Posts made in March 18th, 2011

APAD 009: Wat Ounalom

Posted by The Insider on Mar 18, 2011 in Uncategorized | 3 comments

The halls of Wat Ounalom as photographed from a moving boat.

Wat Ounalom (Ounalom Temple) is located right along Sisowath Quay and  considered to be one of the most important temples in the capital, Phnom Penh.

The temple was built in the 1440s to keep a relic (hair) of the Buddha. Before the Khmer Rouge regime, about 500monks lived in Wat Ounalom. When the KR came to occupy the city, a large number of the monks were massacred including the abbot and vandalized the temple and looted off its treasures. The temple was restored when the Vietnamese came to free Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge. Today, Wat Ounalom serves as the centre of Cambodian Buddhism and houses the country’s top religious administration and its top monk.

More Skywatch Friday participants here.