During five days of ASEAN Sangkha Youths Project interreligious between Thailand – Cambodia which holds ASEAN Studies Center of Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalay University. I had visited lots of places in Cambodia such as historical places and modern places in capital city. But all of these places I interested in the historical places in Siem Rieb province. In this place there are so many ancient monuments. We spent two days to visit all of these places.
After lunch time on the second day of our trip we visited Ta Prohm temple or we can all so called this temple as a lonely planet of Cambodia. It was built during 1186 A.D. by King Jayavarman VII. And he built this temple to dedicate to his mother. It is one of the few temples in the Angkor region where an inscription provides information about the temple’s dependents and inhabitants. Almost 80,000 people were required to maintain or attend at the temple, among them more than 2700 officials and 615 dancers.
Ta Prohm temple is cloaked in dappled shadow, its crumbling towers and walls locked in the slow muscular embrace of vast root systems. Undoubtedly the most atmospheric ruin at Angkor, Ta Prohm should be high on the hit list of every visitor. Its appeal lies in the fact that, unlike the other monuments of Angkor, it has been swallowed by the jungle, and looks very much the way most of the monuments of Angkor appeared when European explorers first stumbled upon them.
Well, that’s the theory, but in fact the jungle is pegged back and only the largest trees are left in place, making it manicured rather than raw like Beng[1]. Still, a visit to Ta Prohm is a unique, other-worldly experience. There is a poetic cycle to this venerable ruin, with humanity first conquering nature to rapidly create, and nature once again conquering humanity to slowly destroy. If Angkor Wat is testimony to the genius of the ancient Khmers, Ta Prohm reminds us equally of the awesome fecundity and power of the jungle.
Ta Prohm is a temple of towers, closed courtyards and narrow corridors. Many of the corridors are impassable, clogged with jumbled piles of delicately carved stone blocks dislodged by the roots of long-decayed trees. Bas-reliefs on bulging walls are carpeted with lichen, moss and creeping plants, and shrubs sprout from the roofs of monumental porches. Trees, hundreds of years old, tower overhead, their leaves filtering the sunlight and casting a greenish pall over the whole scene.
Ta Prohm is at its most impressive early in the day. Allow as much as two hours to visit, especially if you want to explore the maze-like corridors and iconic tree roots. And Ta Prohm has only two entrances, at the east and west. But nowadays the Absara authority allowed only one gate to enter the temple.
Even though, Ta Prohm was a singled out because it was “one of the most imposing (temples) and the one which had best merged with the jungle, but not yet to the point of becoming a part of it.” It is composed of a number of towers, corridors and closed courtyards. Ta Prohm is extensively ruined but can still be explored. While we were there, we observed that some parts have been closed off from tourists as it was being restored. And I wished I will visit there again it was done.
Writer : Venerable Bonthuon Sam,Faculty of Humanities, 4th Year Student English Major,Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University Khonkaen Campus
Referenc
[1] Beng (Khmer Language) is the name of expensive tree in Cambodia
