PRASAT CHEN

Prasat Chen along with Prasat Banteay Pir Choan and Prasat Thom forms the Trinity temples of the site. Both Prasat Chen and Prasat Banteay Pir Choan are equidistant from centre of Prasat Thom. It consists of a row of three tower shrines facing east, the central one being by far the tallest. Built of laterite, they are on a single terrace and each tower has a stairway from the east with string-walls featuring Garuda with outstretched wings, a rarely used motif in Khmer art, but one which confirms that the temple was dedicated to Vishnu. There were also two brick libraries which are now little more than heaps of rubble. The quaint name which the Khmers have given to Prasat Chen is due to the famous sculpture of the monkey brothers Vali and Sugriva fighting each other in an episode from the Ramayana, and now one of the glories of the National Museum in Phnom Penh. It was discovered amid the ruins of the east gateway to the temple's inner enclosure and the animals' tails, curling up to their diadems, irresistibly suggeseda Chinese pigtail. Prasat Chen have a double laterite 2m high wall enclo-sures, with gopuras to the east and west. The temple had sculptures depicting the fight between the monkey brothers Valin and Sugriva, and sculptures of Rama, Lakshmana and Hanuman, in its eastern gopura. Behind the main towers, nine pedestals adorn the inner western Gopura, depict the last scene of Kurukshetra of Mahabharata; the dual between Bhima and Duryodhana, with Pandavas and Krishna in audience, in ronde-bosse technique which was rare and unique to Koh Ker.