Po Nagar

Built by the Chams, this Hindu complex is named after Po Nagar, a local goddess of rice farming. (Learn more)

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Here, a Cham tower with ascending smaller levels and rounded corner towers is seen through an archway in the Po Nagar complex at Nha Trang in southern Vietnam. Tall arched forms are characteristic of these monuments built of brick and stone by ethnic Chams between the seventh and twelfth century CE.

This building is called the Mandapa, signifying that it is an entrance building or meditation hall. Dated to the early 800s CE, it is thought to be the earliest surviving structure at the Po Nagar site. Both Cham and Vietnamese worshippers still use this site where the remaining buildings are each dedicated to a different Hindu deity. Only four towers of at least seven temples remain standing of the original complex.

Po Nagar images sometimes are depicted in the form of Uma, the ten-armed wife of the Hindu god Siva. Po Nagar also became a popular goddess with many ethnic Vietnamese who settled in the region. They dress statues of Po Nagar in Mahayana Buddhist robes.

Learn more about rice.

Definitions

ascending adj.
Sloping or leading upward.
characteristic v.
Typical of a person, place, or thing.
Chams n.
People of Malay ethnic stock who lived in and ruled what is now southern Vietnam in the first millenium CE. [more]
deity n.
A god or goddess.

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