The following fourteen photographs of Preah Vihear, like those for Koh Ker, are arranged in the order a visitor would view them proceeding south along the temple's 800m or 2600' north-south liturgical axis. Preah Viehear is among the most dramatically sited religious buildings in the world, at the tip of a narrow outcrop of the Dangrek Mountain escarpment with a sheer drop of 525m or 1722' to the Cambodian plain below. This narrow promontory necessitated that the temple follow the linear model also found at Koh Ker and a second mountain temple, Phnom Rung.  The liturgical axis at Preah Vihear extends for nearly a kilometer along a ridge, passing on its way through no fewer than five gopuras. Only the final two, however, lead to enclosures with four-sides and even those are not concentric but sequential and sharing a gopura; the other three have only room to stretch across the ridge. The temple is atypically aligned from north to south, not east to west, pointed like an arrow at Angkor 100 km to the southwest.

Preah means "religious offering" in Sanskrit and vihear derives from vihara, originally a Buddhist monastery or hostel for wandering hermits. Yasovarman I (889-915) constructed the first shrine on this site as early as 913 but the majority of the extant buildings date from the reign of  Suryavarman I (1002/ 1010 -1050,) whose native fiefdom is thought to have been north of the Dangrek range; the remainder were added by his namesake, Suryavarman II (1113 -1150.)  Although Suryavarman I left few monuments and no temple mountain at Angkor, his reign greatly increased the borders of the Khmer Empire to the Dvaravati (Mon) city states of the Chao Phraya River plain and delta on the west, including  Lava or Lavapura, now Lopburi, and on the east to Shambhupura, near present-day Kratie, on the Mekong River.  At the four cardinal extremities of his empire, the king installed gold Suryameshvara lingas, honoring his namesake with ambitious temple complexes of which Preah Vihear was the northernmost.

In the site plan (at left) the five gopuras are lettered (A-E) and the other features are numbered (1-18). In the aerial photograph (above, the only way to show the entire site,) the Thai boarder is just visible at the extreme left. The temple’s “processional path” begins at the foot of the stairs (corresponding with 1 on the site plan,) climbing to the now ruined 5th north gopura (E,) which leads to a causeway (5) marked with boundary stones or sema to the cruciform 4th north gopura (D,) lost among the trees at the photo's center. Another paved avenue (7,) also with sema, ends at a four-tiered embankment (10) on top of which the long 3rd north gopura (C) extends across the spur.  A  third causeway (13) links it with the 2nd north gopura and enclosure (B,) which shares its southern wall with the 1st north gopura and enclosure (A) containing the temple's surprisingly modest shrine (18.) Beyond that yawns the precipice to the plain below, a topographical leap into the metaphysical beyond. 

Preah Vihear's site plan shows the different stages marked by five gopuras along its "liturgical path" which prepared pilgrims to view the two lingas in the 2nd and 1st enclosures. The 3rd and largest gopura  (C) is attached to two courtyards (11, 12) which resemble the "palaces" found at Koh Ker, the Khleangs, Phimai and Phnom Rung, though their actual function remains conjectural. They may have been rest houses or reception halls to interrupt the arduous climb for dignitaries visiting this distant shrine. The 2nd enclosure contains a narrow, rectangular hall, similar to the mandapa before the central shrine at Koh Ker; here, however, it does not lead directly to a garbagriha but to the 1st north gopura. It contained the Suryameshvara linga and an inscription which proclaimed that Suryavarman I's suzerainty as chakravartin reached even this outpost of empire. It does not specify the relationship, if any, between this linga and the wooden devaraja linga mentioned in the Sdok Kok Thom stele of 1053. This hall leads directly to the 1st north gopura (A,) and the mandapa, the garbagriha with Shiva linga and the shikhara (18,) now collapsed around it.

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This paved causeway links the ruined 5th north gopura at its far end with the 4th north gopura from which this photo was taken. The lotus bud boundary stones or sema on either side mark this as a sacred space in the absence of east or west enclosure walls and continue along the entire processional path to the first complete enclosure, the 2nd, just as they do at the other "mountain temple" in the Dangrek range, Phnom Rung. Because of its remote site, Preah Vihear was likely visited only on ceremonial occasions such as royal "progresses" through the provinces or perhaps as a destination for the occasional pilgrim; normally, just a small contingent of monks and caretakers would have resided at the site. Periodic rather than daily rituals could account – apart from the topography – for the temple's imposing "processional path," its out-sized cruciform gopuras, its rest houses and palaces and also the small mandapa and shrine of the 1st enclosure at the end of the north-south liturgical axis, something of an anti-climax. To the modern eye, the obvious climax is not the unexceptional shrine but the abyss beyond, a dramatic symbol for the drop into nothingness, non-being or nirvana, non-existence, moksha, release and sunyata, emptiness, the ultimate goals of both Hindu and Buddhist paths to salvation.

STAIRWAY TO THE 5TH NORTH GOPURA, PREAH VIHEAR (1010 - 1049, 1113 -1150)

This view from the north shows that the 4th cruciform gopura was fronted by an open colonnade, since its square columns are free-standing in contrast with the pilasters on the opposite wall (also pictured on the following slide;) there is no evidence, however, of mural bas reliefs or shrines along this wall. The pointed rather than hemispheric pediments or torana arches are fringed with vertical, flame-like blades or leaves and terminate in upturned, rearing naga antefixes. The lower level of the pediment and wall at right suggest the gopura had a staggered shala gable roof while the double pediment at the gopura's end marks the western portal, a barely emerged porch. This structure demonstrates the process by which a gopura could be stretched or projected laterally, like an opening telescope, to form a second porch and then extended to a gallery.  Since the gopuras reach across a rising ridge, they screen what lies behind them, so a first-time visitor, expecting each to lead into an enclosure with the temple's shrine, would find they only opened on another causeway leading to one more gopura, thus,producing an expectation whose gratification was repeatedly delayed, heightening the sense of the temple as removed from the mundane world, far beyond and beneath it. 

