BENG Mealea

Date: Middle of the 12th century, with later
additions
Style: Angkor Wat
Reign: Suryavarman II

Though unrestored, and in a fairly ruinous state, the large temple of Beng Mealea (‘Lotus Pond’) some 40 km due east of Angkor on the ancient royal way to the ‘great Preah Khan’ of Kompong Svay (another 60 km further on), is one of the major monuments of the classical period, in the style of Angkor Wat and roughly contemporary with it. Whoever built it must have been a figure of some importance, but he remains unknown, as no inscriptions have been found here, and no other that mentions it. Its position was strategic, where the royal way to Koh Ker in the NE forks from the road E to the ‘great Preah Khan’, and also at the head of a canal that leads directly to the Great Lake, down which sandstone blocks from the nearby quarries could have been floated on their way to Angkor.

Its chaotic state, with collapsed galleries and towers (the central sanctuary is virtually a pit, with no superstructure whatsoever) may be due to a variety of causes. The most important is simply the wear and tear of eight and a half centuries in a tropical climate, with the spread of vegetation, including the silk-cotton tree and strangler fig, going to work on some ambitious vaulting which was being tried out here and at Angkor Wat for the first time. It is not known whether there was any iconoclasm, a possibility whenever there is evidence of different faiths practiced, as here. Happily, there is no evidence of recent looting. There is a considerable disorder, but very romantic for all that.

Many of the early French scholars thought highly of this temple for both its architecture and its decoration. Coedès made a special study of its carving, and Groslier considered it to be a prototype, with a “harmony, powerful sober”. Its history is completely unknown, and it can be dated only by its style, which is of the mid-12th century. Beng Mealea was built of blue sandstone from local quarries, and while there are no narrative bas-relief panels as at Angkor Wat, there is a fair amount of decoration on walls and pilasters, all of a high standard, as well as apsaras, lintels and a few pediments. The religious history is also unknown, with carvings showing legends of Vishnu, Shiva and the Buddha.