PHUM PRASAT
temple with pyramid-shaped roof and 2 heavy carved wooden doors, housing twin swords and a Baku
A lovely little 8th-century temple not far from a 19th-century pagoda. 12 m high, just over 4 m wide, square in shape, it is open to the east with no forecourt. The pyramid-shaped roof is intact, and the interior walls are devoid of ornamentation, but the door frame with moldings and colonnettes is very handsome, and the upper lintel is decorated with rinceaux carved on sandstone. The door's two heavy, carved wooden leaves are particularly remarkable: the one on the right features a goddess with a superb Khmer chest gleaming with patina (a testament to faith, no doubt); the leaf on the left depicts a warrior seated on a lion, holding a sword in his right hand and a lotus flower in his left. A few lines of inscription in Old Khmer, probably dating from the 7th or 8th century, are engraved at the bottom of the left-hand leaf. It reports that three slaves were offered in sacrifice to the god Sri Sankaramayana by the Mratan Methavi. Until the war, twin sacred swords probably dating from the 15th or 16th century were kept by a Baku (Brahman descended from Angkor priests) in a small house nearby. Perfectly similar, their handles were made of ivory with a patina of age, and their double-edged blades were engraved with inscriptions wishing victory to the Khmer people. Preserved in black and red lacquered wooden scabbards, the twin swords and their protective Baku disappeared in the madness of mankind.
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