East Baray

While establishing the new kingdom of Yasodharapura at the turn of the 10th century, Yasovarman I followed tradition: first building the ancestral temple lolei within his father’s baray at the former capital of Hariharalaya, and then constructing his state temple, bakheng, and his own massive public water-works, the Yasodharatataka, now known as the East Baray.

Referred to by 13th century Chinese scribe Zhou Dugan as the “Eastern Lake”, the reservoir, which covered more than 12 million square meters (2 x 7 km or 1.2 x 4.3 miles)and once held up to 40 million cubic m of water. required laborers to divert the course of the Siem Reap River from its original course; the river now flows parallel to the northern boundary of the now dry baray and then turns sharply southward between the western edge of the reservoir and the eastern enclosure of Yasodharapura.

While there is still academic debate as to the purpose of the barays, it appears that they served both spiritual and practical functions, as cosmological representations of the oceans surrounding Mt Meru and as reservoirs for agricultural irrigation during the dry season.

The baray system’s one problem, however, was siltage, with the Siem Reap River depositing massive amounts of sand, debris and gravel annually. After 400 years or so, it became impossible to raise the dykes any higher, and the entire massive system was replaced with earth and stone dams controlling the flow of the river.

Nowadays, crops are grown by local farmers on the dry and fertile bed of the baray. The outlines of the dykes can clearly be seen in satellite photographs of the area.

In the center of the dry lake is a hill, once an island, home to East Mebon temple. Traveling north from the Pre Rup, the road into the baray passes through a break in the retaining wall that once kept the water inside. The baray is now filled with rice fields that lie on either side of the elevated road that leads to the East Mebon.