Preah Khan Temple

Preah Khan, meaning Sacred Sword, was built by Jayavarman VII in the late 12th century on the site where he defeated the Cham invaders. It served as both a city and a Buddhist university, once housing over a thousand teachers and thousands of servants. The complex is vast, spreading across roughly 140 acres and featuring a series of concentric enclosures connected by long, colonnaded corridors. Unlike many Angkor temples, Preah Khan combines Buddhist and Hindu iconography throughout its galleries. The site still contains towering jungle trees pressing against its walls, and much of it retains an intentionally unrestored character, giving visitors an evocative sense of discovering ruins lost in time.