Wat Saphan Hin

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Phra Attharot in Wat Saphan Hin

Of the Buddhist temple complex Wat Saphan Hin ( Thai วัด สะพาน หิน - Monastery of the Stone Bridge ; also: Wat Taphan Hin , วัด ตะพานหิน ) only the ruins remain. It is located in Sukhothai Province Sukhothai in the northern region of Thailand .

In the various stone inscriptions left by the kings of Sukhothai, this temple was also called "Wat Aranyik". Today's Wat Aranyik and Wat Saphan Hin - both are only about 500 meters apart - may have originally been a single temple.

location

Wat Saphan Hin is part of the Sukhothai Historical Park , it is located in forested hills about two kilometers (as the crow flies) northwest of the O-City Gate ( ประตู อ้อ - Pratu O) outside the Old City (Mueang Kao - เมือง เก่า ) of Sukhothai.

General

The Theravada Buddhist monks ( bhikkhus ) of that time can be divided into two groups based on their way of life. One group preferred to study the Buddha's teachings , the Tipitaka . It was convenient for them to live in the monasteries within the city. That is why they were called “city monks” (Kamawasi, พระ สงฆ์ คามวาสี ). The other group preferred to practice mindfulness and meditate. They often lived in monasteries outside the cities in quiet forest areas ( Aran - อรัญ ญ์ ) and were therefore called "forest monks" ( Aranyawasi - พระ สงฆ์ อรัญ ญ วาสี ). They were the models of the later Thai forest tradition . Since the hills to the west of the old city consisted of a sparse forest, the forest monks lived here in about a dozen temples scattered on the hills.

history

It was the king's privilege to appoint the head of the Sukhothai Sangha , the Patriarch or Saṅgharāja ( สังฆราช ), himself. In return, the king supported the Sangha politically and economically. King Ramkhamhaeng chose as Saṅgharāja not one from the nearby Mon or Khmer communities, but a learned monk ( Mahathera , มหา เถระ ), possibly a Tai , from the distant Nakhon Si Thammarat in the south of today's Thailand. In the stone inscription I of King Ramkhamhaeng it is mentioned that the king had a forest temple built, today's Wat Saphan Hin, in which the Saṅgharāja resided. He equipped it with a meeting hall ( Wihan ), which was described in the stone inscription as "large, lofty and beautiful". What made the assembly hall particularly lofty was a large, standing Buddha statue of a "Phra Attharot" ( Attharasa : Pali for eighteen; the statue is eighteen cubits tall, which corresponds to about 8.3 meters). King Ramkhamhaeng thought the figure was 18 cubits, in fact it is about 12.5 meters tall.

It is also mentioned that on the Uposatha days the king came to Wat Saphan Hin on elephant rides in order to “ earn merits ” (Thai ทำบุญ , Tam bun ).

Attractions

A “paved” path, consisting of large slabs of slate , leads up the hill to the temple. It first leads past a small chedi in the shape of a lotus bud typical of Sukhothai .

The large Buddha statue of a “Phra Attharot” with the gesture of settling the dispute between the relatives (“ Abhayamudra ”) looks out over the Sukhothai Historical Park.

Another large Buddha statue was found here in the middle of the 20th century. It shows features of the Dvaravati style, but it is more likely that it was made in the 8th century in the kingdom of Srivijaya , and was installed here by Ramkhamhaeng in honor of Saṅgharāja. The statue is missing the upper half of its body today, it is in the Ramkhamhaeng National Museum .

Impressions from Wat Saphan Hin

  • The long way to Wat Saphan Hin

  • Wat Saphan Hin, in the background Phra Attharot

  • Lotus bud chedi on the way up the hill

  • Wat Saphan Hin, at the foot of the Phra Attharot

  • Statue of a Sukhothai Buddha in front of Phra Attharot

  • View of Old Sukhothai from Wat Sahan Hin

literature

  • Betty Gosling: Sukhothai Its History, Culture, And Art . Asia Books (Oxford University Press), Bangkok 1991, ISBN 974-8206-85-8
  • AB Griswold : Towards A History Of Sukhothai Art . The Fine Arts Department, Bangkok 1967 (without ISBN)
  • Dawn F. Rooney: Ancient Sukhothai, Thailand's Cultural Heritage . River Books, Bangkok 2008, ISBN 978-974-9863-42-8

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ HRH Prince Damrong Rajanubhab : A History Of Buddhist Monuments In Siam . Bangkok 1929, translated into English by Sulak Sivaraksa , The Siam Society , Bangkok 1962, oh. ISBN
  2. ↑ see: http://www.seasite.niu.edu/Thai/inscription/inscription1.htm
  3. ↑ Griswold, p. 9
  4. ↑ a b Griswold, p. 7

Web links

Commons : Wat Saphan Hin  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files


Coordinates: 17 ° 1 ′ 23.3 "  N , 99 ° 40 ′ 30.7"  E