Prasat Kravan 10th century Hindu temple with bas reliefs sculpted in brickwork

Name                 Prasat Kravan
Date                  921
King                   Built by a high ranking priest during the reign of King Harshavarman I
Location             South of Banteay Kdei and the Srah Srang baray
Nearby               Banteay Kdei, Prasat Bat Chum, Srah Srang baray

The Prasat Kravan is an early 10th century Hindu monument. It consists of a line of five brick towers built closely together set atop a low platform oriented towards the East.

The monument located a few kilometers East of Angkor Wat was dedicated to Vishnu, the Supreme God of Hinduism. The Prasat Kravan is one of the few Angkor temples that was not built by a King, but by a high ranking Hindu priest.

The towers are of slightly different size, the central tower being the largest, the towers on either side of it somewhat smaller, the outer towers being the smallest. In the interior of the central and Northern tower is a number of sculptures made directly in the brickwork of the towers, a unique feature in Angkor, which is often found in the Cham temples of Vietnam.

In the 1960’s the Prasat Kravan was restored by the EFEO, using as much as possible the original materials. New stones are marked with a “CA” inscription. A very similar temple named Prasat Neang Khmau is found in Takeo province, South of the capital Phnom Penh. Here, two brick towers of very similar architecture were built around the same time as the Prasat Kravan.
The five sanctuary towers

The monument is enclosed by a moat, which is crossed by a small causeway in the Western section of the temple grounds. East of the towers is a large cruciform terrace, which might have been where an entrance gate was which was probably built out of wood or other perishable material since nothing of it remains today.

In front of each of the sanctuary towers is a stairway that was guarded by lion statues, some of which still remain. The entrance door of the central tower contains sculpted Dvarapala guardian figures set in niches. An inscription on the doorpost of the 3½ meter wide central tower mentions that a statue of Vishnu was dedicated here in the year 921. The central sanctuary is still topped with its original four tiers, the Southern sanctuary has two of its tiers remaining, the other three have none.

Bas reliefs of the central sanctuary

The interior of the central sanctuary contains three bas reliefs of Vishnu, sculpted directly into the brick wall. One of the reliefs depicts a storey from the Bhagavata Purana, an ancient Hindu tale originating from India. The scene shows “the three giant steps of Vishnu”. In the tale, Vishnu comes to earth in the shape of the dwarf Vamana. Vishnu requests Bali, King of the Asura demons, to be given a plot of land he could cover with three foot steps. As soon as the King agreed to the request, Vishnu reveals his real size and powers and with three steps covers the entire universe.

Other reliefs show an eight armed Vishnu surrounded by a large number of worshippers in 6 lines, and Vishnu on his mount Garuda. The North tower shows sculptures of Lakshmi, Vishnu’s consort. This sanctuary contained a pedestal and was possibly dedicated to Lakshmi.

Angkor Wat Biggest Hindu temple built at the height of Khmer skills

View of Angkor Wat from the West
Name
Angkor Wat, Prasat Angkor Wat
Date
First half of the 12th century
King
Suryavarman II
Location
Just South of Angkor Thom
Nearby
Phnom Bakheng

Angkor’s most impressive and best known temple, Angkor Wat is the best preserved of all the Angkor monuments. The temple is an object of pride for Cambodia, its depiction appears on the national flag.

Angkor Wat, which means temple city is located just South of the Khmer capital Angkor Thom.

It is a richly decorated, very large temple; the total temple area including the moat measures 1.5 kilometers long by 1.3 kilometers wide, or a total of about 2 square kilometers. Angkor Wat is the biggest Hindu temple in Cambodia.
Height of architectural skills of the Khmer

The temple represents the height of architectural skills of the Khmer builders. Its very detailed carved bas reliefs that cover much of the temple shows impressive craftsmanship. Unlike other Angkor temples, Angkor Wat is oriented towards the West and dedicated to Vishnu, where previous temples face East and are dedicated to Shiva.

Angkor Wat was the state temple of King Suryavarman II, who built the temple during the first half of the 12th century. He was one of Angkor’s greatest Kings who ruled for almost 40 years and expanded the Khmer empire. Some historians believe that the temple also served as a funerary temple for the King. This could explain its orientation to the West; the setting sun (in the West) symbolizes the end of the cycle of life.
Mount Meru, the center of Hindu cosmology

Angkor Wat is a mountain temple build to represent Mount Meru, the center of the world in Hindu cosmology. The temple’s five prasats or sanctuary towers represent the peaks of the sacred mountain, while the moats represent the oceans that surround Mount Meru.

