Wat Mahathat (Bangkok)
Wat Mahathat , full name: Wat Mahathat Yuwarat Rangsarit Ratchaworamaha Wihan ( Thai : วัด มหาธาตุ ยุวราช รัง ส ฤ ษ ฎิ์ ราชวรมหาวิหาร ), is one of the oldest Buddhist temples ( Wat ) in Bangkok , Thailand . It is a First Class Royal Temple and the main center of the Mahanikai Order.
Wat Mahathat is located in the old town of Bangkok, the Rattanakosin Island, north of the Grand Palace , at the central Sanam Luang in the Bangkok district of Phra Nakhon . The Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya Buddhist University is located on its premises .
history
Modification by the Uparat
The temple, which is now called Wat Mahathat Yuwarat Rangsarit, existed before the founding of Bangkok in 1782 by King Phra Phutthayotfa Chulalok (Rama I.): Wat Salak (Thai: วัด สลัก - chiseled temple ) was on the Mae Nam Chao Phraya ( Chao- Phraya River ) aligned between the two planned palaces of the king and his Uparat . Behind him was a spacious, open area, which was later used for the cremation of the Siamese kings.
The spatial arrangement of the buildings of the old monastery, however, disrupted the urban planning of the new capital of the Siamese kingdom. The city wall ran right through the monastery so that it was cut off from the river. The Second King ( front palace ) Boworn Maha Sura Singhanat (Thai: กรม พระราชวัง บวร มหา สุร สิงหนาท ), decided to rebuild younger brother of King Phra Phutthayotfa the entire convent to make it so its position between two royal palaces worthy. The renovation began in 1783 at the same time as the redesign of the "Front Palace" (Wang Na) , the Uparat Palace, which was directly connected to the monastery to the north. The new temple was oriented to the east towards the "Königsplatz", the apartments of the monks ( Kuti ) were built in the rear part of Wat Salak. The arrangement of the sacred buildings in Phutthawat , Ubosot , Wihan and Mondop has not been changed since that time.
Wat Nibbanarama
The Mondop was designed on the model of a similar building in Wat Phra Si Sanphet, the temple of the Royal Palace in Ayutthaya. It had a square floor plan and a pointed, conical roof and contained a golden chedi. It was probably intended to take up the ashes of deceased kings later.
Behind the Mondop, the Ubosot and the Wihan were right next to each other. A prang and a pair of chedis were erected north of the Wihan, and two more prang behind the Wihan. This group of buildings was enclosed by an open gallery ( Phra Rabieng ) in which some seated Buddha statues were placed.
A bell tower (Hor Rakhang) was erected outside the gallery and a library ( Hor Trai ) opposite it . The latter two buildings were later moved to their current position. The Sala Kan Parien (study hall) was set up where it is still today. Kutis were made of wood, but the abbot's were made of bricks.
When the renovation work was completed, the Uparat named the monastery Wat Nibbanarama (Temple of Nirvana ) , a name that was previously unknown in the nomenclature of Ayutthaya and Sukhothai, but which reflects the importance that the king had chosen this place to be .
The ninth council
Since important Buddhist texts had been lost due to the destruction of Ayutthaya by the Burmese in 1767, King Phra Phutthayotfa and his Uparat called a council to complete the texts and to rewrite them in books made from leaves of the corypha palm (Corypha umbraculifera) . Wat Nibbanarama was chosen as the center of the council, for this purpose the temple was renamed Wat Phra Si Sanphet ( วัด พระ ศรี สรรเพชญ ). The council was opened by both kings on November 12, 1788. It lasted five months and was attended by 218 bhikkhus and 32 Buddhist scholars under the leadership of the Supreme Patriarch. This was the second time a council had been held on Thai soil.
The revised version of the Siamese Tripitaka contained 288 manuscripts in 3,686 palm leaf books. This is still called the “Council Edition” or “Edition of the Old Masters” today. The king had his own copy made, the "Great Golden Edition", as it was bound in gold brocade and held together by gold ribbons.
destruction
On the night of April 2, 1802, the monastery was almost completely destroyed. Some monks enjoyed themselves with fireworks , while the roof of the Mondop caught fire, which quickly spread to the neighboring buildings. Mondop, Wihan and Ubosot burned to the ground.
The Uparat rushed to rebuild. The mondop was rebuilt in its current, simple form, inside there is another mondop, which is open on all sides and contains a chedi in the middle, similar to the previous building. The bot was enlarged so that its boundary stones ( Bai Sema ) had to be embedded in the walls. It is now 20 m wide and 50 m long, with many high stucco windows and four doors in the side walls. The Wihan kept its previous size, which resulted in a slight asymmetry.
Death of the uparat
Surasinghanat, the “Second King”, had cancer a few years ago, and some chronicles also state cholera as a disease. In the course of 1803 his condition deteriorated drastically, he became very depressed and choleric. A few days before his death after a failed suicide attempt in the temple, he pronounced a curse on all future residents of the “Front Palace” who were not his direct descendants. He died at midnight on November 3rd, 1803. Since several sons of Uparat had also planned an attempt to overthrow the king, he considered denying his brother the royal rites at the cremation. For these reasons, for a long time no one dared to take care of the preservation of the temple that Surasinghanat founded.
Wat Si Rattana Mahathat
In 1804, King Phra Phutthayotfa decided to hold the final examination of the Pali language in the temple in order to obtain a doctorate. For this reason the name of the temple was changed again. The new name was Wat Si Rattana Mahathat ( Temple of the Holy Jeweled Great Relic - วัด พระ ศรี รัตน มหาธาตุ ราชวรมหาวิหาร ), as all the historical capitals of Siam had a temple of this name, in which the Supreme Patriarch resided.
