Vajimukha - Prasat Neang Khmau

• Height (cm): 162. Sandstone
• 10th century
• Provenance: Prasat Neang Khmau, Takeo Province
• Location: National Museum of Cambodia, Phnom Penh
• Catalogue Number: NMC Inventory Ka.2577 (head), Ka.1656 (torso)
• Status: On display
• Photo credits: Andy Brouwer

One of the more unusual statues that grace the public collection of Phnom Penh’s National Museum is the beautifully polished horse-headed deity known as Vajimukha, which was collected from its original home at Prasat Neang Khmau, a temple from the tenth century with two brick towers still standing in the grounds of a pagoda close to Phnom Chisor, in Takeo Province, 50kms south of the capital.

Vajimukha - which means horse (vaji) and face (mukha) - was brought back to the museum for display in 1923 by the chief curator George Groslier, along with a female statue, though both missing their heads, from Prasat Neang Khmau, or temple of the Dark Young Lady and named after a local legend about a beautiful princess. The female statue was thought to represent the princess but her head has never been found.

In 1995, during the reconstruction of the pagoda’s main vihara, a sandstone horse head was discovered by the monks and entrusted to the Prime Minister His Excellency Hun Sen, who gifted it to the museum in 1996. Four years later, the head was found to be a perfect match to the male body recovered from the temple. However, without any attributing symbols, experts cannot be certain which of the two avatars – either Hayagriva or Kalkin - of the horse-headed version of the god Vishnu it represents, so it is named Vajimukha for ease of reference. You can see another Vajimukha statue at the museum, which is three hundred years older and was found in Kandal Stueng in Kandal Province.