Wat Phnom

About

Wat Phnom — the 'Mountain Pagoda' — stands within the Doun Penh district of Phnom Penh, a forty-six-metre rise crowned with a stupa, a sanctuary, and the memory of the city's founding. The hill is itself part of Khmer national identity, and the very name of the capital refers to it.

A cherished legend recounts that in 1372 a wealthy elderly woman named Penh lived near the confluence of the four rivers. After a heavy rain she came upon a floating koki tree, and when villagers drew it ashore she discovered within its hollow four Buddha statues — of bronze, brass, and marble — together with a fifth image of Vishnu. To shelter these treasures, Penh asked the villagers to raise an artificial hill and a small wooden temple at its summit, where monks blessed the statues and named the hermitage Wat Phnom.

In the fifteenth century King Ponhea Yat moved his court to the confluence of the Tonle Sap after severe floods at Tuol Basan, building his new palace below the hill and a hermitage at its summit, which he called Wat Phnom Doun Penh in remembrance of Lady Penh. After his death, a large stupa was raised in his honour at the top of the temple.

The present sanctuary has been rebuilt repeatedly — in the nineteenth century and again in 1926. Within, a great bronze seated Buddha presides over an altar, with walls covered in murals of Jataka scenes and episodes from the Reamker, the Khmer Ramayana. A small shrine to Lady Penh stands at the southwest corner.

History

Local tradition places the temple's beginnings in 1372, when Lady Penh is said to have established a small wooden shrine atop a raised mound to house Buddha images and a Vishnu statue retrieved from a koki tree drifting in the river.

The site rose to capital prominence in the late fourteenth century under King Ponhea Yat, who moved his court here from Tuol Basan in 1397 after severe flooding, building both his palace at the foot of the hill and a hermitage at its summit. After his death he was honoured with a large stupa at the crown of Wat Phnom. The sanctuary itself was reconstructed in the nineteenth century and again in 1926, but the pilgrimage circuit and the shrine of Lady Penh have remained continuous through the centuries.