The sacred geography of the Indic world — every site mapped, dated, storied, and cited.
Roluos, Siem Reap, Siem Reap · 13.3360°, 103.9741°
Completed in 881 under Indravarman I as the state temple of Hariharalaya, the capital now called Roluos, Bakong is the earliest sandstone temple-mountain the Khmer built and the model for the pyramids that followed at Angkor. Its five-tiered central pyramid measures roughly 65 by 67 metres at the base and once held a linga at the summit; the present central tower is a twelfth-century replacement reflecting later religious change, and the pyramid was restored in the 1930s by the French conservator Maurice Glaize.
What follows is the temple’s own traditional account, transmitted through liturgy and local memory. It is recorded here as tradition, not as attested history.
The plan is read as a model of the cosmos, its moats standing for the mythical oceans and its enclosing walls and terraces for the mountain ranges that ring Mount Meru.
coordinates: wikipedia-2026-08-27 · sources retrieved 2026-08-26 · dynasty page: Khmer Empire
Answers only from cited records
Opening the line…