Style
Baksei Chamkrong measures 27m by 27m and its tower is 23m high. Its base was designed with four levels built of laterite, but its tower was built of brick. There’re four staircases but today the south staircase is the easiest to climb up and down. Its central tower has a reclining Buddha statue built in the 16th century. This Buddha was replaced a golden Linga which had gone away.The tower has a real door facing east while other three doors at other sides are blinds. The carvings on blind doors and lintels are still in good condition. Baksei Chamkrong has one entrance to the east but it only remains the foundation, sandstone pedestal and one lion statue. The enclosing wall was built of brick and it only remains some trace.
History
Between the entrance and the temple structure, there’s a deep hole
which was dug by the Khmer Rouge soldiers to look for treasure in the 1980s.
In 943 AD, king Rajendravarman II who returned
from Koh Ker to Angkor city put a golden Linga sculpture in the central
tower of this temple and he also remained a very important inscription
in its door piers.
The inscription tells us the legend of the word Kambujadesa which was this country’s original name. Depending on the legend, there was a hermit called Kambu married to Mera
who was a very beautiful princess from the heaven. Both of them give
birth as the people who called themselves as Khmer. The word Khmer or
Khemara is from the combination of Kambu with Mera. The Khmer people
called their country as Kambujadesa which meant who people of Kambu. Today Kambujadesa has become Kambuchea and Cambodia is the English word of Kambuchea.