Preah Vihear (lit. "vihāra of the gods") (Khmer: ប្រាសាទព្រះវិហារ Prasat Preah Vihear) is an ancient edifice built by the Khmer Empire as a Hindu temple on top of a 525-metre (1,722 ft) cliff in the Dângrêk Mountains, in Cambodia. Over time, it became a Buddhist temple.
As a key edifice of the empire's spiritual life, Preah Vihear was supported and modified by successive kings and thus bears elements of several architectural styles. It is unusual among Khmer temples in being constructed along a long north–south axis, rather than having the conventional rectangular plan with orientation toward the east. The temple gives its name to the surrounding Preah Vihear province.
In 1962, after a lengthy dispute between Cambodia and Thailand over ownership, the International Court of Justice in the Hague ruled that the temple is in Cambodia. On 7 July 2008, Preah Vihear was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This prompted an escalation in the dispute between Cambodia and Thailand over the temple, which was settled in favour of Cambodia by another ICJ ruling in 2013.
Location
The temple was built at the top of Poy Tadi, a steep cliff in the Dângrêk Mountain range that is the natural border between Cambodia and Thailand. The site is listed by Cambodia as being in Svay Chrum village, Kan Tout commune, in Choam Khsant District of Preah Vihear Province. It is 140 km from Angkor Wat and 418 km from Phnom Penh. In 1962, the ICJ ruled that the temple building belonged to Cambodia.
Site
The temple complex runs 800 m (2,600 ft) along a north–south axis, facing the plains to the north, from which it is cut off by the international border. It consists of a causeway and steps rising up the hill towards the sanctuary, which sits on the clifftop at the southern end of the complex (120 m or 390 ft above the northern end of the complex, 525 m or 1,722 ft above the Cambodian plain and 625 m or 2,051 ft above sea level). Although this structure is very different from the temple mountains found at Angkor, it serves the same purpose as a stylised representation of Mount Meru. The approach to the sanctuary is punctuated by five gopuras (these are conventionally numbered from the sanctuary outwards, so gopura five is the first to be reached by visitors). Each of the gopuras before the courtyards is reached by a set of steps and so marks a change in height. The gopuras also block a visitor's view of the next part of the temple until they pass through the gateway, making it impossible to see the complex as a whole from any one point. The fifth gopura, in the Koh Ker style, retains traces of the red paint with which it was once decorated, although the tiled roof has now disappeared. The fourth gopura is more recent, from the Khleang/Baphuon periods, and has on its southern outer pediment "one of the masterpieces of Preah Vihear" (Freeman, p. 162): a depiction of the Churning of the Sea of Milk. The third is the largest and is also flanked by two halls. The sanctuary is reached via two successive courtyards, in the outer of which are two libraries.
Nomenclature
The official Cambodian name Prasat Preah Vihear (Khmer: ប្រាសាទព្រះវិហារ) adds the generic term prasat (from Sanskrit: प्रासाद}, romanized: prāsāda, lit. 'temple') to preah vihear (Khmer: ព្រះ, romanized: preah, lit. 'holy'; vihear—from Sanskrit: विहार, romanized: vihāra, lit. 'temple, monastery, spiritual abode'). In the Thai language, the structure is known as ปราสาทพระวิหาร (Phra Wihan / Phra Viharn). The site, as opposed to the structure itself, i.e., the massif, is referred to as a "mountain" (Khmer: ភ្នំ, romanized: phnom; Thai: เขา, romanized: khao); Cambodians refer to the temple site as Phnom Preah Vihear (ភ្នំព្រះវិហារ), whereas Thais refer to it as Khao Phra Wihan (เขาพระวิหาร)—giving its name to the officially designated Khao Phra Wihan National Park. These terms carry significant political connotations (see below: § Disputes over ownership since 2008).
History
Khmer Empire
Construction of the first temple on the site began in the early 9th century. Both then and in the following centuries, it was dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva in his manifestations as the mountain gods Sikharesvara and Bhadresvara. The earliest surviving parts of the temple, however, date from the Koh Ker period in the early 10th century, when the empire's capital was at the city of that name. Today, elements of the Banteay Srei style of the late 10th century can be seen, but most of the temple was constructed during the reigns of the Khmer kings Suryavarman I (1006–1050) and Suryavarman II (1113–1150). An inscription found at the temple provides a detailed account of Suryavarman II studying sacred rituals, celebrating religious festivals, and making gifts, including white parasols, golden bowls, and elephants, to his spiritual advisor, the aged Brahmin Divakarapandita. The Brahmin himself took an interest in the temple, according to the inscription, donating to it a golden statue of a dancing Shiva known as Nataraja. In the wake of the decline of Hinduism in the region, the site was converted to use by Buddhists.
Modern history and ownership dispute
In modern times, Prasat Preah Vihear was rediscovered and became subject of a dispute between Thailand and the newly independent Cambodia. This came about due to the different maps each party used in national delimitation. In 1904, Siam and the French colonial authorities ruling Cambodia formed a joint commission to demarcate their mutual border to largely follow the watershed line of the Dângrêk mountain range, which placed nearly the entirety of the temple on Thailand's side. France, who was the protector of Cambodia at the time, agreed with Siam in the Franco-Siamese boundary treaty of 1904. The Mixed Commission was set up in 1905, and it was to carry out delimitation between Siam and Cambodia. In 1907, after survey work, French officers drew up a map to show the border's location. Cambodia used the map published by French geographers in 1908 (called "Annex I map"), which showed the temple on Cambodian territory, while Thailand used the provisions of the treaty of 1904, which reads:
"The frontier between Siam and Cambodia starts on the left shore of the Great Lake. From the mouth of the river Stung Roluos, it follows the parallel from that point in an easterly direction, until it meets the river Prek Kompong Tiam, then, turning northwards, it merges with the meridian from that meeting point as far as the Pnom Dang Rek mountain chain. From there it follows the watershed between the basins of Nam Sen and the Mekong on the one hand, and the Nam Moun on the other, and joins the Pnom Padang chain, the crest of which it follows eastwards as far as the Mekong. Upstream from that point, the Mekong remains the frontier of the Kingdom of Siam, in accordance with Article 1 of the Treaty of 3 October 1893".
