Chasing the Sun at Pre Rup Temple

The boldness of the architectural design of Pre Rup is superb and give the temple fine balance, scale and proportion. The temple is almost identical in style to the East Mebon, although it was built several yeas later. It is the last real 'temple-mountain ' Pre Rup was called the 'City of the East ' by Philippe Stern, a Frenchman who worked on the site.

The Cambodians have always regarded this temple as having funerary associations, but reason is unknown. The name Pre Rup recalls one of the rituals of cremation in which the silhouette of the body of the deceased, outlined with its ashes, is successively represented according to different orientations, Some archaeologists believe that the large vat located at the base of the east stairway to the central area was used at cremations.

Below is the glimpse of Pre Rup Temple in 360^o viewing:

Pre Rup is the second of the two temples open until 7 pm for sunset. Similar to Phnom Bakheng, you don’t actually need to go inside of the temple to see the sunset, but I think it would be better if you did.

The sun sets right in between the front two towers at Pre Rup temple, which means you get a pretty sweet view just standing outside by the road. But Pre Rup is one of the taller temples at Angkor Wat, so if you go inside and climb to the top of the temple, you’ll have another awesome view of the sun setting over the jungles of Cambodia.

Pre Rup is a bit further away from town than Phnom Bakheng, so make sure you leave time to get there. The temple is located 14 kilometers away from Siem Reap on the large circuit loop. To get there, turn right when you hit Angkor Wat and follow the large circuit loop past Srah Srang to Pre Rup.

Stepped pyramid representing Mount Meru

Its architectural style is very similar to that of the earlier East Mebon, the major difference being the stepped pyramid of the Pre Rup that is missing in the East Mebon temple. The laterite and brick structure represents the five mountain peaks of the sacred mountain Mount Meru, the center of the universe in Hindu mythology.

An inscription in the temple mentions that the five prangs were dedicated to Shiva (central tower and one of the surrounding towers), Vishnu, Parvati (the consort of Shiva) and Lakshmi (the consort of Vishnu).
The temple used to be surrounded by moats. There are two enclosures, each with a gopura entrance gate at the center of each side. Between the outer and inner enclosure were long halls of which not much remains today. They were a predecessor of the galleries seen in later temples.

6 large towers to the East

Most striking feature of the Pre Rup temple are the three large towers on either side of the Eastern entrance, the main entrance of the temple. The first tower to the right of the entrance is missing, although the base is there. The tower was either never build or demolished and the stones used elsewhere later. The towers were probably build later during the reign of the next King, King Jayavarman V.

The central tower contains a sanctuary room. The lintels contain Indra riding the elephant Airavata, Vishnu on Garuda (a large mythological bird, the mount of Vishnu) and other depictions.

Inner enclosure

Just past the Eastern gate of the inner enclosure are two large libraries, one on each side of the entrance that probably contained Hindu statues. Between the two libraries is a three meter long structure, that likely served as a pediment for a statue, possibly of Nandi, the sacred bull and mount of Shiva. In the North East corner of the inner enclosure is a small laterite building that has been restored.

Three-tiered pyramid

The inner enclosure contains a three-tiered pyramid. On the pyramid’s second level are 12 small sanctuaries grouped around the structure that each used to contain a linga, a representation of Shiva. At the center of each side of the pyramid is a stairway leading to the platform with the five towers. The stairway is guarded on both sides by lion statues.

5 Prangs on the upper platform

The upper platform contains five prangs, the largest one in the center, the outer four smaller ones on the platform’s corners. Each have an entrance door to the East and false doors to the other directions. Originally the towers were fully plastered, some of which still remains. A few devata statues decorate its outer walls.

The lintels contain several depictions, but are in a bad state of repair. The central prang contains a sanctuary room where the most important linga was enshrined. It now contains two Buddha images that were installed there later.

• Date: 961 or 962 (late 10th century AD)
• Religion: Hinduism
• Built By: Rajendravarman
• Dedicated To: Shiva
• Style: Temple Mountain
• Best Time to Visit: Early morning or Late Afternoon
• Length of Visit: 30 - 60 minutes
• Temple Pass: Required (included in the pass to the whole Angkor Complex)

Pre Rup is located south of the East Baray. It’s directly south from the East Mebon temple which is located on an island in the middle of the baray. Both temples were created by Rajendravarman. Pre Rup temple is a few kilometres east of Srah Srang.

Check the location of Pre Rup Temple on the below Google Map for your reference:

If you’re coming from Angkor Thom or Ta Prohm, then you should head towards Srah Srang. Continue heading east and you’ll come across Pre Rup on the left side.

