The Legend of the Giant Rock Mountain
A folktale from Kampong Chhnang Province
A story from Kampong Chhnang about the giant rock on a mountain summit.
Long ago, long before the Angkor dynasty, a lord ruled Kampong Chhnang Province, west of Phnom Penh. The lord had two sons.
Growing old, the lord told them: "Whoever makes flowers bloom first shall take my place as lord."
The brothers each planted a flower sapling on a mountain crowned by a giant rock, with a view over the whole region.
Some time later, the younger brother went to look and found that his elder brother's sapling had bloomed while his own had not. Desperate to become lord, he secretly swapped the two saplings.
The younger brother told their father, "My sapling bloomed first."
But the elder brother knew the truth. He had gone to the mountain before his younger brother and seen that his own sapling had bloomed first, yet he had chosen to say nothing.
He told his younger brother, "A lordship won by a lie will one day bring disaster to this land, and betrayal will follow," and then he went away.
When the younger brother became lord, the mountain began to shake, making an eerie sound.
The new lord gathered 500 monks to pray, but year after year the shaking did not stop.
One day, after seven years and seven months, the giant rock on the summit suddenly split in two, crushing many of the monks. At that moment the shaking stopped.
Filled with remorse, the younger brother changed his ways and ruled the land justly until he was 80. After his death, it is said, he was enshrined on the mountain together with the monks who had lost their lives.
The end.
About this story
The mountain, now called Phnom Preah Theat ("Mountain of Sacred Relics"), has a temple where many monks still live and practice.
The temple's foundation uses the same block-shaped stones as Angkor Wat, so it is thought to date from around the 10th century, before the Angkor dynasty, and this legend may come from the same era.
