Ta Prohm

Ta Phrom

Ta Prohm means the Ancestor Bramha, originally called Rajavihara, is one of the major temples of Jayavarman VII from 1186 just about the same time as Banteay Kdei and Preah Khan. The temple is dedicated to Buddha and also built to honor the King's mother.

Ta Prohm temple features a set of concentric galleries with corner towers and Gopuras, and also with other additional buildings and enclosures. The complexity of its layout is increased by its partly collapsed state with trees interlaced among the ruins.

In the Angkor era this temple was known as the Royal Buddhist Monastery and was more properly considered a town. A Sanskrit inscription found inside the dancing hall of the temple, now removed to the Conservation Angkor office, tells us something about its size and function. Ta Prohm owned 3,140 villages. It took 79,365 people to maintain the temple, including 18 high priests, 2,740 officials, 2,202 assistants and 615 royal dancers. Among the property belonging to the temple was a set of golden dishes weighing more than 500 kilograms, 35 diamonds, 40,620 pearls, 4,540 precious stones, 876 veils from China, 512 silk beds and 523 parasols. Even considering that these numbers were probably exaggerated to glorify the King, Ta Prohm must have been one of the most important and impressive monuments in that period.

Today it is considered one of the most romantic temples due to the collapsed state of the ruins and the big trees with gigantic roots growing on the roofs and walls of the temple. In 2000 the hollywood movie “Tomb Raider” was produced at the temple. It is the only major temple to have been left in its own original collapsed state until 2005, but has now been placed under the joint conservation project between Indian and Cambodia Government.