The temple’s three tiers are surrounded by large galleries, that were introduced in earlier temples like the Ta Keo. One of Angkor Wat’s major attractions are the many intricate and well preserved bas reliefs with depictions of scenes from the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata, as well as many hundreds of statues of female devatas, a Hindu deity.

Angkor Wat was cleared at the start of the 20th century, after which extensive restoration work has been carried out. Around the end of the 13th century Angkor Wat was converted into a Buddhist temple.

Approach to the temple

Surrounding the temple complex is a 190 meter wide moat. At the Western end is a 12 meter wide bridge, in front of which is a terrace where lions and Naga snakes guard the temple. Crossing the bridge the visitor approaches the impressive Western gate, which was build to resemble the front view of the temple itself.

The structure consists of long galleries with a three part gopura topped by towers that have partly collapsed. At both ends of the structure is a pavilion, large enough to enable elephants to go through. The Western gate contains apsaras and devatas as well as magnificent carvings on its lintels showing Vishnu, Garuda, warriors and scenes from the epic Ramayana. Only after passing the Western gate, the Angkor Wat temple comes in sight.

Behind the Western gate is a 350 meter long processional walkway elevated about 1½ meters above the ground towards the temple. On either side of the walkway is a library building. Past the libraries are two lakes, reflecting the silhouette of the of Angkor Wat’s towers. The temple itself is build on raised platform about 330 meters long and 255 meters wide. The structure comprises of three rectangular tiers each higher one smaller than the one below it encircled by long galleries with corner towers and a gopura in the center of its sides.
Bas reliefs galleries of the third tier

The third tier is surrounded by long concentric galleries. Its walls contain some of the finest and best preserved bas reliefs of Angkor Wat, including:

    The battle of Lanka, a storey from the epic Ramayana, where Rama fights Ravana who abducted his wife Sita
    The battle of Kurukshetra from the epic Mahabharata, between the Kauravas and the Pandavas, depicting soldiers and commanders on elephants or riding chariots
    A 90 meter panel of the Royal Procession. Two sections depict King Suryavarman II and a procession of court ladies, another section shows a procession of soldiers on foot or on horses and elephants and a parade of Brahmin priests
    The Heavens and Hells and the Judgement of Sinners by Yama, the Hindu God of Death. Depictions of the 37 heavens with palaces with servants and the 32 hells and the punishments and tortures received there, each one for a specific sin committed
    The churning of the ocean of milk, a 50 meter long panel. This storey from the Mahabharata tells how an elixir of immortality over which the Gods and the demons fight is produced by churning the ocean with Mount Meru used as the churning rod
    Vishnu and his incarnation Krishna
    The victory of Vishnu over the asuras
    The abduction of Shiva by Ravana
    Other scenes from the Ramayana

Within the third enclosure, right after passing the main entrance on the West end are galleries that delimit four courtyards. Its walls are decorated with devatas, apsaras and rishis, while the pediments contain carvings of Vishnu and Krishna, one of Vishnu’s incarnations. The galleries also contain a number of Buddha images, placed there after Angkor Wat was converted into a Buddhist temple.
The platform with 5 lotus bud shaped towers

The second tier measuring 100 by 115 meters is enclosed by galleries. On each of its four corners are towers that have partly collapsed. On top of the structure is a square platform about 55 meters wide that contains five towers shaped like lotus buds. The platform is surrounded by galleries, with a sanctuary tower on each if its corners.

In the middle stands the 42 meter high central sanctuary on each side opening to a vestibule in which Buddha statues are found. The walls of the tower are decorated with well preserved devatas. Inside is the cella, a chamber that enshrined a large statue of Vishnu.
Is Angkor Wat a wonder of the world

The classic Seven Wonders of the Ancient World list includes only monuments around the Mediterranean Sea. There are several other wonders of the world lists, among them wonders of nature, engineering and the industrial world. Although not on any of these lists, Angkor Wat is often considered “the 8th Wonder of the World”.
How to get to Angkor Wat from Siem Reap

Angkor Wat is located just a few kilometers North of Siem Reap town. The main road to Angkor Wat is the Charles de Gaulle road that runs North from Siem Reap town center. This is the road where the main ticket office is on. You can get to Angkor Wat from Siem Reap by taxi, tuk tuk or rented bicycle. Most hotels will be able to assist in finding a reliable taxi or tuk tuk driver and a bicycle rental shop.