If you’re on the Grand Circuit Tour, then you’ll likely visit Pre Rup after East Mebon. In this instance, it will be on the right side before turning towards Srah Srang.

The best time to visit Pre Rup is the very early morning to catch the sunrise, or late afternoon for the sunset. The Angkor ticket will be checked at the entrance gates.

Pre Rup is often included on the Angkor Wat Grand Circuit Tour. You can sometimes take a small detour from the small circuit tour if you have the time, but it’s not always included so you should speak to your driver or guide.

If you’re travelling around the temples by yourself, you might want to make a “mini tour” of Ta Prohm, Kutisvara, Banteay Kdei, Srah Srang, Pre Rup, and East Mebon.

You won’t find any accommodation inside the Angkor Park and most guests will find somewhere to stay in Siem Reap. The town has grown to be a large tourist hub and there are many choices for hotels from very small home stays to large 5-star resorts.

If you’re looking for a place to stay for your trip to Siem Reap, booking.com often has special offers and deals throughout the year to help you get the most value for money.

Here is our Siem Reap Travel Guide

There are some great views from the top of Pre Rup. If you look to the east, you will see Phnom Bok and the mountains of Phnom Kulen. On the west, you can see the towers of Angkor Wat on the horizon.

The temple’s many towers and sanctuaries also have a unique look when compared to temples from the same period. If you’re planning a photography trip to Pre Rup, then you should visit early in the morning or late in the afternoon when the light is good for the warm colours of the laterite and brick.

Pre Rup dominates the vast plain, which the East Baray irrigated. Contracted on an artificial mountain in laterite with brick towers, the plan is square and comprises two enclosures with four entry towers each and a base with three narrow tiers serving as a pedestal for five towers on the top platform one in each corner and one central. The outer enclosing wall is 127 by 116 meters (417 by 380 feet).

Inside the outer laterite-enclosing wall there are two groups of three towers, one on each side of the entrance; the towers of each group share a common base. The middle tower in each of the two groups dominates and is more developed than the others. It appears that the first tower on the right was never built or, if it was, its bricks were reused somewhere else. The most complete lintel is on the tower at the far left (south) on the east face showing in his avataras a man-lion.

The next enclosure, also made of laterite, has four small entry towers, one on each side Long galleries surround the courtyard on the interior. The walls of these galleries, which have sandstone porches, are built of laterite.

In the courtyard there are vestiges of long rest halls probably used by pilgrims. They have sandstone pillars in the east and laterite walls and windows with balusters in the west. In the northeast corner there is a curious small square building built of large blocks of laterite and open on all four sides. The inscription of the temple was found in gallery near this building.

Temple Foundation

The foundations of Pre Rup are sandstone. But the warm reddish tone of laterite dominates this monument, as enclosure walls and pyramidal tiers are built from this porous volcanic stone. Only Prasat towers and central sections of the Gopuram gates are made of bricks.

Second enclosure

Nine long rectangular laterite buildings run parallel to the wall of the second enclosure. These long structures called galleries are of unknown function. They mark the transition to continuous outer galleries surrounding temple courts, introduced at the next state temple, Ta Keo. Aligned with those nine gallery-edifices there is an unusual small kiosk in the north-east corner. The square structure is built of large blocks of laterite, the laterite roof is well preserved, too. The room is open to all four sides.

The foundation stele of Pre Rup was found nearby, but not inside this kiosk. This famous inscription of Pre Rup is not in situ anymore. Its 298 verses are the longest Sanskrit inscription in ancient Cambodia and in the entire world. Nothing compares to it even in India. It is not only long; it is a masterpiece of classical Sanskrit poetry called Kavya. Almost certainly its poetic elegance is the result of direct contacts with Indians. There was a renaissance of Indian cultural influence at the Khmer court of Rajendravarman II. By the way, this is the first and only inscription in Angkor giving the name of the architect, Kavindrarimathana.

Libraries

On the left and right sides of the east entry tower of the second enclosure there are libraries with high towers. They sheltered carved stones with motifs of the nine planets and the seven ascetics. In the center there is a vat between two rows of sandstone pillars. Glaize suggested that this might have been, rather than a sarcophagus, a base for a wooden building or for a statue of Nandi, the sacred bull, the mount of Shiva to whom the temple was dedicated.

Central Area (Base & Towers)

The square base has a stairway on each side. Pedestals flanking the stairways are adorned with seated lion of which those on the lower terraces are larger than those on the higher levels. The first two tiers are built of laterite and have simple supporting walls with a molded base and cornice. The third tier is built of sandstone. 

Two supplementary stairways are framed with lions on the east side. Twelve small temples opening to the east and containing linga are evenly spaced around the first tier. The upper platform is raised on a double base of molded sandstone with stairway flanked with lions.

