Place · royal Buddhist temple · Thailand
Wat Phra Kaew, Bangkok
Also known as Temple of the Emerald Buddha, Wat Phra Si Rattana Satsadaram, Wat Phra Kaeo, วัดพระแก้ว
Thailand's most sacred temple, begun by Rama I in 1783 inside the Grand Palace to house the Emerald Buddha and to give the new Chakri dynasty a royal chapel. Its cloister walls are painted with the entire Ramakien in 178 scenes, and twelve giant guardians at its gates are demons from the same epic, Thotsakan among them. The Buddhist palladium of the kingdom thus sits inside a painted Ramayana.
- Date
- 1783–None
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 13.751, 100.493
Worth knowing
The Emerald Buddha reached it as war booty: Chao Phraya Chakri, the future Rama I, took it from Vientiane in 1779. The murals are not the originals: Rama III had them erased and repainted, and they have been restored repeatedly since.
Connections (4)
- Craft tradition ofRamakien
Rama I commissioned murals of his own Ramakien recension, composed around 1797, for the covered gallery that encloses Wat Phra Kaew like a cloister. The cycle runs the whole epic in 178 scenes, each with a short synopsis, beginning beside the Wihan Yot gate. Rama III had the paintings erased and entirely repainted, and they have been restored often since. The temple's twelve five-metre gate guardians are Ramakien demons, Thotsakan among them.
- Architectural modelAyutthaya, Thailand
When Rama I founded Bangkok in 1782 he needed a royal temple to legitimise the new dynasty, and the model was Ayutthaya's: Wat Phra Si Sanphet, the royal chapel beside the old palace, with no quarters for resident monks, particularly influenced Wat Phra Kaew. The continuity was deliberate. The ceremonial name Rama I gave Bangkok in 1786 names the Emerald Buddha and the city of Ayutthaya, and calls the capital a city given by Indra and built by Vishvakarman.
- Image migrationLuang Prabang
The Emerald Buddha enshrined at Wat Phra Kaew spent the sixteenth century in Laos. King Setthathirath brought it from Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang, then capital of Lan Xang, in 1552, and moved it to his new capital Vientiane in 1564, where it stayed for 214 years. In 1779 the Siamese general Chao Phraya Chakri, the future Rama I, looted Vientiane and took it to Thonburi; it entered its present hall in 1785.
- Site adjacencyWat Pho, Bangkok
Wat Pho stands directly south of the Grand Palace, within which Wat Phra Kaew sits, and both were built or rebuilt by Rama I in the first decade of Bangkok: Wat Phra Kaew begun in 1783, Wat Pho rebuilt from 1788. Between them they hold the Ramakien in the two media of the Thai court, painted in 178 mural scenes round one cloister and carved in some 150 stone panels round the other's ordination hall.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, "Wat Phra Kaew" and "Emerald Buddha". Naengnoi Suksri et al., The Grand Palace and Old Bangkok (2013); Nidda Hongvivat, The Temple of the Emerald Buddha and the Grand Palace (2004).
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