Angkor Wat

                                        Sunrise at Angkor Wat (Enlarge)

There are two great complexes of ancient temples in Southeast Asia, one at Bagan in Burma, the other at Angkor in Cambodia. The temples of Angkor, built by the Khmer civilization between 802 and 1220 AD, represent one of humankind's most astonishing and enduring architectural achievements. From Angkor the Khmer kings ruled over a vast domain that reached from Vietnam to China to the Bay of Bengal. The structures one sees at Angkor today, more than 100 stone temples in all, are the surviving remains of a grand religious, social and administrative metropolis whose other buildings - palaces, public buildings, and houses - were built of wood and have long since decayed and disappeared.

Conventional theories presume the lands where Angkor stands were chosen as a settlement site because of their strategic military position and agricultural potential. Alternative scholars, however, believe the geographical location of the Angkor complex and the arrangement of its temples was based on a planet-spanning sacred geography from archaic times. Using computer simulations, it has been shown that the ground plan of the Angkor complex – the terrestrial placement of its principal temples - mirrors the stars in the constellation of Draco at the time of spring equinox in 10,500 BC. While the date of this astronomical alignment is far earlier than any known construction at Angkor, it appears that its purpose was to architecturally mirror the heavens in order to assist in the harmonization of the earth and the stars. Both the layout of the Angkor temples and the iconographic nature of much its sculpture, particularly the asuras (‘demons’) and devas (‘deities’) are also intended to indicate the celestial phenomenon of the precession of the equinoxes and the slow transition from one astrological age to another.

At the temple of Phnom Bakheng there are 108 surrounding towers. The number 108, considered sacred in both Hindu and Buddhist cosmologies, is the sum of 72 plus 36 (36 being ½ of 72). The number 72 is a primary number in the sequence of numbers linked to the earth’s axial precession, which causes the apparent alteration in the position of the constellations over the period of 25,920 years, or one degree every 72 years. Another mysterious fact about the Angkor complex is its location 72 degrees of longitude east of the Pyramids of Giza. The temples of Bakong, Prah Ko and Prei Monli at Roluos, south of the main Angkor complex, are situated in relation to each other in such a way that they mirror the three stars in the Corona Borealis as they appeared at dawn on the spring equinox in 10,500 BC. It is interesting to note that the Corona Borealis would not have been visible from these temples during the 10th and 11th centuries when they were constructed.

Angkor Wat, built during the early years of the 12th century by Suryavaram II, honors the Hindu god Vishnu and is a symbolic representation of Hindu cosmology. Consisting of an enormous temple symbolizing the mythic Mt. Meru, its five inter-nested rectangular walls and moats represent chains of mountains and the cosmic ocean. The short dimensions of the vast compound are precisely aligned along a north-south axis, while the east-west axis has been deliberately diverted 0.75 degrees south of east and north of west, seemingly in order to give observers a three day anticipation of the spring equinox.

Unlike other temples at Angkor, Ta Prohm has been left as it was found, preserved as an example of what a tropical forest will do to an architectural monument when the protective hands of humans are withdrawn. Ta Prohm's walls, roofs, chambers and courtyards have been sufficiently repaired to stop further deterioration, and the inner sanctuary has been cleared of bushes and thick undergrowth, but the temple has been left in the stranglehold of trees. Having planted themselves centuries ago, the tree's serpentine roots pry apart the ancient stones and their immense trunks straddle the once bustling Buddhist temple. Built in the later part of the 12th century by Jayavarman VII, Ta Prohm is the terrestrial counterpart of the star Eta Draconis the Draco constellation.

During half-millennia of Khmer occupation, the city of Angkor became a pilgrimage destination of importance throughout Southeastern Asia. Sacked by the Thais in 1431 and abandoned in 1432, Angkor was forgotten for a few centuries. Wandering Buddhist monks, passing through the dense jungles, occasionally came upon the awesome ruins. Recognizing the sacred nature of the temples but ignorant of their origins, they invented fables about the mysterious sanctuaries, saying they had been built by the gods in a far ancient time. Centuries passed, these fables became legends, and pilgrims from the distant reaches of Asia sought out the mystic city of the gods. A few adventurous European travelers knew of the ruins and stories circulated in antiquarian circles of a strange city lost in the jungles. Most people believed the stories to be nothing more than legend, however, until the French explorer Henri Mouhot brought Angkor to the world's attention in 1860. The French people were enchanted with the ancient city and beginning in 1908 funded and superbly managed an extensive restoration project. The restoration has continued to the present day, excepting periods in the 70's and 80's when military fighting prevented archaeologists from living near the ruins.

