Ak Yom: The First Temple Mountain?

Dr uday dokras

Ak Yum (Khmer: an ancient temple in the Angkor region of Cambodia. Helen Jessup dates the
temple to the 8th century, and some state that it is the oldest known example of "temple
mountain" in Southeast Asia.

The historically important ruins of a small brick and sandstone temple in very poor condition.
The earliest elements date from the pre-Angkorian 8th century. Inscriptions indicate that a
temple dedicated to the Hindu ‘god of the depths’ was previously located on the same spot. Ak
Yom is the earliest known example of the 'temple-mountain' architectural design formula, which
was to become a primary design formula for many of the Angkorian period temples
including Angkor Wat.

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The origins and repair history of the temple are unclear. Stone carrying inscriptions, including
one with a date corresponding to Saturday 10 June 674 AD during the reign of king Jayavarman
I. The first structure on the site was a single-chamber brick sanctuary, probably constructed in
the latter part of the 8th century. Later it was remade into a larger stepped pyramid structure,
with a base approximately 100 meters square. The expansion probably took place in the early 9th
Century during the reign of King Jayavarman II, who is widely recognized as the founder of
the Khmer Empire. When the West Baray reservoir was built in the 11th Century, Ak Yum was
partially buried by the southern dike. The site was excavated in the 1932 under the direction of
archaeologist George Trouvé.

To read too much into these ruins I think would be doing injustice to the
antecedent structures since very little remains to point the address of a temple
Mountain or Mount Meru Replica.

Some others say that Ak Yom, despite its modest dimensions and ruined state, is arguably the oldest
"temple mountain" in Asia, preceding even Borobudur (770-830) and Prambanan (850) in Java and
the Ananda Temple (c.1100) at Bagan in Myanmar. Ak Yom: The First Temple Mountain?
( https://www.templemountains.org/39.html)

Some of these architectural tropes and tropisms can be discerned in embryonic form in an
unexpected archeological find of 1932 which offers an indigenous Khmer “interpretation” of a
temple mountain half a century before construction began at Borobudur, a century before Candi
Siwa at Prambanan and nearly two before the first Angkorian multi-tiered temple, the Bakong.
Helen Ibbitson Jessups has noted that the first step pyramid in the Hindu-Buddhist ambit was
built not in India, China or Java but just north of the runway of the Siem Reap airport, a few
miles from Angkor Wat. Although today only the unprepossessing and therefore rarely visited
foundations of a modest 100m square enclosure and truncated prasat remain, one may detect in
them some nascent characteristics of the celebrated Khmer pyramids of the next five centuries.
An inscription dates the temple’s dedication to Saturday, 10 June, 674, but it probably refers to
an earlier shrine on the site since the colonettes scattered around the site are in the Kompong
Preah style of the early 8th Century, a period of disunity when the Khmer appear to have been
driven northwest to this area from Sambor Prei Kuk by a Srivijayan incursion. The dates found
on the door jambs, 704 and 714, are more likely to be accurate.

Ak Yom or Ak Yum was dedicated to Gambhiresvara, the “Lord of the Profound Depths” or “of
the Hidden Knowledge,” a rare, chthonic epithet of Shiva occurring only three times in the
epigraphic record. Shiva is most often portrayed as an ascetic, living among hermits and wild
beasts high up in the caves of snowy Mt. Kailasa (or Kailash,) an actual 21,000’ peak in the
Tibetan Himalayas. This modest temple seems to have lost whatever importance it may once
have had by the middle of the 11th Century, since Udayaditiyavarman II (1050-1066) felt no
compunction about burying it beneath the southern embankment of his 7.8 km by 2.1 km West
Baray or reservoir, which accounts for its belated discovery.

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 This view of the temple's remains is from the north on the levee of the West Baray whose
construction buried the entire site of Ak Yom in the mid-11th Century. It shows the
brick prasat or central shrine (3, on the site plan at right), the sanctuary or garbagriha (2) within
it, as well as the narrow, upper, 3rd terrace or plinth (5) on which it sits. Also visible at its center
is the sandstone altar with an opening for the now-lost Shiva linga and, to its right, a shaft
leading to a subterranean chamber beneath the cella found to contain auspicious items, as
prescribed in the Vastu Shastra, for a temple's "ground-breaking." The shrine would have been
approached from the eastern entrance 4) so the north portal may have been "blind," i.e., walled
with brick.

Although only the northeast corner of the shrine remains, it exhibits the projections and moldings
characteristic of the standard Khmer prasat; little appears to have changed since its emergence at
Sambor Prei Kuk (600-650). These include: a) the square corners (karna rathas, 1) of the shrine
sometimes with a recessed wall framed by pilasters, which may contain a niche or brick bas
relief, e.g., a "flying palace,” b) the barely-emerged porch (anu rathas, 2 and 5,)and c) the more
pronounced jambs (raha rathas, 3 and 4), which would have contained between them the
colonettes found scattered at the site and the missing lintel and pediment. Thus, the shrine has
five projections and is, technically, pancharatha like the plinth or upper terrace (5.)
The outer or 3rd enclosure (9) has yet to be excavated; pictured here is the 2nd enclosure or 2nd
terrace (6) and the upper terrace or plinth (5). In the foreground is the foundation of the
easternmost of the two small, facing shrines (not the corner of the 2nd enclosure wall.) As shown
in this photograph, the temple was built on an artificial mound; the second terrace (6), while
relatively wide, had a pronounced slope continued on the upper terrace or pancharatha plinth (5)
contributing to the temple's symbolic meaning as a replica of Mt. Meru. The stairs (at center)
would have been extended by steps up the sides of the plinth to the shrine's portal. Ak Yom was
the first, single Khmer prasat or temple to have three enclosures, as well as, the first where those
enclosures were interpreted as the rising terraces of a "temple mountain."

