Travel around the world.: Wat Phra Si Sanphet

วันเสาร์ที่ 16 สิงหาคม พ.ศ. 2557

Wat Phra Si Sanphet

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About Wat Phra Si Sanphet

Wat Phra Si Sanphet was the most important temple for Ayutthaya royal court. It was the kings’ private temple inside the Royal Palace, and there were no monks living in the temple.

The original location of the temple was once King Boroma Tri Lokanat’s royal residence. The king donated it to be a religious area in 1448, and named the temple “Wat Phra Si Sanphet”. Then he assigned moving the royal residences to the north of the Royal Palace. Next to the temple is Lob Buri River as we still see at the present. The temple was used to do many important royal ceremonies, for example, the ceremony of drinking the water allegiance to the king (twice a year), keeping every king’s royal bones, and etc.

In the middle of the area, there are three big chedi (pagodas) placing in between with 3 mondop (canopies). At the end of the last chedi in the west, there is the base of Wihan Chaturamuk (a four-faced chapel) which the kings’ royal bones were contained inside and in the porch at each face of the chapel; it is believed that Buddha images in the sitting, standing, reclining and walking postures were situated in it. In the east, next to the first chedi, there was the most important wihan. At the end of this wihan called “Tai Joranam” was used to keep many kings’ royal bones, and inside this wihan, there was a standing Buddha image covered with real gold weighing 286 chang (equals 343.2 kilograms). The image was 16 meters high, and his name was “Phra Si Sanphet”. He was the most important Buddha image in Ayutthaya period.

The royal wihan or wihan Phra Si Sanphet was squeezed on the two opposite sites with Wihan Phra Lokanat in the north and Wihan Phra Ba Laylai in the south. Next to the front was the main wihan (the main chapel in the north) and Phra Ubosot (in the south). All the buildings were surrounded by a rectangular lining of small chedis and small wihans in good proportion.

The temple was burnt down when Ayutthaya was completely destroyed in 1767. The Burmese robbed and stole a lot of property made in Ayutthaya period and some brought from Phra Nakhon Thom. Most importantly, they burnt and molted the gold out of the Buddha image “Phra Si Sanphet, left only the archaic which was the core of the image. When Bangkok was founded as the new capital of Thailand, King Buddha Yodfah, the first king of Rattanakosin, assigned transferring the image to Bangkok. He commissioned building a chedi to cover the core of the image at Wat Phra Chetuphon Wimon Mangkhalaram (Wat Pho), and named the chedi “Chedi Phra Si Sanphetyadayan”.

(Reference : www.ayutthayastudies.aru.ac.th)

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Location : Ayutthaya ,Thailand