Phnom Penh National Museum

As stated earlier, the Preag Neang Deví are representations of the female ancestors, in the form of goddesses embodied in portrait-statues and, at the same time, works of art. These two notions form the beasis of our study on the evolution and the value of the Preah Neang Deví sculptures. The essence of the Preah Neang Deví statue The plurality of the Indian Brahmanism and Buddhism figures can be found also in ancient Cambodia’s religious history. However, they diverge in terms of religious practice as the ancient Khmers viewed their ancestors as supreme gods. The Khmers, who fully mastered the Sanskrit language – as evidenced by the inscriptions found on steles, piers, small columns and even objects-expressed this divergence through the production of portrait-statues. If, forgetting their previous role, we consider the Preah Neang Deví only as goddesses and if we reduce them to simple museum pieces – something they never were in the past since they were the ow...

The role of the Preah Neang Deví as guardian of the house is almost identical to the role of the Preah Neang Deví protector of the country. But the role of the former does not extend beyond the scope of inhabited places. We know that the god and the goddess have no physical from, no ‘rúpa’. In some instances, they are represented by deified object. Ang Choulean wrote that, “the guardian of the house, in Khmer ‘mnán phdah’, is a supernatural being that plays a rather minor role. It is associated with purity, cleanliness and domestic tidiness”. Present-day Khmers honors two deities, ‘Preah Phúm’, the guardian of the land, and ‘Mneang Phteah’ or ‘Neak Chumneang Phteah’, the guardian of the house, who grants prosperity and worldly possessions. In both cases, the deities are not symbolized by any objects. We know that Visnu’s wife has two names, Bhúdeví – from the Sanskrit word ‘Bhú’, which means land – symbolizes the guardian of the land (of the house), and Laksmí the g...

Brahmanism and Buddhism have been neglected for too long and some Cambodians do not have the knowledge necessary to identify the sculptures that represent characters from these two religions. As a consequence, the statue of Siva carrying Umá is called Neak ta Por Kon, which means ‘Neak ta holding his child’; the statue of Siva riding the   Nahdin bull has become   Neak ta Chis Ko, which means ‘Neak ta riding an ox’. The Blank Lady, one of the museum’s female sculptures (Ka. 1653) found in Neang Khmao temple Takeo province, is commonly called ‘Neang Khmao’. The study of this statue, which is headless and has no arms, revealed that it is a Brahmanic deity, and most likely Visnu’s wife Laksmí, since a sculpture of Kalkin, one of Visnu’s incarnations, was found in the same place. In Phnom Chisor temple, built under the reign of Suryavarman I, an adorned Buddha can be found, called Neang Khmao by local residents. In Ba Phnom district, Prey Veng province, there i...

In the Khmer version of the Rámáyana , the Reamkerti , Ráma is one of the incarnations of Visnu. His wife Sitá is therefore the incarnation of Laksmí. She remains faithful to Ráma by refusing Rávana. In this instance, the Sitá Preah Neang Deví is the symbol of fidelity.