Phanom Rung historical park
Interesting facts
- In early April and early September the rising sun shines through all fifteen doorways of the sanctuary at once; sunsets repeat the effect in March and October.
- The centres of the fifteen doorways line up on a single axis with an azimuth of about 84.5 degrees, yet no inscription says whether the solar alignment was intended.
- Each sunrise alignment and its matching sunset alignment fall roughly one lunar month apart, a pattern astronomers have studied as a possible clue to the builders' calendar.
- The Thai rock band Carabao campaigned for the Vishnu lintel's return with its 1988 song "Thap Lang" (The Lintel), casting Michael Jackson as a symbol of America.
- In Thai the reclining Vishnu carving is known as Thap Lang Narai Banthomsin; the Art Institute of Chicago had acquired it in 1967.
- A 12th-century pilaster showing Krishna, from the same doorframe as the famous lintel, also left Thailand in the 1960s and was later deaccessioned by Chicago for return.
- Inscriptions at the temple repeatedly honour Narendraditya, a local lord of the Mahidharapura line, who is said to have ended his days here as an ascetic sage.
- One inscription from around 1150 praises King Suryavarman II for his courage and learning before turning to the lineage of his royal clan.
- Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn formally opened the restored historical park on 21 May 1988, months before the stolen lintel came home.
- Every April a festival timed to the sunrise alignment fills the hill with a procession, a sound-and-light show and traditional music and dance.
Why it is worth it
Set on the rim of an extinct volcano some 400 metres above the plains of southern Isan, Prasat Phanom Rung is approached the way its builders intended: up a long ceremonial way, across bridges guarded by five-headed serpents, and through gallery after gallery to a sandstone tower that once held the linga of Shiva. Its name comes from the Khmer for "great mountain", and the complex is one of the major monuments of the Khmer era on Thai soil.
The sanctuary grew over roughly three centuries, from the 10th to the 13th, while the region lay within the orbit of the Khmer Empire. The oldest structures are two brick sanctuaries of the 10th century; a smaller sandstone sanctuary followed in the 11th; the central tower dates from the 12th century, the reign of Suryavarman II, builder of Angkor Wat; and two library buildings were added in the 13th. Built originally as a Hindu temple, Phanom Rung later became a Buddhist site. At the foot of the mountain stood further foundations from the time of Jayavarman VII, including a hospital and a rest house with a fire on the royal road that linked Angkor with Phimai.
The approach begins with a pavilion where, it is believed, royalty changed into ritual dress, followed by a 160-metre processional walk paved with laterite and lined by seventy sandstone posts capped with lotus buds. Three naga bridges punctuate the climb, symbolising the passage from the human world to the divine, before the visitor reaches the main tower with porches facing all four directions. Its doorways are carved with scenes from Hindu mythology, among them a dancing Shiva and five ascetics. The most celebrated carving is the lintel over the eastern entrance showing Vishnu reclining on the serpent of eternity. Stolen in the 1960s, it spent two decades in the Art Institute of Chicago before its return in 1988 became a national event in Thailand; it was set back in place on 7 December 1988, completing a 17-year effort by the Fine Arts Department to reassemble the temple, which opened as a historical park that same year.
Getting there
Phanom Rung lies in Chaloem Phra Kiat district of Buriram Province, about 20 km from the town of Nang Rong. The nearest airport is Surin Airport (PXR), about 71 km away.
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From the encyclopaedia
Phanom Rung Historical Park is an archaeological site in Thailand, covering the ruins of Prasat Phanom Rung, a Buddhist-Hindu Khmer Empire temple complex set on the rim of an extinct volcano at 402 metres (1,319 ft) elevation. It is located in Buriram Province in the Isan region of Thailand, and was built at a time when Khmer social-political influences were significant in Srisaket. It was built of sandstone and laterite between the 10th and 13th centuries. It was built on an extinct volcano, it is originally a Hindu religious site and later became a Buddhist site.
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