Beyon d the City Wall
In this neighbourhood, in what was once a forest temple, Prince Mongkut founded the Thammayut Buddhist movement, and nearby are two villages that housed Khmer and Vietnamese Christians who had fled their homeland.
Duration: 3 hours
Next to Phra Sumen Fort there is an alley, and a tiny bridge that leads over the second moat into the northern reaches of the old city, beyond the wall, where in the sunny little lane that runs behind Wat Sangwet stands a modest house, half brick and half timber, from which each weekend emanates the sound of traditional Thai music. Ban Duriyapraneet, or Bang Lamphu House as it is also known, is a music conservatory that has been in existence since 1898, established by Souk Duriyapraneet, a master of Thai traditional music, and still in the hands of the family today. Souk was from a family that included two other masters of music, and he studied under both of them. He married a girl named Thaem Choeiket, who was a member of a dance troupe that performed for the royal courts, and initially the couple lived on a raft house moored in the canal near to the fort. When they could afford to buy a house on land, they moved into this property at 83 Samsen 1, and the house remains little changed to this day. Souk was renowned for his skills on the xylophone and with various woodwind instruments, and he was part of the Royal Orchestra that was formed in the reign of Rama VI. The couple had many children, and taught them all music, and from this grew the conservatory. The house has become a historical place for Thai music and musical instruments, and the Duriyapraneet Foundation was formed in 2003 to continue the traditions of Thai music and dance. This includes lessons every weekend, when children as young as six through to teenagers can participate. Classical dance lessons take place in the morning, while traditional Thai music lessons take place during the afternoon.
Wat Sangwet dates before the Bangkok era, although no one knows when it was built. The temple’s original name was Wat Samcheen, which would indicate that three Chinese funded the building. Extensive renovations were carried out in the first, third and fourth reigns, and it was after the latter that the temple name was changed to Wat Sangwet. A quiet neighbourhood temple, a royal temple third grade, it has the unhappy distinction of being set on fire in 1869 when a blaze that started in a nearby noodle shop devastated the area. Rama V ordered the reconstruction, which is the form the temple takes today. Threading our way through these little lanes will take us to Wat Sam Phraya, the name indicating this temple was built by three noblemen. Another temple that dates back to the late Ayutthaya era, it was restored in the time of Rama iii and has a particularly fine Chinese-style gable decorated with porcelain to form a floral design, and a Reclining Buddha image in the ubosot.
To complete a trio of threes, three members of the royal family built Wat Tri Thotsathep, on the other side of Samsen Road. Prince Supradit, a son of Rama iv, intended to build this temple, which was to be located near his palace. He passed away in 1862 before the work could begin, and so Prince Nopphawong, another of the king’s sons, took it up. He passed away in 1867, before the building was complete, so Rama IV himself completed the work. The temple name translates as “Temple Built by Three Deities”. There are three Buddha images in the ubosot, the two standing figures having been supplied by the king; the clothes they are wearing belonged to the two princes. The temple is royal third grade, and it has splendour in the marble and granite used in the construction, the soaring golden chedi, and ornate golden detailing to the roof and the window frames. The murals have recently been painted by national artist Chakrabhand Posayakrit.
Follow Samsen Road northwards and under the elevated expressway is a temple that because of the highway structure and the surrounding buildings is almost obscured. Only by entering the slip road on the right does Wat Intharawihan become visible, which is odd, really, as the temple’s main attraction is an immense Buddha figure in the compound, standing 32 metres (105 ft) high, and under other circumstances it would be dominating the landscape. Popularly known as Wat In, the temple dates back to the late Ayutthaya period, when it was known as Wat Bang Khunphrom Nok, after the name of the locality in which it stands. Rama I provided land in this area for the settlement of Lao prisoners of war, and the temple was renovated by a nobleman named Chao Inthawong, who also arranged for a priest from Vientiane to be installed as abbot. The temple took its new name from Chao Inthawong. Building of the Buddha figure began in 1867 but the work was not completed for another sixty years, in 1927. The idea of building the enormous structure, which is made of brick and stucco, was that of the temple’s abbot, Ajarn Toh. He was already elderly when the work began, and died at the foot of the image when he had gone to inspect it one night in 1871. A bust of the abbot, now encrusted with gold leaf, is placed near the entrance to the temple. The Buddha is a standing figure, holding an alms bowl, and there is a structure at the back by which devotees can climb and add pieces of gold leaf to the body. The image is named Luang Phor To. The flamelike topknot contains relics of the Buddha, which were donated by the government of Sri Lanka and placed there in 1978.