This architectural trope and tropism can be discerned in embryonic form in an unexpected
archeological find of 1932 which offers an indigenous Khmer “interpretation” of a temple
mountain half a century before construction began at Borobudur, a century before Candi Siwa at
Prambanan and nearly two before the first Angkorian multi-tiered temple, the Bakong. Helen
Ibbitson Jessups has noted that the first step pyramid in the Hindu-Buddhist ambit was built not
in India, China or Java but just north of the runway of the Siem Reap airport, a few miles from
Angkor Wat. Although today only the unprepossessing and therefore rarely visited foundations
of a modest 100m square enclosure and truncated prasat remain, one may detect in them some
nascent characteristics of the celebrated Khmer pyramids of the next five centuries. An
inscription dates the temple’s dedication to Saturday, 10 June, 674, but it probably refers to an
earlier shrine on the site since the colonettes scattered around the site are in the Kompong Preah
style of the early 8th Century, a period of disunity when the Khmer appear to have been driven
northwest to this area from Sambor Prei Kuk by a Srivijayan incursion. The dates found on the
door jambs, 704 and 714, are more likely to be accurate.

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Ak Yom or Ak Yum was dedicated to Gambhiresvara, the “Lord of the Profound Depths” or “of
the Hidden Knowledge,” a rare, chthonic epithet of Shiva occurring only three times in the
epigraphic record. Shiva is most often portrayed as an ascetic, living among hermits and wild
beasts high up in the caves of snowy Mt. Kailasa (or Kailash,) an actual 21,000’ peak in the
Tibetan Himalayas. This modest temple seems to have lost whatever importance it may once
have had by the middle of the 11th Century, since Udayaditiyavarman II (1050-1066) felt no
compunction about burying it beneath the southern embankment of his 7.8 km by 2.1 km West
Baray or reservoir, which accounts for its belated discovery.

THE SHRINE FROM THE NORTHWEST,

AK YOM (700 - 725)
The remains of Prasat Ak Yom are to be found on the south side of the western baray, at about
one kilometre east from its south-west corner. Since the raising of the water level one can only
get there by boat, on condition that the vegetation around the temple itself is cleared.
Ak Yum Temple is the earliest known example of the (temple-mountain) architectural design
formula,which was to become a primary design formula for many of the Angkorian period
temples including Angkor wat.
Prasat Ak Yum is temple in the Angkor region of Cambodia. The first structure on the site was
a single-chamber brick sanctuary, probably constructed toward the end of the 8th Century,

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scholars believe. Later the temple was remade as a stepped pyramid structure, with a base
approximately 100 meters square.
The expansion probably took place in the early 9th Century during the reign of King Jayavarman
II, who is widely recognized as the founder of the Khmer Empire. Although the ruins are today
visually unimpressive compared to many others in the Angkor region, they are significant as a
forerunner of the temple mountains that became a standard form of Khmer architecture. When
the eight-kilometer long West Baray reservoir was constructed in the 11th Century, Ak Yum was
partially buried by the southern dike. The temple was excavated in the 1930s under the direction
of archaeologist George Trouvé.
The ornamentation of Ak Yom provides some rare evidence of the primitive art - the lintels,
often re-used, are slim in height and simplistic in composition. In some places they incorporate
medallions and pendants, while in others, branches and terminal scrolls with an invasion of
foliage. The colonnettes have been made cylindrical with a relatively charged ornamentation of
beads and leaves on the rings. The "hipped" devatas sculpted in the brickwork are still visible on
the south-east sanctuary, where there is also a remarkable false door on the east side. On the
panels, small lions in circular medallions are set on a band of leaves in a crossing motif.

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 To read too much into these ruins I think would be doing injustice to the
antecedent structures since very little remains to point the address of a temple
Mountain or Mount Meru Replica.

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When a section of the temple was unearthed in the 1930s, the upper levels of the
pyramidal base, the staircases giving access to the sanctuary and the lower parts of the
small brick sanctuaries' walls were in a rather good state of preservation. Sadly, all that
remain of it seven decades later is a pile of bricks in lieu of a pyramid and more bricks
scattered all around the site.

A large section of the temple is still buried under the baray's southern embankment,
limiting the visit to the ruins of the central sanctuary and to a portion of the platform's
south-eastern section, which still bears the traces of three small brick sanctuaries. One
of these sanctuaries faced north, another one west in an unusual layout.

1. Looters, in their search for gold, were undeterred by the size of the stones they had to
displace to reach the deposit holes cut into the base of the pedestal. A circular cutting at
its centre suggest that a linga once stood there.

2. A hole at the base of the massive stone pedestal led to the discovery of a pit and, at
its bottom twelve meters below, of a small square cella (2.6 metres on each side). It

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probably contained sacred deposits but, if so, these were stolen long before the
existence of the chamber was revealed by Georges Trouve in the early 1930s. This
discovery prompted him to search the pit of the Bayon, where he found Buddha's
broken statue.

Date of build up: 7th century, with subsequent signs of occupation up to the beginning
of the 11th century. Cult: Hindu (Shiva)