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=0=| This would be a quite large bronze statue of Buddha. He would be about thrity feet tall and is decorated with the orange sash. Below on the left was a statue that seemed particularly impressive to me because of the back light. Next to that is an image of Buddha that is lore typical of what you might find in the temple in most any village. He is about the size of person but raised on a platform. He would be at the front of an area about thirty feet by thirty feet. People would sit in that relatively plain area while insuring that their feet did not point toward the Buddha. In contrast to that was the 'Emerald Buddha' which was in the Royal Temple. That statue was about three feet tall and was carved from a single jade crystal, which of course would make him quite valuable. The Emerald Buddha was found a couple of hundred years ago when a monk was repairing a plaster Buddha and discovered there was another statue inside the cracked one. It appears that the Emerald Buddha was carved about the year 1200 AD. However, when there was an invading army the jade Buddha was hidden inside a plaster statue and all records of the jade Buddha were destroyed. Since the Emerald Buddha was dsicovered he has become a sort of Thai national treasure and they take great pride in him. He was removed from Thailand for about one hundred years and they were most happy to have him return. He he in area where pictures are not permitted so there is no picture of him. He was on a raised platform about forty feet high and about forty feet across so that no one could get very close. There were various decorative fixtures as shown below but much more extensive, of course. The Emerald Buddha had three sets of clothes for their three seasons of winter, summer, and monsoon. The clothes were woven gold cloth with jewels and such and the king himself would change the clothes with the change of seasons as a part of a religoius ceremony. |
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| Just outside the Royal Temple was a decorated bell tower shown here. All around the court yard outside the temple were rows and rows of images of Buddha each sllightly different as shown below on the left. Each of them is in the style of such and sich province during the era when it was first cast. This is a small fraction of the number of Buddha as there is a whole other section further on (out of the light) and behind me, but that was all I could get into the camera. There were also murals / mosaics. Below on the right is only a fraction of one but it was all I could get. There were numerous scenes, some of city life, an invasion, etc.. A whole lot of information. |
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| Here is a detailed picture of just one scene, presumably of the king overlooking a battle, but there would be numerous other chariots and hundreds of soldiers. The images are stylized and colored to attract attention to the most central characters (this was the birghtest and we presumed the king/general) with soldiers and farmers in more muted colors. |
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| Or last visit in Thailand was to a temple which you could only get to by road. Theirs roads were pretty terrible in poor condition and extremely congested with many trucks, buses and taxis. For example, on our trip away from the airport it normally would have been about a twenty minute ride but it took about an hour and twenty minutes to get to our hotel because much of the trip we were travelling at a snails pace. We could easily have walked at twice the pace (except, of course, for our bags). When you would get to a light, even when it turned green only a couple of cars could go forward as the light beyond was still red and there was no place to go. However, they would pull into the interection and block traffic going the other direction when their light turned green. Truly a mess. Anyway, we came to appreciate why they rely on their canals so heavily. So we were walking through downtown Bangkok looking for a particular temple but being caught in the hot, polluted, noisy, busy streets and not being able to imagine a temple being nearby. However I checked my map and saw that if we turned left into the next alleyway the temple ought to right there. We down the alleyway and at the end there a lovely temple. This is a view from inside the temple. |
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| This appears to be a relatively new temple and they have used the colored mirror mosaics to good effect. We were really impressed by what a quiet and serene environment pervaded the temple area leaving the noise and bustle of the city beyond the temple walls and buildings. This picture and the pictures below are different very nicely decorated buildings in the compound. |
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| The picture above on the right is a side entrance to one of the buildings and just opposite it was a very plain building that all sorts of people were going into and out of. We followed the crowd and entered a very plain room which had this statue of Buddha. It is hard to appreciate the size of this Buddha (perhaps 12 twelve feet tall and 8 feet across) but that is a 5 and 1/2 ton solid gold statue. Even with the price of gold in the 70's (perhaps $50 an ounce) that was a massive potential of wealth, perhaps $30 or even $200 million at today's prices. There were no barriers or security guards and you could walk up within arm's reach of the Buddha. Of course we considered that there was really nothing you could do with a 5 and half ton Buddha, so maybe the security was really necessary. This Buddha was found relatively recently in the same fashion as the Emerald Buddha (perhaps in the last ten years) and is presumed to have roughly the same history as the Emerald Buddha. |
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| They haven't had time to build a proper building for the gold Buddha but presumably that will come with time (and is probably different now). Also, at that time the Thai people didn't have that much attachment to the gold Buddha, but that might come with time. This is a facial view of the Gold Buddha and is the end of our tour of Thailand. Our next stop was India. |
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This page was last updated on November 18, 2005.
