform linked to the eastern wall by a laterite and sandstone causeway. Today the platform, causeway and much of the east wall and towers remain; the other sides are largely gone, though their outlines in stone are visible when the baray's waters are low. There is no central sanctuary to be seen, though the platform may have supported some comparatively small structure in times past. File:West Mebon 0011.jpg, File:West Mebon 0008.jpg, File:West Mebon 0009.jpg,

The Reclining Vishnu

In 1936, the West Mebon yielded up the largest known bronze sculpture in Khmer art, a fragment of the reclining

god

Vishnu Vishnu (; , , ), also known as Narayana and Hari, is one of the Hindu deities, principal deities of Hinduism. He is the supreme being within Vaishnavism, one of the major traditions within contemporary Hinduism, and the god of preservation ( ...

. The fragment includes the god's head, upper torso and two right arms. A local villager is said to have dreamt that an image of the

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 legends, he was ...

was buried in the West Mebon and wished to be freed from the soil. Subsequent digging unearthed the statue of Vishnu. The Chinese diplomat

Zhou Daguan Zhou Daguan (; ; c. 1270–?) was a Chinese diplomat of the Yuan dynasty of China, serving under Temür Khan (Emperor Chengzong of Yuan). He is most well known for his accounts of the customs of Cambodia and the Angkor temple complexes during hi ...

, who visited Angkor at the end of the 13th Century, wrote that the West Mebon had a large image of

with cascading water. Zhou mistook the Vishnu statue for a Buddha image, and the West Mebon for the East Mebon. The statue, which in complete form would have measured about six meters long, entered the collection of the

National Museum A national museum can be a museum maintained and funded by a national government. In many countries it denotes a museum run by the central government, while other museums are run by regional or local governments. In the United States, most nati ...

Phnom Penh Phnom Penh is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Cambodia, most populous city of Cambodia. It has been the national capital since 1865 and has grown to become the nation's primate city and its political, economic, industr ...

. It has also been shown abroad, including in

Washington D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

References

* Laur, Jean. ''Angkor: An Illustrated Guide to the Monuments.'' Flammarion 2002 * Rooney, Dawn. ''Angkor.'' Airphoto International Ltd. 2002 {{SiemReapProvince Angkorian sites in Siem Reap province Hindu temples in Siem Reap province

Location

Symbolism

Architecture

The Reclining Vishnu

See also

References