Terrace of Leper King

Terrace of Leper King

Terrace of Leper King

Date:                                   Built in late twelfth century

Religion:                             Buddhism

King:                                   Jayavarman VII (1181-1221)

Posthumous name:             Mahasangatapada

 

Leper king terrace was actually a crematorium of royal family, high Brahmins and dignitary family in late 12^thcentury. This terrace locates to the north of the elephant terrace.

 

On the top of the terrace, there’re still five statuesremaining, in action of kneeling. The central one is astatue of Yama who is a judge and the king of hell of the underworld. This is just a copied statue as it’s not always safe, the original one is now in the great national museum in PP. the original statue is naked and it has long hair and mustache. Its fingers toe and earlobes were broken. Depend on this ugly statue, the people who did not know the history renamed this place as Leper King Terrace.

 

There are four statues of bodyguardssurrounding Yama.  They are headless, but they wear beautiful costume and carry a sword.

Discovery:French excavated into its foundation in 1960. Down there, they discovered the inner wall with beautiful carvings which they had never expected before. Inside the inner wall, they also found human bones, charcoal, ash, fragment of wooden post, and inscription about this crematorium.

 

The inner wall has plenty of carvings about lives of Demon world, about 11 head Nagas, and there’re also carvings of fish, crocodiles, turtles. Theouter wall has carvings about happy lives of gods in the seven heavens.