Wat Phra Phai Luang

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Assembly hall and north prang, Wat Phra Phai Luang
Prang of Wat Phra Phai Luang
Stucco decoration over the "false" door in the prang

Wat Phra Phai Luang ( Thai วัด พระ พาย หลวง - Monastery of the Great Wind ) is the ruins of a Buddhist temple complex ( wat ) in Sukhothai , Sukhothai Province in the northern region of Thailand .

location

Wat Phra Phai Luang is part of the Sukhothai Historical Park , it is located about 1 kilometer north of the Old City (Mueang Kao - เมือง เก่า ) of Sukhothai.

Building history

Wat Phra Phai Luang was probably founded as a temple of the Khmer Mahayana order at the time of the Khmer king Jayavarman VII , who was king of the Khmer empire of Angkor from 1181 to around 1219 . He initially consisted of only three sandstone - Prang , with stucco were decorated, and represented the center of the city at that time.

Later, when the Thais gained control of the area, they converted it into a Theravada temple. During the Sukhothai period , assembly and ordination halls were added in a typical Sukhothai style.

Attractions

  • To the east of the complex is a large, resting Buddha statue on a brick platform with four square columns.
  • To the west of it is a large brick mondop with four monumental Buddha statues on the outside. The round columns that stand around the building probably once supported a wooden roof. The Mondop was built during the Sukhothai period, late 14th or early 15th century, but later restorations are also visible.
  • Behind the mondop are the remains of a large brick chedi with a square base. Around the base there are niches in which Buddha images once sat, but almost all of which were stolen in the 1950s and 1960s. During the restoration in the mid-1960s, a remaining, large, seated statue collapsed. Other Buddha images were found inside, which can be seen today in the Ramkhamhaeng National Museum .
  • A sandstone statue of Jayavarman VII was discovered in the ruins of a meeting hall ( Wihan ) , which is now also in the museum. The assembly hall is flanked by several small laterite chedis.
  • The center of the temple complex is formed by the three Khmer prangs. Archaeologists suspect that they originally stood on a shared laterite base, which is now about one meter underground. All three prangs were open to the east, with doors flanked by pillars supporting an ornate tympanum . The doors on the other three sides were so-called “false doors”. The tympana with scenes from the life of the Buddha were added afterwards during the Sukhothai period. Only the northernmost of the prangs is in good condition today, the other two are almost completely dilapidated.
  • The entire area is surrounded by a double moat . The outer one has a side length of 600 meters and is fed by the Lam Pan River. In the north-west between the two trenches are the remains of a meeting hall and a small ordination hall ( Ubosot ) with eight boundary stones ( Bai Sema ) . The latter was also only added towards the end of the 14th century.
  • Impressions

  • Wat Phra Phai Luang, northern Prang

  • Chedi (left) and Mondop (right in the background)

  • Chedi with crumbled niches and Buddha images

  • Looking east

  • View over the moat

literature

  • AB Griswold : Towards A History Of Sukhothai Art . The Fine Arts Department, Bangkok 1967 (oh. ISBN)
  • Dawn F. Rooney: Ancient Sukhothai, Thailand's Cultural Heritage . River Books, Bangkok 2008, ISBN 978-974-9863-42-8
  • Hiram W. Woodward Jr .: Guide to Old Sukhothai . The Fine Arts Department, Bangkok 1972 (without ISBN)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hiram W. Woodward Jr .: Guide to Old Sukhothai , p. 24

Web links

Commons : Wat Phra Phai Luang  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 17 ° 1 ′ 45.1 ″  N , 99 ° 41 ′ 58.4 ″  E