Po Klaung Garai

Po Klaung Garai is the most venerated of the deified kings of the Cham Ahier. Tradition tells of a poor youth, disfigured by leprosy or sores, who fell asleep and was licked by a serpent-dragon; the omen revealed his destiny, and he rose to become king of Panduranga. As sovereign he is remembered above all as a builder of waters — the great weirs of the Dinh river that turned the arid Phan Rang plain into rice-land are ascribed to him. His brick tower on Trầu hill, enshrining a mukhalinga carved with a royal face, remains the principal sanctuary of the southern Cham and the heart of the Katê festival, when his image is bathed and clothed each year. Historians associate him with a ruler of the late twelfth century, but in cult he is simply a yang, a living god of kingship and irrigation.

Domains

• kingship
• irrigation

Powers

• raised the great dam that watered Panduranga
• was singled out by the nāga's blessing

Sources

• Po Klaung Garai is a deified Cham king of Panduranga, remembered as a low-born youth marked by a dragon and raised to the throne, and worshipped as a god at his Phan Rang tower.: É. Aymonier, 'Les Tchames et leurs religions' (1891); Po Dharma, 'Le Pāṇḍuraṅga' (1987) (secondary)
• He is credited with the irrigation works of the Phan Rang plain and is the focal deity of the Cham Ahier Katê rites.: Sakaya, 'Văn hóa Chăm' (2010); R. Nakamura, dissertation (1999) (secondary)