Neak Poan

ប្រាសាទនាគព័ន្ធ

Province: Siem Reap
Period: Angkor period (802–1431 CE)
Condition: Restored
Access: Easy access
Visited: 19 October 2024
Coordinates: 13.46306, 103.89444

How to find it

On the Grand Circuit road, between Preah Khan and Ta Som. A long wooden boardwalk leads from the road across the Jayatataka to the temple. It is inside the Angkor park, so you need an Angkor pass.

You can walk round the main pool but not into it. Late afternoon on the boardwalk is lovely.

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Field notes

Neak Poan stood on an island in the middle of the Jayatataka, the great reservoir Jayavarman VII dug beside Preah Khan in the late 12th century. Its name means "coiled serpents", from the two nagas that wind around the base of its small central shrine.

The shrine rises from a round island in a square pool. Four smaller pools sit on its sides, and water ran into each from the main pool through a spout in a little chapel, carved as the head of a man, an elephant, a lion and a horse.

The pools are usually read as an image of Anavatapta, a sacred lake in the Himalayas whose waters were said to cure all illness, and pilgrims are thought to have come here to bathe for healing. In the main pool a stone horse swims towards the shrine with people clinging to its sides. This is Balaha, the compassionate Lokeshvara in the form of a horse, carrying shipwrecked merchants to safety.

For years a giant fig grew out of the shrine itself, its roots wrapped around the stones. A storm brought the tree down in 1935, and the shrine was taken apart and rebuilt.

AngkorJayavarman VIIJayatatakawaterhealing

Sources

Maurice Glaize, The Monuments of the Angkor Group (1944), Neak Pean. Wikipedia: Neak Pean.

Photographs

A dead tree standing in shallow water against an orange sky, the sun setting behind it and reflected below — Sunset over the Jayatataka. Dead trees still stand in the water of the old reservoir.

The central shrine of Neak Poan on its round island, reflected with the trees and clouds in still blue water — The central shrine on its round island, in the still water of the main pool.

A small sandstone tower rising from a round stepped island in the middle of a pool, trees behind — The shrine stands on a round island ringed by steps. Two nagas coil around its base, which gives the temple its name.

A small carved sandstone chapel with a dark arched opening at water level, the shrine tower rising behind it — One of the four small chapels at the edge of the main pool. Water ran from the pool through a carved spout inside to a smaller pool beyond.

A sandstone pediment carved with standing figures in arched frames, set on steps in front of dense trees — Carved pediments with standing figures in their arches.

A small temple tower among trees on the far side of still water, the evening sky and clouds reflected — Across the water, late in the afternoon.

The bare branches of a dead tree standing in water, the low orange sun behind it and the treeline in haze — The sun goes down behind one of the dead trees in the Jayatataka.

Lotus leaves covering the surface of a wide reservoir, a line of trees on the shore under a cloudy evening sky — Lotus leaves across the Jayatataka in the rainy season.

A 360-degree photograph bent into a circle: lotus leaves around the edge, the shoreline trees forming a ring, sky in the middle — The lotus on the Jayatataka, folded into a circle by a 360 camera.

A long wooden boardwalk running out across flat water that mirrors the clouds, a figure in red at the rail — The wooden boardwalk across the Jayatataka to the temple.

A 360-degree photograph bent into a circle: the wooden boardwalk curving round, trees and sky inside the ring — The boardwalk folded into a circle by a 360 camera.

From the archive

Black and white photograph: a huge fig tree whose roots wrap the central shrine of Neak Poan, rising from tumbled stone steps beside a pool — Before 1935 a giant fig grew out of the central shrine, its roots wrapped around the stones. A storm brought it down in 1935, and the shrine was rebuilt by anastylosis, taken apart and reassembled stone by stone.Unknown photographer, before 1935. KITLV / Leiden University Libraries, CC BY 4.0.

Faded black and white photograph of the fig tree over the shrine, seen across the water of the pool with the stepped edge in front — The tree over the shrine, seen across the pool, around 1920.Unknown photographer, about 1920. KITLV / Leiden University Libraries, CC BY 4.0.

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