Ek Phnom Temple
KoreaMosaic Home Photos Home Country Photos Asia Trip 2019-20 Cambodia Around Battambang 2019 Phnom Penh 2019	All photos on this page (except the first) © 2019 John Holstein
Ek Phnom Temple is just outside Battambang. It's a combination of the crumbling original 11th century Barong-era Hndu temple with a newer Buddhist temple. (The Angkor Watt temples also changed hands between Hindu and Buddhist, depending on the preference of the ruler.)
This photo, which shows the structure of the entire temple better than any that I took, requires this credit to be posted: "By Clemens Schmillen - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46687260"
People still come to the ruins to pray.
This gentleman is praying at a heavily-used shrine inside the ruins. The photo is a screen capture of this video.
The figures apparently involved in a tug-of-war are actually working at "Churning of the Ocean of Milk," which is the name of this common meme seen throughout Cambodia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. It is a story from the Hindu epic, Mahabarata. There is a glorious rendition of the theme at Angkor Wat, which is explained at Khan Academy. At this site you can see a video on this theme and get a look at Angkor Wat.
This is the new temple. The ruins are in back of the trees that you can see in the lower left corner. I haven't seen so many paintings in any temple that I have visited in Southeast Asia.
This is the residence of the monk in the previous photo.
This is under the large Buddha. Sorry I can't explain the room--couldn't find any explanation.
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