In 1982, when the city of Bangkok celebrated its 200th anniversary, restoration works were carried out and the image was decorated with Italian golden mosaic tiles. Every day worshippers visit the temple complex to make offerings, traditionally bringing gifts of mackerel, a boiled egg and a garland of flowers to place at the enormous toes of the statue. The sema boundary markers around the ubosot are unusual in that they are supported by small nagas. Inside the ubosot are wall murals depicting scenes of daily life in Siam, and the area behind the ubosot has statues of Hindu deities and of Chao Mae Kuan Ym, the goddess of mercy This, incidentally, is one of the centres in Bangkok for making and selling amulets, a practice that appears to have started as a way of funding the construction of the image, as Wat In is a civil, and not a royal, temple.
The building of the enormous Buddha image at Wat In took sixty years to complete.
Our way now takes us across the third moat, the final line of defence around the city, although when it was dug in the time of Rama IV in 1851, the threat of invasion had almost vanished and the canal was primarily for transport and drainage. At the mouth of the canal, on the far bank, is Wat Thewa Ratchakunchon, a temple with an outstanding sky-blue fresco in the ubosot, angels floating in the firmament around the golden Buddha image that almost fills the small hall. The temple has some particularly fine residential architecture in its grounds, and is also home to the Golden Teak Museum, a structure brought down from the north, and whose glowing golden teak interior forms an exhibition area for the display of Buddhist artifacts from Sri Lanka and sculptures of renowned monks from the Rattanakosin period.
Rama IV planned to build temples all along the bank of the outer moat, as had been done in Ayutthaya. Wat Makut Kasat and Wat Somanas were therefore built as new temples and are the only two
Temples in Rattanakosin that have two rings of sema, or boundary stones. The first ring, called the maha sema, is placed within niches in the temple walls, while the second ring, the khantha sema, surrounds the ubosot. In temples that have two rings of sema, the monks can perform religious ceremonies in both the ubosot and the wiharn. At Wat Makut Kasat, the gables and the door and window frames are decorated with the royal crown insignia of Rama IV. The murals inside the ubosot depict scenes from stories in the Pali Canon about the Buddha’s male and female disciples, along with illustrations of meditation techniques and commandments, while Khmer incantations are inscribed on the door and window panels. Rama IV dedicated Wat Somanas to Queen Somanas, his consort, who had died at the beginning of his reign aged only 17. Wat Somanas stands on twelve acres of land, with moats on three sides and the outer city moat in front of the compound. Both of these temples have the same distinctive layout, with the ubosot, wiharn, cloister and chedi located in the middle, and two clusters of monks’ dwellings one on each side.
Wat Ratchatiwat, where Prince Mongkut resided before he became Rama IV
The murals at Wat Somanas omit the life story of the Buddha and instead depict a literary masterpiece from the time of Rama II, and are considered to be amongst the finest works from the fourth reign, using European techniques to portray the sky, trees, and the lives of ordinary people.
