Wat Phra Yuen

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Wat Phra Yuen ( Thai : วัด พระยืน พุทธ บาทยุคล - roughly: Monastery of the Standing Buddhas ) is a Buddhist temple ( wat ) in Lamphun , northern Thailand . The temple is one kilometer east of the old town of Lamphun, across the Maenam Kuang (Kuang River) .

Legend has it that the temple was founded in 1370 by King Kue Na to house the wise monk Sumana Thera, whom he invited from Sukhothai . At that time there is said to have been a large standing Buddha statue here. The king built a mondop around them, in addition he had three other statues of the same size and material as the existing ones made, and they were placed back to back in niches of the mondop so that they could look in the four cardinal directions. The iconography of the original statues is said to have included elements from both Hariphunchai and the beginning Sukhothai Empire .

Between 1901 and 1907 the remains of the statues and the original mondop were built over with a chedi that is still visible today . This chedi is built from pagan in the style of a Burmese temple : the cube-shaped base stands on a terrace, to which stairs lead up on all four sides. The base has a stepped roof supporting a small bell-shaped chedi, crowned by a gilded hti . On the four sides there are niches, in each of which a standing Buddha statue in Hariphunchai style can be seen.

On the northern side of the terrace there is a sandstone stele , dated 1370/1371 and thus the oldest stele in the Mae Nam Ping valley , which praises the building in Thai and Pali . It reads: "This stele proves that Chao Thao Songsaen Na Anthammikarat [Phaya Kue Na], beloved son of Phaya Phayu , the grandson of the great Phaya Khamfu and the great grandson of Phaya Mengrai ".

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sarassawadee Ongsakul: History of Lan Na . Translated by Chitraporn Tanratanakul. Chiang Mai: Silkworm (2005). ISBN 974-9575-84-9 .

literature

  • Carol Stratton: Buddhist Sculpture of Northern Thailand . Silkworm Books, Chiang Mai 2004, ISBN 1-932476-09-1 .
  • Michael Freeman: Lanna - Thailand's Northern Kingdom . River Books, Bangkok 2001, ISBN 0-50097602-3 .
  • Alexander B. Griswold: Wat Pra Yün Reconsidered . Monograph No. 4, The Siam Society, Bangkok 1975.

Coordinates: 18 ° 34 ′ 34.1 ″  N , 99 ° 1 ′ 11.6 ″  E