Huile sur toile

Dimensions : 34 cm x 46 cm

Signed lower right : P.Viez

Buddha near the ruins of the Preah Khan site Cambodia

Live P. French School of Traveling Painters.

Preah Khan is a temple built by Khmer King Jayavarman VII around 1191 north of the city of Angkor Thom, on the Angkor site in Cambodia.

History

And Preah Khan (“sacred sword” in Khmer) was a Buddhist monastic complex named Jayaçri (“glorious victory” in Sanskrit) in honor of the victory over the Chams of Jayavarman VII who established it as 1191.

The site served as a temporary city during the construction of Ankgor Thom and the monastery was completed after Jayavarman VII moved into his new palace. (1190).

It is dedicated to Dharanindra Varman II, the father of the builder king who is idealized here in the form of Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara.

Description

This “flat” temple is surrounded by a first enclosure of approximately 800 m on 700 for 5 m from above, itself bordered by moats of more than 20 m wide. The complex still covers 56 hectares because it is made up of a multitude of constructions made flat, whose tangle is quite complex, due to the various religious foundations that were built there.

The laterite wall of the 4^e enclosure — the outermost — is decorated with 62 immense sandstone garuḍas, temple guardians.

The paved roads which cross the moats are, like in Angkor Thom, decorated with balustrades composed of fabulous giants (deva) tenant a nāga. Originality, the base of these roads is decorated with bas-reliefs.

The large space between the walls was probably once occupied by numerous mainly wooden dwellings. For witnesses only, a stopover lodge on the side of the eastern access road and a dug basin in the northwest corner.

The west gopura of the 3^e enclosure is cross-shaped. Its four-pillared porch is topped with a sculpted pediment.. The entrance is preceded on both sides of the passage by guards (Dvarapala) degrees, tall in stature, decapitated.

In the center, the temple is surrounded by a surrounding wall of 210 m on 160 m equipped at the four cardinal points with important entrance pavilions, the most complex of which is that of the East preceded by a large access terrace.

The temple grounds include numerous annex buildings including a “dancing room”, basins, “libraries”, “cloisters” interconnected by galleries that one must cross to reach the sanctuary enclosure, itself a dense tracery of galleries and colonnaded rooms surrounding the central sanctuary tower.

Two giant trees grew on the roof of a gopura. Their great height and inclined position defy the laws of balance, because they are only “moored” by their long roots which flow from the roof and then snake along the ground.

Near the temple, to the east a small taught, and Jayatatāka, of which the Neak Pean marks the center. It is the last taught erected at Angkor ; faced with the rapid silting up of these large reservoirs, the Khmers will now build dam bridges with mixed success.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preah_Khan

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