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Wat Phra That is one of the most revered temples in Thailand, set among the peaks of Doi Suthep mountain, looking over the city of Chiang Mai in the North of Thailand. It is located in a lovely setting about 3500ft above the city with panoramic views of all of the city and the Mae Ping river valley beyond. Although |
Wat Doi Suthep
(as it is sometimes called) is one of the most recently built temples
in Chiang Mai dating from the Lanna Thai period (the fourteenth century
A.D.), it is considered to be the symbol of the city of Chiang Mai. The
local people say that if you have been to the city of Chiang Mai and not
visited the temple then you have not been to Chiang Mai at all. Where
the temple is, atop of Doi Suthep, the tallest of the mountains encircling
the city, the Wat can be seen from below both by daylight, and as a horizontal
line of bright lights hovering in the night sky, like a beacon to the
faithful. The site of the temple is reputed to have been chosen by an elephant that was carrying part of a holy relic of the Lord Buddha that had split apart in 1371. The elephant was sent to roam at will up the mountainside. After three days the elephant reached a spot where, it trumpeted, circled three times, and kneeled down and this was thus interpreted as a sign indicating the auspicious site. A golden Chedi (Pagoda), enclosing the relic was built over the spot. This spot remains one of the most sacred spots in the Buddhist world and is visited by thousands of pilgrims every year. |
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To
get to the temple from the city of Chiang Mai you have to follow a steep
and winding road that rises to the summit of the mountain where the temple
is situated, your progress often hampered by slow and unwieldy tour buses.
Meanwhile, practiced Thai drivers their faith in reincarnation apparently
replenished by their visit to the temple often execute harrowing passes
on the roads curves. If you are lucky, you may also see a long train of
pedestrians; every year, the students new to Chiang Mai University ascend
the mountain as a rite of initiation. Up until 1935 when the road was
constructed up to the temple, pilgrims had to walk up the mountain and
then negotiate the 200 plus steps at the entrance to the temple. The staircase to Wat Phra That consists of over 200 steps. Its banisters are the rolling, green-scaled snake-like bodies of the ‘nagas’, their multiple, ferocious dragon-like heads forming the banisters' bottoms. The nagas figure widely in Buddhist mythology. They were the first to encourage the Buddha to become a monk. Not one to be persuaded by a mythical snake, he refused. The undaunted nagas thus assumed a human form and repeated their request, which the Buddha then accepted. Sleeping in his palace, the disguised nagas resumed their snake-like appearance, much to the alarm of the royal servants! |
The
nagas would later assist the Buddha in the critical moments before his
enlightenment. The nagas shot down like lightning bolts from heaven to
protect him hence their appearing as banisters from any potential tempters;
hence their ferocious visages. Inside the temple you can find many things of great interest, firstly the dominant Chedi in the center of the Temple is especially sacred and equally beautiful. Around the Chedi inside the inner walls of the temple are numerous Buddha images that depict the Buddha in many different lights and positions. Inside the rooms that surround the Chedi that contain the Buddha images there are monks that are ready to give their blessings with a sprinkling of water. Also in the temple there are statues of seven Buddhas that show the seven days before his enlightenment, therefore corresponding to a day of the week for each Buddha. In order to make merit people should deposit coins next to the Buddha that corresponds to the day of their birth. Along the inner wall of the main temple, there is a mural depicting crucial scenes from the Buddha's life. It shows Buddha's father being chagrined to learn that his son will be a great prophet, not a great king; as the Buddha leaves his palace for the first time to confront decrepitude, sickness, and death; as he threatens to cut his long hair to signify his abandonment of the princely life; as he emaciates himself |
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under the direction
of the ascetics; as he meditates despite the interference of a host of
nasty monsters; and, finally, as he accepts rice from a woman the day
after his enlightenment. On leaving the main temple, there are a number of bells and gongs. Ring them softly and you will be notifying heaven that you have paid a visit to the temple. Wat Phrathat is a remarkably dense and inspiring repository of Buddhist artifacts and practices. A short visit amounts to a sort of crash course in Thai Buddhism in all of its baffling, inconsistent complexity. In a city with a temple at every turn, Wat Phrathat is by far the most majestic and revered; it is to Chiang Mai what Wat Phra Keaw is to Bangkok, or the Dome of the Rock to Jerusalem. If, as Henry Adams wrote, "all the steam power in the world could not, like the Virgin, build Chartres", neither could anything but the Buddha build Wat Phrathat.
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