ponhea leu district, Kandal province – Diplomats from Thailand helped the 38 monks of the Prek Prang pagoda on National Route 5 in Kandal province raise about $9,000 during this year’s Kathen festival.
It is the fourth time in recent years Thai envoys have made donations to Kathen fund-raisers at Cambodian temples. Several hundred villagers attended a ceremony Sunday, presided over by Supreme Patriarch Tep Vong.
Apinan Pavanarit, secretary of state for the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said they were pleased to help restore the pagoda, which has historic ties to the royal family.
The pagoda, built in 1397, became important to the royal family in the 16th century, when the royal palace was built only 7 km away in Udong. King Ang Duong decreed that members of the royal family should be buried there, and some princes served as monks at the pagoda until 1970.
Yiay Mao, 73, a nun at the pagoda since 1980, said the temple fell on hard times during the Khmer Rouge regime. “Pol Pot destroyed everything,” she said.
By the time the regime was overthrown, the temple had no roof, the communal dining hall was just a platform and the statue of Buddha had lost its shelter.
She is grateful for the Thai contribution, which she says will help the pagoda reach prosperity. “If we refuse someone’s help while we’re drowning in the river, our only choice is death,” she said.
Sixty-year-old Em Yen, who lived across Route 5 from the pagoda during the 1960s, said the pagoda’s original name, Prek Bang, became Prek Barang, or French Canal, during the colonial era. It has since been shortened to Prek Prang.