The resulting topographic map, which was sent to Siamese authorities and used in the 1962 International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling, showed the line deviating slightly from the watershed in the Preah Vihear area, placing all of the temples on the Cambodian side.
Following the withdrawal of French troops from Cambodia in 1954, Thai forces occupied the temple to enforce their claim. Cambodia protested and in 1959 asked the ICJ to rule that the temple and the surrounding land lay on Cambodian territory; the case became a volatile political issue in both countries. Diplomatic relations were severed, and threats of force were voiced by both governments.
The court proceedings focused not on questions of cultural heritage nor on which state was the successor to the Khmer Empire, but rather on Siam's supposed longtime acceptance of the 1908 map. The treaty of 1907, precisely defining the border between Thailand and Cambodia, was approved by both parties. The day after the signing, The Siam Observer newspaper, the official organ of the Thai government, declared: "If the balance of the territorial exchanges seems to tip in favor of France, the equilibrium will be reestablished by the concessions made by France regarding jurisdiction over Asiatic subjects and protégés." Siam subsequently made no protest against the treaty until it came under Japan's influence, thirty years later.
Arguing in the Hague for Cambodia was former U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson, while Thailand's legal team included a former British attorney general, Frank Soskice. Cambodia contended that the map showing the temple as being on Cambodian soil was the authoritative document. Thailand argued that the map was invalid and that it was not an official document of the border commission, and that it clearly violated the commission's working principle that the border would follow the watershed line, which would place most of it in Thailand. If Thailand had not protested the map earlier, the Thai side said, it was because Thai authorities had had actual possession of the temple for some period of time, due to the great difficulty of scaling the steep hillside from the Cambodian side, or it simply had not understood that the map was wrong.
ICJ judgment
On 15 June 1962, the ICJ ruled 9 to 3 that the temple belonged to Cambodia, that Thailand was obliged to withdraw all troops stationed there and, by a vote of 7 to 5, that Thailand must return any antiquities such as sculptures that it had removed from the temple. The Annex I map did not bind both parties because it was not the work of the Mixed Commission per the treaty. However, both parties adopted the map, and the demarcation line in it therefore had a binding character. In its decision, the court noted that in over the five decades after the map was drawn, the Siamese/Thai authorities had not objected in various international forums to its depiction of the temple's location. Nor did they object when a French colonial official received the Siamese scholar and government figure Prince Damrong at the temple in 1930. Under the legal principle Qui tacet consentire videtur si loqui debuisset ac potuisset ("he who is silent is taken to agree"), the court ruled that Thailand had accepted and benefited from other parts of the border treaty. With these and other acts, it said, Thailand had accepted the map, and therefore Cambodia was the owner of the temple.
"It was clear from the record, however, that the maps were communicated to the Siamese Government as purporting to represent the outcome of the work of delimitation; since there was no reaction on the part of the Siamese authorities, either then or for many years, they must be held to have acquiesced. The maps were moreover communicated to the Siamese members of the Mixed Commission, who said nothing, to the Siamese Minister of the Interior, Prince Damrong, who thanked the French Minister in Bangkok for them, and to the Siamese provincial governors, some of whom knew of Preah Vihear. If the Siamese authorities accepted the Annex I map without investigation, they could not now plead any error vitiating the reality of their consent.
The Siamese Government and later the Thai Government had raised no query about the Annex I map prior to its negotiations with Cambodia in Bangkok in 1958. But in 1934–1935, a survey had established a divergence between the map line and the true line of the watershed, and other maps had been produced showing the Temple as being in Thailand. Thailand had nevertheless continued to also use and indeed to publish maps showing Preah Vihear as lying in Cambodia. Moreover, in the course of the negotiations for the 1925 and 1937 Franco-Siamese Treaties, which confirmed the existing frontiers, and in 1947 in Washington before the Franco-Siamese Conciliation Commission, Thailand was silent. The natural inference was that Thailand had accepted the frontier at Preah Vihear as it was drawn on the map, irrespective of its correspondence with the watershed line. "
Two of the dissenting judges expressly remarked on the lack of evidence of specific conduct by Thailand that somehow indicated Cambodian sovereignty. Judge Moreno Quintana noted that "[t]here has been no conclusive evidence showing any tacit recognition by Thailand of the alleged Cambodian sovereignty over the area in question. It is the facts, clear facts, which must be taken into account. Judge Wellington Koo wrote that "[i]n the present case I have examined the evidence and found no statement or declaration of any kind by Siam or Thailand which recognizes, or can be considered to recognize, Cambodia's title to sovereignty over the Temple area. As to conduct, far from implying any acceptance of the Annex I map, she has consistently indicated a belief on her part throughout the past decades that the area in question continues to belong to her own sovereignty."