Orthodox archaeologists sometimes interpret the temples of the Angkor complex as tombs of megalomaniacal kings yet in reality those kings designed and constructed the temples as a form of service to both god and their own subjects. The temples were places not for the worship of the kings but rather for the worship of god. Precisely aligned with the stars, constructed as vast three dimensional yantras and adorned with stunningly beautiful religious art, the Angkor temples were instruments for assisting humans in their realization of the divine.

Jayavaram VII, spoke of his intentions in erecting temples as being:

“full of deep sympathy for the good of the world, so as to bestow on men the ambrosia of remedies to win them immortality….By virtue of these good works would that I might rescue all those who are struggling in the ocean of existence.”

                                  Temple of Ta Prohm, Angkor, Cambodia

          Stone Heads of Bodhisattva Avilokiteshvara, Bayon temple, Angkor, Cambodia

                                       Bayon Temple, Angkor, Cambodia 

                                 Angkor Wat, Cambodia, aerial view

                                               Angkor Wat, Cambodia, painting

Angelina Jolie to Start Filming in Cambodia's Biggest Tourist Attraction

  Photo courtesy of Thinkstock

 These days, Angelina Jolie is known as much for her activism as for her acting, and she has had a long connection with Cambodia. Parts of the "Tomb Raider" franchise were filmed in the country’s ancient temples, Jolie and husband Brad Pitt adopted a Cambodian orphan, and she has poured millions into development and conservation projects in the country. She was even granted honorary Cambodian citizenship in recognition of her contributions.

Whether you think Jolie's charitable efforts are genuine or merely a way to bolster her image, you have to admit that she has done a lot to bring a once-forgotten country into the spotlight.

A new Netflix movie set in Cambodia

Now, Jolie will head to what is arguably the most popular tourist attraction in all of Southeast Asia to film her latest project, a film version of writer Loung Ung’s memoir, "First They Killed My Father." The film, which reportedly will feature Jolie's adopted Khmer son in a prominent role, will skip theaters and head straight to Netflix. 

Much of the filming will take place in Siem Reap Province, where the famous Angkor Wat temple complex is located. Some scenes will reportedly be shot in the temple ruins, while others will take place in the rice fields and river banks in the surrounding areas.

The film features Cambodia's not-tourist destinations

According to the Cambodian Film Commission, the production will move relatively quickly. The first scenes will be filmed in early November, and the plan is to wrap by the end of January. Battambang, Cambodia’s second largest city after Phnom Penh, will be used for about 10 percent of the movie.

On one level, Jolie’s Cambodian-based films are good for the tourism industry here. "Tomb Raider" was the first major production to be shot in the country since Peter O’Toole starred in "Lord Jim" in the 1960s. There is concern, however, that the now-booming tourist trade in and around Angkor Wat will be put on pause to make way for the production crew and cast. There are plans to block off certain roads and sections of the temple grounds so that oblivious tourists and gawkers don’t interrupt the filming.

The movie, about one family's experience under the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, will cover very tragic events. However, it will also be a chance for people to see the idyllic countryside around Siem Reap. While Angkor is extremely well known (it was a popular destination even before "Tomb Raider" hit screens), the rural areas around the temples are rarely visited, and Battambang is also off the tourist map despite being the country’s second largest city.

Other films set in Cambodia

One of the better movies shot in Cambodia since the turn of the millennium was an indie offering by Matt Dillon called "City of Ghosts." The movie featured the capital city of Phnom Penh, the famous casino/hotel ruins of the Bokor Hill Station, the chilled-out beach town of Kep and the temples of Phnom Chisor, which are right near Phnom Penh and actually pre-date most of the ruins at Angkor. (Ghosts also gives viewers a chance to see James Caan singing karaoke in Khmer).

Netflix subscribers will get to see Jolie's version of provincial Cambodia sometime next year. Loung Ung's book was published by Harper Collins in 2000 and is still widely available. 

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1.) เมื่อใช้แก๊สด้านซ้ายจนปริมาณและความดันแก๊สลดลงถึงค่าๆหนึ่งที่ตั้งไว้ อุปกรณ์ Automatic Change Over จะเปลี่ยนข้างไปให้ด้านขวาจ่ายแทนโดยอัตโนมัติ (หรือที่เรียกว่า จังหวะ Switching Pressure) และให้สังเกตสัญลักษณ์ตรงกลางจะเปลี่ยนจากสีขาวเป็นสีแดง

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3.) ให้ทำการเปลี่ยนถังแก๊สด้านซ้ายออก โดยทำตามขั้นตอนการเปลี่ยนถังแก๊สต่อไป