Prasat Ban Bu Buddhist , Thailand

Address

Prasat Ban Bu Buddhist , Chorakhe Mak, Prakhon Chai District, Buri Ram 31140, Thailand

Diety

Buddha

Introduction

Prasat Ban Bu is one of the 17 dharmasala fire shrines King Jayavarman VII (r. 1182-1219), a devout Buddhist, built along the road from Angkor to Phimai. Prasat Ban Bu is located in the compound of Ban Bu Witthaya San School, Tambon Chorakhe Mak. This small-scale ancient sanctuary is built from laterite into a single tower having a rectangular plan facing the east, with windows drilled on its southern wall. Inside, there is an altar with a lintel and a carved image of the Lord Buddha in the posture of meditation. It is categorized under the religious sanctuary attached to the House of Fire called “Dharmasala”, and is one of the seventeen sanctuaries made by the command of King Jayavarman VII of the Ancient Khmer Kingdom (1181-1220) along the route from its capital (Angkor Wat, Cambodia) to Phimai as described in the inscription stone of Prasat Preah Khan.

Puranic Significance

The Mahayana Buddhist Khmer emperor Jayavarman VII (1181 – ca. 1220 AD) initiated the construction of 121 Vahni-griha or “Houses of Fire” along the routes throughout his kingdom. This information has been found on a stone-inscription discovered in 1937 at Preah Khan temple at Angkor Thom. Prasat Ban Bu is a single east-facing rectangular building, about 8 by 17 meters, with a tower at the west end. There are five windows, all on the south side, and doorways to the east and west. Much of the sandstone decoration around the windows was inserted in the wrong place. All that remains of the door decoration are two fragments of colonettes. The north side of the tower has a false door. The two-tiered roof is an excellent example of corbelling (the Khmer never learned to make a true arch) and the tower is topped by the original lotus-bud, albeit with many new sandstone blocks added to make it complete. At the front is a triple pediment with each part capped by a piece of sandstone, two of them have unfinished carvings of a meditating Buddha.