A little way further along the riverbank, on the other side of a small inlet that runs beside the National Library, is Wat Ratchatiwat, its magnificent teak sermon hall regarded as being one of the finest examples of teak construction in Thailand. Originally an Ayutthayaera temple named Wat Samor Rai, this was a forest temple in the time when the area was woodland and marshy ground, and Prince Mongkut came to reside here when he was a monk. Mongkut began his reform movement known as Thammayut Nikaya at this temple. He had entered the priesthood in 1824 and spent several years in different parts of Siam, becoming aware that there were serious discrepancies between the rules given in the Pali Canon and the actual practices of Siamese monks. Taking up residence at this then-remote temple, in 1833 he founded the Thammayut movement that endeavoured to purify monastic discipline and remove all non-Buddhist elements, such as animism and superstitious beliefs. Monks of this sect are expected to eat only one meal a day, the food being gathered during the traditional alms round. The temple is regarded as the birthplace of Thammayut, and Mongkut continued to promote the reforms when he became abbot of Wat Bowon Niwet, in the northern part of Rattanakosin Island, in 1836. When he became Rama iv he founded the first new temple to be devoted to Thammayut; named Wat Ratchapradit, it is a small temple in the corner of Saranrom Park, opposite the Grand Palace, and the king financed its construction from his own funds. The passing of the Sangha Act of 1902 has established Thammayut as the second of Thailand’s Theravada denominations. Wat Samor Rai was renamed as Wat Ratchatiwat during the fourth reign, the name meaning “temple where the king resides”. In the time of Rama V the temple structure had deteriorated, and so the king
Directed Prince Naris to reconstruct the Khmer-style ubosot, but retain the original walls because of the significance of the building in the history of the Thammayut sect. The murals were done using the European fresco technique and depict the story of Phra Vessandara, the Buddha’s tenth reincarnation. Prince Naris prepared the drafts and Carlo Rigoli, an Italian artist brought out to Siam to paint the frescoes inside the dome of the Ananta Samakhom Throne Hall, followed his designs to create a work that evokes the frescoes that can be found in European monasteries, using light and form to give a realism to the scenes and images. The sala karn prian, or sermon hall, situated on the other side of the access lane is constructed entirely of teak and can accommodate up to one thousand people. Wat Ratchatiwat retains something of its former rural charm, the temple being set in garden surroundings on the bank of the river, with the graceful buildings of the temple school in the leafy grounds.
Along the riverbank in front of the temple, running northwards from the landing pier, is a footpath that takes us over a small canal and past a carefully tended Christian graveyard. Following the lane around the cemetery brings us to the rear of a Romanesque church, but before going to the front, pause and examine the small building on the right. It is a chapel with three windows and a gabled roof, a plain structure with elements of Thai and European styles blended, and looks as if a congregation of twenty would fill the building entirely. This is the oldest Catholic church in Bangkok. The Church of Immaculate Conception was built in 1674, during the time of Louis Laneau, the first bishop of Siam. This was the height of the Ayutthaya period, and King Narai was following a policy of closer relationships with the European powers. Bishop Laneau was head of the Roman Catholic mission in Indochina, and was headquartered at Ayutthaya. A large number of Catholic priests, many of them Portuguese, were travelling to and from Ayutthaya during this period, and a group of them founded a small community on the bank of the river, where they built the small chapel that we see today.
At that time there were only about 600 Siamese Catholics, according to Catholic records, but there were many more of other nationalities within the country, including the Portuguese and other Europeans, along with Vietnamese, Japanese and Chinese. This was, of course, before the founding of the Portuguese Catholic community at Thonburi, and so it represented a firm foothold for the lower Chao Phraya region. The Catholic priests had reason to believe they could greatly increase their number of Siamese converts, and this small community was near to the garrison town of Thonburi and to numerous other scattered settlements, and conveniently on the route to Ayutthaya.
