The first Abbot, Preah Dhammacariyeavangs Et, is depicted as a conservative Buddhist monk by the Kambujasuriya in 1927, holding on to his palm-leaf manuscript rather than printed books.

[3] In the 1950s, the monks of Wat Damnak erected some stupas in the courtyard of the pagoda on the model of Banteay Srei, following the advice of archaeologist Henri Marchal, of the French School of the Far East.

[8] During the Khmer Rouge period the statue of Yay Deb was broken into pieces and thrown into a pond in nearby Wat Damnak.

Thought to be contemporaneous with the leper king, Yay Deb was found by early researchers at Wat Kling Rangsei, a Buddhist pagoda built on a pre-Angkorean temple site south of the Western Baray.

Having recovered the different pieces in 1985, Siem Reap residents, including the staff of the Angkor Conservation Office, transferred the reconstituted statue from Wat Damnak to its original spot under a bodhi tree where it used to stand.

[9] This loss was compensated by the construction of a new stupa to host a relic of Buddha, a rite of installation done in various other pagodes across Cambodia and encouraged by lay Buddhist teacher and political influencer Buth Savong.

[12] In 2005 the monks of Wat Damnak founded the Life and Hope Association (LHA), a non-profit, non-governmental, and non-political organization which was part of a new movement of Buddhist social work in Cambodia.

[13] An international conference, the first of its kind on the history of medicine in Southeast Asia was held in January 2006 at Wat Damnak Monastery.

[15] Wat Damnak has a low front section with columns or pillars over the entire eastern facade of the sanctuary, typical of the first half of the twentieth century.

This representation, much less common than those of Angkorian pediments, developed during the reign of Sisowath, as if the observation of colonial buildings had gradually inspired the builders of sanctuaries.

On the five doors and the fourteen shutters of the sanctuary of Damnak, there are series of historiated scenes of the Reamker including remarkable bas-reliefs, by their number and the subjects treated as by their quality.