Horse-headed Guardians:

Horse-headed Guardians:

Banteay Srei is a remarkable temple, prized for its architectural design, quality of carvings, and the extraordinary conservation of its pink sandstone structures that makes it stand out from other temples of Angkor. It was constructed and consecrated by the royal guru, Yajnavaraha, of King Jayavarman V in 967 and is the favourite of many visitors. In the 1920s, Banteay Srei was literally dug out from underneath a huge mound of soil and silt and in 1936 was the first temple to complete a large-scale rebuild through the anastylosis process. One of the noticeable features surrounding the central sanctuary of the temple are the kneeling half-animal, half-human guardian figures, which since 1960, are actually cement replicas of the originals, which were moved to Angkor Conservation to avoid looting. The originals were relocated to the National Museum in Phnom Penh and put on display in the 1990s. With human torsos, there are four of these guardians in the museum’s collection. They have the head of a monkey, a demonic Yaksa and a lion, while a fourth is a Garuda, with a beaked head, wings, leg feathers and claws. They sit with left leg folded underneath and right knee raised. Where the hand is intact it holds a vajra, symbol of the thunderbolt. The lion is perhaps the most compelling, his fangs bared in a wide grimace, bulging eyes, extended muzzle and flowing mane that beautifully illustrates the style of 10th century Banteay Srei. All wear a short pleated sampot, while Garuda and the monkey have richly jeweled diadems (tiara) and elaborate crowns.

An open secret is that there were other guardians on duty protecting the top of the stairs providing access to the central shrine of Banteay Srei. They included a horse-headed human torso, well, two of them, as well as a human-headed Deva or god, to counteract the demon Yaksa. In fact, a Deva head was in the possession of the museum but disappeared long ago. At their original location in Banteay Srei there would be two originals of each guardian, with the monkey, lion, Garuda and horse sat on small plinths side by side, while the Deva and Yaksa would pair up to demonstrate the good and evil combination. A total of twelve guardians. Let’s look at the horse-headed guardians. They occupied the north staircase of the central sanctuary. A horse-head currently housed in the Vietnam History Museum of Ho Chi Minh City, suggests that some artifacts were removed from Banteay Srei very early, as according to Louis Malleret, the head was left in a pagoda in the north-west area of Saigon by the Vietnamese around 1920, who likely brought it from Cambodia. On 23 April 1940 Malleret brought this head back to the Musée Blanchard de la Brosse, today’s Vietnam History Museum, albeit under the erroneous provenance of Kalkyavatara, a diademed horse-head from Hanh-thong-xa, Gia Dinh, and it’s remained on display ever since. Expert analysis has confirmed the stone is the same type as the other temple guardians. Three fragments of a second identical horse head were found in Banteay Srei during the 1930s and then again after 2000. One of the bodies has been restored, and is housed at the Sihanouk-Angkor Museum, while the other remains missing. [Thanks to Olivier Cunin for his research on Banteay Srei].