LTO Cambodia: The Kantha Bopha Memorial

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

The Kantha Bopha Memorial

HRH Princess Kantha Bopha Memorial Sanctuary at the Silver Pagoda (next to the Royal Palace)

The late King Father Sihanouk was cremated two days ago. Yesterday the ashes were collected from the crematorium (Veal Preah Man) and most were taken by royal barge to Chaktomuk and scattered to the Mekong River. Some of the ashes will be taken back to the Royal Palace to be placed in a 'Diamond Urn' and kept there. AFP reported that an unnamed Palace official said "the royal urn containing the King-Father's remains will be kept in the Kantha Bopha stupa," which would make a very touching final resting place for the late King Father.

Princess Kantha Bopha was the beloved daughter of King Sihanouk and Princess Sisowath Pongsanmoni, born in 1948 when Sihanouk was a young King and Cambodia still under French colonial rule. She died of leukemia in 1952 at the age of 3 (or 4). It is said that King Sihanouk was inconsolably grief stricken, even carrying the urn containing her ashes when traveling abroad. In 1960 Sihanouk erected a memorial sanctuary to the Princess (pictured above) on the grounds of Wat Preah Keo Morokat (the 'Silver Pagoda') next to the Royal Palace, the sanctuary set amongst the stupas of Cambodian Kings.

The sanctuary is referred to as the 'Kantha Bopha Memorial Sanctuary' in Julio Jeldres' authoritative 'The Royal Palace of Phnom Penh' (1999.) I'm not sure if this is also the said "Kantha Bopha stupa" of the AFP article, but am unaware of any other structure on the Palace/Pagoda grounds of that name.

1 comment:

Somongkol TengFebruary 7, 2013 at 11:09 AM
Yes, Casey! This is the one. :-)
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Cambodia

Cambodia is Srok Khmer, the 'Land of the Khmer,' the primary ethnic group in the area since at least the Neolithic and an Indian influenced civilization with origins near 2000 years old. Centered on the lower Mekong and tributaries the Khmer people have dominated the region for millennia. From 2nd century AD Khmer kingdoms rose and fell, culminating in unification and the 500 year reign of the Angkorian Empire, the builders of the temples of Angkor near Siem Reap. The Empire stretched from Burma to the ocean. But by the 1400s Cambodia fell to centuries of change and decline squeezed between the expanding Siam and Vietnam. Colonized and by the French in the 1860s, independence 90 years later in 1954, a brief post-colonial 'golden period' under Sihanouk, coup in 70, civil war, fall to the communist Khmer Rouge in 75, 3 years 8 months 20 days of madness, Vietnamese rescue in 1979, occupation, low level war and international sanctions in the 80s, the UN, ostensive democracy and an adventure party destination in the 90s and now mainstreaming, tourism, rapid development, rapacious capitalism and NGOs, missionaries and other international busybodies aplenty.

Southeast Asia

As the term implies, Southeast Asia encompasses the southeastern corner of the Asian continent, loosely speaking, the area between India, China and Australia. It is made up of two distinct regions: the mainland zone, a bulbous peninsula jutting into the Pacific Ocean, bounded by China to the north and India to the west; and the insular (island) zone in the Pacific Ocean. The name 'Southeast Asia' is a comparatively recent invention, first coming into use into the 20th century and still a bit indefinite in definition. Mainland Southeast Asia is generally considered to include Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Burma (Myanmar) and peninsular Malaysia. The mainland is sometimes referred to as Indo-China though Indochina (Indochine) also designates the 19th/20th century French colonial conglomerate of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Sitting south of the Tropic of Cancer, most of mainland Southeast Asia lies in the hot, humid tropics and sub-tropics with a climate dominated by a monsoon cycle which divides the year into two distinct seasons: a dry season and an extremely wet monsoon season. Much of the mainland is mountainous and thickly jungled, with large river systems and wide, low-lying, flood-prone plains, much of which is, in modern times, deforested and blanketed with geometrical rice paddies. Several major river valleys including the Mekong River, the Red, Ma and Ka rivers and the group of rivers draining to the Chao Praya Delta played host to the rise of early civilization in the area. The Mekong River is one of the world's greatest rivers, the seventh largest on the planet, and since pre-history has been closely associated with the land of the Khmer.