The five central towers on the top platform are open to the east. They all have three false doors made of sandstone and are sculpted with figures and plant motifs. Traces of plaster are visible on the tower in the southwest corner. At the same tower there is a depiction of Saravati, wife of Brahma, with four faces and arms. 

On the west side of this tower there is another divinity with four arms and heads in the form of a wild boar; it is the wife of Vishnu in his avataras as a boar. Figures in the niches are surrounded by flying Apsaras at the corners of the towers. the figures at the two west towers are feminine while those at the east and central towers are masculine.

Foundation & Expansion

Pre Rup, founded in 961, is the most significant legacy of Rajendravarman II (941-968), who is one of the "big names" among Angkor kings. After empire-founder Jayavarman II, Roluos-founder Indravarman I and Angkor-founder Yashovarman I, King Rajandravarman II can be regarded as the "Angkor-restorer", as he was the one who decided that the capital was returned to Angkor, after a period of political turmoil and of dominance of Koh Ker, where Jayavarman IV had resided.

Rajendravarman did not build his monuments in the area of the first Angkor capital, which was Yashodharapura founded by Yashovarman I, but further eastwards, in the vicinity of Angkor's water reservoir East Baray, which was built already by Angkor's founder Yashovarman, too. 

King Rajendravarman II erected the East Mebon on an island close to the centre of this huge man-made lake, which is dry now, and one decade later the similar, but much more massive Pre Rup, probably in the centre of his new capital.

There is some debate if Pre Rup was a state temple like those more ancient pyramids, such as Bakong in Roluos and Bakheng in Angkor, or a funerary temple, meaning: a kind of tomb pyramid for the king's ashes or in commemoration of his cremation at this site. The earlier East Mebon already was a state temple for the main symbol of the official state cult, the Shiva-Lingam bearing the king's name: Linga Rajendreshvara. 

The Linga venerated at Pre Rup is called Rajendrabhadreshvara. "Rajendreshvara" combines the king’s name with "Ishvara", Shiva as "Lord of the World". Instead of Ishvara Pre Rup’s "Rajendrabhadreshvara" includes the name of Bhadreshvara, who was a local mountain god worshipped at Wat Phu (today’s southern Laos) and at earlier Cham sanctuaries (central Vietnam) and later on at the mountain temple Preah Vihear (Thai border), too. Bhadreshvara was considered to be a manifestation of Shiva, too.

But why a second state temple for a royal Shiva-Lingam? Each of the other significant Angkor kings built only one. Rajendravarman's Mebon was an ancestor temple at the same time. It is not at all uncommon, that ancestor and state temples of Khmer kings were separate structures, as in the case of Preah Ko and Bakong built by Indravarman I in Roluos. 

Analogous to them the almost flat East Mebon and the pyramidal temple-mountain Pre Rup could have been ancestor and state temple of Rajendravarman II respectively.

Definitely Pre Rup was Rajendravarman's imperial state temple. There is not much evidence that it was his funerary temple as well. The so-called sarcophagus in front of the main stairway of the pyramid was more probably a pavilion that housed Shiva's Nandi bull. The modern Khmer name "Pre Rup" means "turning the body". 

This procedure is part of a cremation rite. But such modern interpretations are not at all reliable sources. The nearby edifices are sometimes called Agni shrines, meaning fire-altars, but they are more likely normal Khmer library structures.

Even if Pre Rup was Rajendravarman's cremation site, this would not mean it could not have been his state temple, too. Khmer temples had not to be restricted to only one purpose. For example, they could be sanctuaries for Shiva worship and ancestor cult at the same time, as in the case of Preah Ko or Baksei Chamkrong earlier on. 

Worshipping the king's power symbol Linga and commemorating the dead king's funeral is not contradictory at all, both is adoration of his almost supernatural status. However, the adoration for Rajendravarman's ancestors was left to the earlier state temple East Mebon. 

Maybe there was a very simple reason for this ambitious king to build a second state temple: His first one, the not very tall Mebon, was not at all such an impressive artificial mountain as the pyramids of Rajendravarman's predecessors in Roluos, Angkor, and Koh Ker. In order to surpass them he had to create a huger monument, thus another state temple, and he achieved it. 

Pre Rup remained to be the most imposing Khmer monument until the Baphuon was erected one century later on, whereas Ta Keo, the state temple of Rajendravarman's son and successor Jayavarman V, does not fully match in the dimension of Pre Rup.

Modern History

Although rediscovered in the late 19th century, Pre Rup remained overgrown and covered in soil until the 1930s. At this time, it was excavated by French explorers – Henri Marchal and George Trouve. Today, the temple remains in excellent condition.

Pre Rup has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.