About Preah Vihear

Preah Vihear is a northern province of Cambodia. Its capital is Phnom Tbeng Meanchey. The province is named after the temple of Prasat Preah Vihear. The first temple on the site was begun in the early 9th century; both then and in the following centuries it was dedicated to Shiva. The earliest surviving parts of the temple, however, date from the Koh Ker period in the early 10th century, when the capital of the Khmer empire was closer than when it was at Angkor. There are also some elements of the Banteay Srei style of the late 10th century, but most of the temple was formed under Suryavarman I and Suryavarman II in the first halves of the 11th and 12th centuries respectively. Due to its location on the border between Cambodia and Thailand, ownership of the area was disputed until June 15, 1962, when the International Court of Justice ruled that the temple belonged to Cambodia — which soon after plunged into civil war. The temple opened briefly to the public in 1992, only to be occupied by the Khmer Rouge the next year. It opened again from the Thai side at the end of 1998, and Cambodia completed the construction of a long-awaited access road in 2003. The temple complex runs 800m along a north-south axis, and consists essentially of a causeway and steps rising up the hill towards the sanctuary, which sits on the cliff top at the southern end of the complex (120m above the northern end of the complex and 525m above the Cambodian plain). Although this structure is very different from the temple mountains found at Angkor, it serves the same purpose as a stylized representation of Mount Meru, the home of the gods. The approach to the sanctuary is punctuated by five gopuras (these are conventionally numbered from the sanctuary outwards, so gopura five is the first to be reached by visitors). Each of the gopuras before the courtyards is reached by a set of steps, and so marks a change in height which increases their impact. The gopuras also block a visitor's view of the next part of the temple until he passes through the gateway, making it impossible to see the complex as a whole from any one point. The fifth gopura, in the Koh Ker style, retains traces of the red paint with which it was once decorated, although the tiled roof has now disappeared. The fourth gopura is later, from the Khleang/Baphuon periods, and has on its southern outer pediment, "one of the masterpieces of Preah Vihear" (Freeman, p. 162): a depiction of the Churning of the Sea of Milk. The third is the largest, and is also flanked by two halls. The sanctuary is reached via two successive courtyards, in the outer of which are two libraries.