Khleang Moeung

Khleang Moeung, also called Ta Pech or Sena Moeung, is a mythical-historical sixteenth-century Cambodian military leader venerated as a neak ta, a guardian spirit, whose field of protection extends across the region west of the Tonle Sap lake. According to the version of his story recorded in the Cambodian Royal Chronicles and in the oral traditions of Pursat province, he was a general serving King Chan Reachea who, facing likely defeat against the usurper Sdach Korn, dug a pit filled with poisoned swords and threw himself onto it, promising to return; his spirit did return leading an army of ghosts that afflicted Korn's forces with disease, helping restore Chan Reachea to the throne in 1525. Conflicting oral traditions attach his cult to different regions and explain his name differently, variously reading it as keeper of the treasury, a term for sacred power, or a word for the center of a village.