The Church of Immaculate Conception, founded by Portuguese missionaries
The French precipitating the siege of Bangkok in 1688 was an enormous setback for the Catholic missionaries and for Europeans in general. They were no longer welcome in Siam, except for the Portuguese, who were so well assimilated that they were regarded almost as Siamese. The era of King Taksin still saw a rocky relationship with the Christians, again except for the Portuguese, and so the small Immaculate Conception parish on the riverbank continued, and was known as the Portuguese Village, Ban Portugal. In 1785, just three years after Bangkok had been founded, there was a persecution of the small community of Christians in Cambodia, and a number of them fled to Siam, where Rama I granted them sanctuary and directed that, as Christians, they should settle in the Christian district of Ban Portugal. Catholic records state that in 1785 there were 379 Cambodian Catholics at the Church of Immaculate Conception, a sizeable community, large enough for the village to become known as Ban Khmer, the name by which it is still known today. Eventually the tiny chapel was inadequate for the congregation, and Monsignor Jean-Baptiste Pallegoix built a second church in 1832, rebuilding it as the present structure in 1847. The original chapel is known as Bot Noi, or Small Chapel, and it has been used as a storeroom and as a museum, although following a recent restoration it is unclear what the next phase is going to be. The people of Ban Khmer are a mix of Portuguese, Khmer and Thai blood, and their heritage can be traced in certain types of food they eat and words they use that have migrated into their dialect.
Retracing our steps past the cemetery brings us to the rear of another Christian church, this one far larger. This is Ban Yuen, the Village of the Vietnamese, and St Francis Xavier Church. There have been several Vietnamese settlements named Ban Yuen, but this is the largest and most enduring of them all. During the time of Rama I there had been a significant migration of Vietnamese to Siam, both Christian and Buddhist, and while the Buddhists settled in the Pahurat district, on the fringe of Chinatown, the Christians had settled on land adjacent to Ban Khmer. In 1835, about 1,500 Annamite Christians fleeing persecution in Vietnam sought asylum in Siam, and joined the Yuen village next to the Khmers. Rama iii granted permission for them to build a church, and in 1834, under the direction of Msgr Pallegoix, a bamboo church was erected and named St Francis Xavier Church, although it was perhaps inevitably known as Wat Yuen. Msgr Pallegoix lived at the Immaculate Conception Church, where he had established a friendship with the princely monk Mongkut, who resided at the neighbouring Wat Samor Rai. Pallegoix had a deep knowledge of science, mathematics and languages, and the monk had an insatiable desire to learn all he could of the West. At the same time, Pallegoix wanted to learn all he could of the Siamese and Pali languages, and the two men enjoyed a mutually rewarding intellectual friendship that endured for many years. When Mongkut became King Rama IV he was happy to donate more land to Ban Yuen for the building of a larger church, and the St Francis Xavier that we see today was completed in 1867.
The community of Ban Yuen today still has a distinctive quality. This is partly due to the size of the church and its bell tower, and the surrounding church buildings, especially the Coupeau Building, designed in a European style and used as a gathering place for priests and for religious ceremonies. Rama V purchased the bronze statue of Jesus giving sight to the blind man, when on his Europe visit in 1897 the king had visited the foundry in Florence where it was cast. He at first placed it in the Chakri Throne Hall, and when Amphon Throne Hall in Dusit was complete he moved it there. In 1945 the statue was moved out onto the lawn, and then in 1949 transferred to St Xavier. Many of the houses in Ban Yuen are very old, with a mix of timber and stone, and there are several restaurants and food shops selling Vietnamese food. As with the Khmer community, members of the Ban Yuen community feel themselves to be Thai but are aware of their Vietnamese heritage.
A statue of the founder of St Gabriel’s College, Brother Martin de Tours
One thing very much apparent in these two Christian communities is the way in which the missionaries established schools, because the two neighbourhoods together have a large number of schools and colleges, along with a school for ballet, a school for piano lessons, and a number of kindergartens. Walk through the lanes of this area in the late afternoon, and you will be in a sea of school-children and college students of every age and stage and grade. Conception School, St Francis Xavier Convent, Joan D’Arc School, and on Samsen Road, the handsome pink building of St Gabriel’s College, with the statue of its founder almost certainly the only statue in Bangkok that wears a pair of genuine spectacles. At the back of the nearby carpark is a stretch of ancient walling that was once the garden of an old palace, long gone, and the nearby Suan Sunantha Teacher Training College was originally another palace.
St Francis Xavier Church, in the centre of Ban Yuen, the Vietnamese village.
World History