NORTH FACE, 4TH NORTH GOPURA, 

PREAH VIHEAR (1010 -1049, 1113 -1150)

This double pediment covering the gable end of the second, staggered shala roof projected west from the 4th cruciform gopura is a tour de force of Khmer sculpture. It exemplifies its unique capacity to suggest simultaneously a number of natural forms – leaves, nagas and flames – representing an underlying vitalism or energy of proliferation. The tympanum foregoes the usual dramatic scene for a triangular floral "vase" motif, related to the "tree of life.” Foliage foams from a kala's, kritimukha’s or "face of glory's" mouth, above which a god sits triumphantly on a plinth. Around him sprout two pairs of stems and a bud, resembling a vase; from that bud two more stems and another bud; and from that bud three more sprigs emerge, not dissimilar to a three-hooded naga. In all five, tapered, leaf-shaped layers, end with the single leaf at the tip of this triangular floral display. 

This relief is surrounded by two cusped torana arches which represent naga bridges ending in three-headed, rearing cobras, acting as antefixes, whose scales also resemble ferns. From these arches, repeating the tapered shapes of the tympanum, blade-like leaves rise – though they might be the feathers of a flying naga, (kin to Quetzalcoatl?) The narrow lintel beneath has room for just a second kala and four swags of foliage ending in volutes. Visible at the bottom of the photograph is the lintel and single pediment of the inner portion of the staggered shala roof (pictured in the previous photo.) It is similar to the one in the foreground except a god sits above the kala in the lintel which also atypically has four rather than three pendant swags.

The pilasters and the octagonal colonettes between them appear respectively to support the pediment and lintel which sit on them; (they are actually attached to the walls and beam behind them.) In the absence of a Khmer equivalent of Vitruvius or the Vastu Shastra, columns and moldings can only be described using their Nagara, Dravida and Greek equivalents to which they bear at best a distant resemblance. 1) The shafts or janghas ("thighs") of the pilasters or engaged square columns, are carved with the same repeating motif or scrollwork of a spray unfolding three tapering leaves from a bud found in the tympanum. 2) The segments of their "capitals" slope outward forming half a triangle, beginning with 3) a rectangular projection, a fillet (necking, astragle in the Doric order, a pattika or vajana in Hindu terms.) 4) This is followed by  another fillet (pattika,)"relieved" with carved cartouches or, perhaps, monster heads, (like a "joist,” vyalamala or prati,) which curves into 5) a composite, tripartite "cushion capital" (a ghata, related to a Nagara kalasha and Dravida kumuda, “pot” or ”vase" molding. 6) Next, a concave molding (a scotia) is combined with a convex, lotus petal (padma/ chippeka)to form the s-curve of a mandi  (cyma reversa;) 7) capped by in a narrow plate or  phalaka; (the mandi and phalaka are equivalent to a Doric echinus and abacus.) 8) This connects with a thick, heavily incised bracket (potika) beneath the crossbeam (uttara  or architrave) with a frieze at the base of the pediment itself.

The south facade of the 4th cruciform gopura is one of the most intact structures at Preah Vihear. Its unusually long, protruding southern arm extends the liturgical axis to the south connecting with a second causeway leading to the four-tier embankment with the imposing 3rd north gopura extending across its top. The gable shala roofs of the 4th north gopura have all been lost making the distinctive pointed (rather than barrel-vaulted) arches of this temple more striking. Their equal angular, upturned finials, perhaps from associations with an eagle's mountain eyrie, suggest out-spread wings, as if the temple itself were about to take flight. At the same time, such is the metamorphic power of Khmer art, they can appear like licking flames, suggesting instead that the gopura were "going up in fire." These, three-headed naga finials may also be ancestors of later Thai lamyong, bargeboard finials, which could take at least three forms: reptilian nag sadung, flame-like kranok or avian hong hang, ( Kh.> hamsa geese,) the same associations as the roofs of Preah Vihear. In addition, the chofah or "sky tassel" of Thai Buddhist wats are patterned after Garuda's Hindu beak. The blackened pediment covering the southern gable is the most important at Preah Vihear, pictured at left.  

The 1st enclosure is surrounded by a narrow gallery with inward-facing windows, like those around the 2nd gallery at Ta Keo, except with corbelled stone vaulting. It contains no shrines or signs of bas relief; doors lead from two "sacristries" to its east and west back to the 1st north gopura and the ritual axis with the mandapa, garbagriha and Shiva linga in front of it. The gallery would not be there if its openings had been meant to give direct axis to the shrine, rather they prevent it.  At Preah Vihear, the gallery is a cloister and potentially a pradakshina patha, although it should always be emphasized that there is no evidence for this practice among the Khmer. In Hindu temples on the subcontinent, corridors are tucked inside the vimana or shikhara or on top of the jagati, the temple's platform which hugs the shrine's outline and kostas, the walls of the garbagriha. Angkor Wat and the Bayon include galleries both with and without mural reliefs; some might have contained statues or plaques. This suggests the possibility of some meditative ritual progressing from window to window, an architectural analog to a rosary, Saivite or Marian, or a peripatetic rite like the "Stations of the Cross."