These two enormous temples were built between the end of the 12th and the beginning of the 13th century by Jayavarman VH, who dedicate Preah Khan to the his father and Ta Prohm to his mother. Since both were of the Buddhist faith, little of its iconography has escaped the devastation of the Hinduist iconoclastic frenzy which followed the death of the king. The Hindu stories which had been sinultancously sculpted, in accordance with Khmer cretinism, have not been defaced.
Devoted to Hinduism, at Preah Khan, is the Northern cloistered gallery, with reliefs narrating the stories of Vishnu, particularly well executed is the group of Krishna lifting Mount Govardhana, and, in the Western gallery, reliefs depicting the life of Vishnu and his avatars, as well as a pediment with Vishnu sleeping on Ananta (42 page 43) . the pediments of the Western gopura of the third enclosure have, on the East face, a scene of people involved I a chess game on a boat (like at Angkor What and the Bayon), and on the West face, an episode of the ‘battle of Lanka.
At Ta Prohm, even fewer narrative reliefs have survived. Particularly noticeable is a pediment of one tower from the Southwest quadrant court. Between the second and third enclosures, which illustrates the Great Departure story of the Buddha-to-be (232 ). While all the palace was sleeping, four divinities supported the horses hoofs, to allow the prince to leave his father’s palace surreptitiously. Stories from the Ramayana are also depicted (231). The exact episodes have not yet been identified.
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