TA KEO TEMPLE (Khmer: ប្រាសាទតាកែវ)

Ta Keo (Khmer: ប្រាសាទតាកែវ) is a temple-mountain, in Angkor (Cambodia), possibly the first to be built entirely ofsandstone by Khmers.

HISTORY

Detail of a sculpture at Ta Keo.

Map

Jayavarman V was ten year old when succeeded to his father, Rajendravarman, in 968 A.D. His early years of reign were rather turbulent and the court officials dominated the royal politics. When he was aged seventeen (in 975 AD), he began the construction of his own state temple, whose modern name is Ta Keo, that was dedicated some time around 1000 AD. In contemporary inscriptions it is called Hemagiri or Hemasringagiri ("the mountain with golden summits"). It remains unfinished. Yogisvarapandita, a high priest who became minister of Suryavarman I and "received" the temple from him many years later, says in inscriptions that a lightning strike hit the unfinished building, an evil omen, so the works stopped. Maybe works stopped simply because of the death of Jayavarman V, as there was a struggle for succession. Actually the temple worked continuously as a cult center until the 13th century, and even Yogisvarapandita worshipped the shrines at the first levels of the temple.

A term tightly linked to Hemasringagiri is Jayendranagari (which in Sanskrit means "capital of the victorious king"), the royal palace or maybe the new capital city of Jayavarman V.However the remains of this large hypothesized ensemble are very scarce. Today only a tower in the south-west survives, similar to the corner towers of Ta Keo, with an unusual single door to the south.