In March 1817 a new Supreme Patriarch (Sangharaja) was convened, the 67-year-old Somdet Phra Vanaratana, who in turn also became abbot of Wat Mahathat. During his tenure, the Buddhist holiday Visakha Puja was reintroduced. It has been held every year in the sixth lunar month (usually: May) since 1817. Even before his nomination for Sangharaja, the patriarch had sent eight monks as abbot of Wat Ratchaburana in 1814 on a Buddhist missionary trip to Ceylon in order to renew the traditional relationships between the two Sangha , which had been interrupted since the fall of Ayutthaya. In July 1818 they returned to the Siamese capital after an adventurous journey. In their luggage they had six branches of the Bodhi tree , which comes from the original tree in today's Bodhgaya under which the Buddha experienced his enlightenment . As the residence of the Supreme Patriarch of the Sangha, Wat Mahathat received one of the offshoots. It was planted in the northeast corner of the monastery, where it still thrives today.
Prince Mongkut
Meanwhile, a later celebrity had been ordained in the Monastery of the Great Relic. According to tradition, the male members of the royal family in particular should belong to the monastic order for two periods, first as a novice at the age of 14 and a second time as a monk at the age of 21. Prince Mongkut, at that time 14 years old, son of King Phra Phutthaloetla and his first wife Queen Sri Suriyendra, entered the Buddhist order for seven months on May 24, 1817. The prince got his own kuti in the northeast of the monastery.
No sooner had Prince Mongkut been ordained for the second time at Wat Mahathat in 1824, when his father, King Phra Phutthaloetla, died. Although Mongkut would have been the next in line to the throne, he renounced the royal dignity in favor of his influential half-brother Nangklao. The following year Mongkut practiced meditation in Wat Samorai (today: Wat Rachathiwat ), which at that time was still lonely in the forest far from the city. Then he returned to Wat Mahathat to study the Pali language. After three years of study, he passed an examination in the presence of the king with such bravura that he was appointed head of the examination board. In the following years he stayed mainly at Wat Samorai to deepen his studies. However, he kept his accommodation at Wat Mahathat, where he returned from time to time until his appointment as abbot of Wat Bowonniwet .
Restoration by King Nang Klao
In 1842 the Supreme Patriarch died. However, his successor refused to move into his residence at Wat Mahathat, because for 40 years nothing had been done to preserve the temple buildings due to the curse of its founder. It was not until two years later that King Phra Nang Klao declared himself ready to initiate restoration measures, since, in his opinion, he had meanwhile reached an age where the curse no longer bothered him.
All buildings were renewed according to their original blueprint, only the Wihan was extended by a canopy at the front and back. The bell tower and library were moved to their current location. Most of the changes were made to the Sanghawat, the living area of the monks, all kutis were now built from brick. Accommodation was built for about 1000 monks, so they were divided into thirteen groups.
King Mongkut
When King Nang Klao died on April 2, 1851, construction work was almost complete. The last work could be done under the new King Mongkut . During Mongkut's reign, only a pavilion was built to the northeast of the monastery where his kuti had stood. The pavilion was later called "Wihan Pho Langka" (pavilion of the Bodhi tree from Ceylon) .
King Chulalongkorn
In 1889 Phra Devamoli Dit was appointed abbot. On behalf of King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) he prepared the first printed version of the Siamese Tripitaka .
In 1887 the king founded a religious school in the monastery, which also started teaching in 1889. This school had existed in the grounds of the Grand Palace for a long time. Monks were taught here by six lay professors who were paid by the king himself. Now the lessons took place in a pavilion, which was located east on the monastery grounds. This school, which later became Chulalongkorn University , was moved to Wat Sudarchana in 1898. The abbot founded a school for the Pali language in their place . The teachers of this Pali school came from the ranks of the monastery members. The school building was originally built during the reign of King Nang Klao as the kuti of the abbot and the Supreme Patriarch. It was rebuilt and enlarged accordingly for the school. From this school the Buddhist Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University arose .
In 1895 Prince Vajirunhis died, who had already been appointed heir to the throne by King Chulalongkorn. A large amount of money was earmarked for the prince's cremation celebrations . The king decided to cut costs a little in the future by building a permanent building to hold the urn with the body. Because so far the ceremonial buildings of the royal cremation have been demolished after the celebrations. To carry out this plan, the eastern wall of the monastery was first torn down, as were some of the sala and kuti nearby. When the intended place had been leveled, the king laid the foundation stone in September 1896. The work proceeded very slowly, so that the cremation of the heir to the throne in 1900 took place outside the building. Even when the king died in 1910, the building was still not finished. Only King Vajiravudh was able to inaugurate the national library there on January 6, 1916. It was called "Hor Phra Samut Samrap Phra Nakhon" (Capital Library ) . Today this ocher yellow building is called "Thawon Watthu Building".
literature
- R. Lingat: History of Wat Mahaadhaatu . Article in: Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 24 part 1, Bangkok 1930, line [1] (PDF, last accessed November 1, 2012; 1.70 MB).
- Prince Chula Chakrabongse of Thailand: Lords Of Life, The Paternal Monarchy Of Bangkok . Alvin Redman Ltd., London 1960.
- GB McFarland: Thai-English Dictionary . 2nd rev. Stanford ed .: Stanford University Press, ISBN 0-8047-0383-3 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Robert E. Buswell Jr., Donald S. Lopez Jr .: The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 2014, entry Mahanikai , p. 502.
Web links
Coordinates: 13 ° 45 ′ 17.8 " N , 100 ° 29 ′ 27.8" E