Prasat Banteay Kdei

ប្រាសាទបន្ទាយក្តី

Province: Siem Reap
Period: Angkor period (802–1431 CE)
Condition: Partial
Access: Easy access
Visited: 20 October 2024
Coordinates: 13.43159, 103.89866

How to find it

On the small circuit, east of Ta Prohm and opposite Srah Srang. It is inside the Angkor park, so you need an Angkor pass. Come in at one end and walk through to the other: the path runs straight through all the enclosures.

Late afternoon light comes low through the tall trees of the outer enclosure.

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Field notes

A Buddhist monastery of the late 12th century, built under Jayavarman VII opposite the royal pool of Srah Srang. Its name is usually given as "citadel of the cells", for the monks who lived here. Like Ta Prohm and Preah Khan it is laid out on one level, with galleries and towers inside a series of walls, but on a smaller scale.

The entrance gates are crowned with great carved faces, in the style of the Bayon. Inside the outer wall is a pillared hall with dancing apsaras carved on its walls, known as the Hall of Dancers. The central sanctuary is thought to be older than the rest, and the temple stands on the site of a 10th-century temple from the reign of Rajendravarman II.

It was built fast, of poor sandstone, and much of it has fallen. Many galleries and towers are propped or held together with cables. Monks lived in parts of it until the 1960s, and Buddhist shrines inside are still tended today.

From the early 1990s a team from Sophia University in Tokyo worked here. In 2001 they found a pit holding 274 broken sandstone Buddha images, buried after the statues were removed from the temple, probably during a return to Hinduism in the 13th century.

AngkorJayavarman VIIBayon styleBuddhistSrah Srangapsaraface towers

Sources

Wikipedia: Banteay Kdei

Photographs

A 360-degree panorama: a great pale tree with buttress roots spreading over the sandy ground, the towers of the temple behind and a pool to the left — A great tree spreads its roots in front of the towers, seen whole by a 360 camera.

The eastern entrance gate topped by a tower carved with large faces, the low sun bursting through the trees beside it, a path leading to the door — The eastern gopura, opposite Srah Srang, crowned with great carved faces in the style of the Bayon.

A huge serene stone face carved into the tower of the western gate, half hidden by leaves in the foreground — A face on the western gopura, recently restored, framed by leaves.

Looking through the tall dark doorway of the eastern gate along a sunlit path lined with trees, the entrance hall and its Buddha faint in the distance — Looking through the eastern gopura, Buddha in the entrance hall in the distance.

The sun bursting through tall trees over a sandy path, long shadows across the ground — Late afternoon sun through the tall trees of the outer enclosure.

A sandy path between two great tree trunks leading back to the face-topped eastern gate, steps faint in the distance beyond it — Looking back from the temple to the eastern gopura, the steps to the Srah Srang pier in the distance.

Several sandstone towers of the temple rising above fallen blocks, a tall tree to one side under a blue sky — The towers of the central temple, above blocks that have fallen.

Looking up a tall tree whose pale roots pour over the stones of a gallery, towers behind against a deep blue sky — Roots pour over the stones of a gallery.

A square sandstone pedestal with a socket in its top and a channel running out along a spout, the end of the spout carved in curving folds around the channel — Shakti: the feminine creative power. Khmer yonis usually show this in abstract form, but here the end of the spout appears to be carved as a vulva.

A carved female figure dancing with knees bent wide in an arched niche at the base of a doorway, one hand raised upright at her chest and the other held flat below it, under a frame of flame-like scrolls — A dancing figure in an arched niche at the foot of a doorway, one hand raised at her chest, the other held flat beneath it.

A carved yogini dancing on one leg, the other knee raised and arms curved above her head, on a pale grey wall — A yogini dancing on one leg.

Inside a stone chamber, a seated Buddha draped in saffron cloth under a golden parasol, flowers and offerings in front — Buddha, dressed in saffron under a golden parasol, still receives offerings inside the temple.

A 360-degree view bent into a tunnel: the stone chamber curving round the shrine and its golden parasol, light at the far end — The same shrine bent into a tunnel by a 360 camera.

A narrow stone corridor glowing with light, a parasol above a large painted Dharma Wheel with a Buddha at its centre — The Dharma Wheel, with Buddha at its centre, in a shrine lit from the doorway beyond.

Stone singha, guardian lions, on a terrace beneath tall trees, morning mist and shafts of light in the forest behind — Singha, the guardian lions of Khmer temples, on the terrace in the morning mist.

A 360-degree photograph bent into a circle: the temple and its towers wrapped round a small round world under the sky — The temple folded into a small world by a 360 camera.

A 360-degree photograph bent into a circle: the great tree and the ruins on a small green planet ringed with forest — The great tree and the ruins on a small planet of their own.

A 360-degree photograph: a stone causeway curving away in both directions like a globe, a figure standing at the centre — A stone causeway curved into a globe by a 360 camera.

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