Bat Chum

Bat Chum (Khmer: ប្រាសាទបាទជុំ) is a small temple built by Kavindrarimathana, a learned Buddhist minister of khmer king Rajendravarman, at the middle of the 10th century. It is located about 400 meters south of Srah Srang, at Angkor, Cambodia.

It consists of three inline brick towers (in poor conditions at present), standing on the same platform, surrounded by an enclosure and a moat, with a single gopura to the East.

On the door jambs there are Buddhist inscriptions that mention Kavindrarimathana, the "architect" (or official in-charge for construction) who built Srah Srang, East Mebon and maybe planned the temple-mountain of Pre Rup.^[1]

Maybe it was originally an induist temple: during the excavations in 1952, in the northern and central towers flagstones showing a yantra were found, which George Coedès was able to reconstitute and link only with extreme difficulty to the buddhist divinities mentioned on door jambs.^[2]

In every tower there is a different inscription signed by three different persons. The last verse of all three names equally the elephants as "dyke breakers".^[3]

Footnotes

1. ↑ Freeman and Jacques, 2006, p.158
2. ↑ Dumarçay et al., 2001, pp.18-19
3. ↑ Freeman and Jacques, 2006, p.155

References

• Dumarçay, Jacques; Royère, Pascal; Smithies, Michael; Kähler, Hans; Arps, Ben; Spuler, Bertold; Altenmüller, Hartwig (2001). Cambodian Architecture, Eight to Thirteenth Century. Brill. ISBN 90-04-11346-0. 

• Freeman, Michael; Jacques, Claude (2006). Ancient Angkor. River Books. ISBN 974-8225-27-5. 

Coordinates: 13°25′29.38″N 103°54′27.31″E / 13.4248278°N 103.9075861°E / 13.4248278; 103.9075861