The Grand Palace
Our walk takes us inside the Grand Palace and then across the green expanse of Sanam Luang, the old assembly ground, to the remnants of the Front Palace.
Duration: 2 hours
Rama I had a city to build. He had to expunge the memory of an executed king and establish his own royal line, and it had to be done with extreme urgency. King Taksin’s reign had ended, and Rama I’s reign had begun, on 6th April 1782. Two weeks later, on 21st April, Rama I installed the City Pillar. Made of cassia wood, the Chiang Mai, or New City pillar, is housed inside a shrine and is the abode of Phra Lak Muang, one of the guardian deities of the city. Inside the shrine the king placed the city horoscope, designed to ensure safety from the Burmese, still a threat from the west and the north. Visit the City Pillar Shrine today, and there are two pillars. The smallest of them was erected by Rama IV, a king who had also come to power without much of a power base, having spent the previous twenty-seven years as a monk, and consequently needing to exert his authority. He removed Rama I’s pillar, replacing it with his own, together with a new horoscope, this one reflecting concerns of the new threat, that of the Europeans, primarily the British and the French, who were circling the kingdom. The old pillar was propped against the wall outside, where it remained for more than a century, finally being reinstated during restorations in 1986, and placed next to the Rama IV pillar.
Oddly, before the founding of Bangkok, city pillars do not appear to have been a Siamese tradition: no documentary evidence of them has been found. City pillar shrines were erected in a handlul of other provinces during the reigns of Rama II and Rama lll, but after Rama iv’s pillar the idea died out. Directly after World War ii., however, with a government policy of nationalism in full play to mould the image of the country in the wake of the transition from absolute to constitutional monarchy, city pillars were encouraged throughout the country. The idea caught on, although not universally, until in 1992 the Interior Ministry issued a directive to all provincial governors to make sure every province had its own city pillar. There is another shrine next to the main City Pillar shrine, and this one represents all the provincial pillars. Thai people paying their respects almost invariably do so at both shrines.
The land upon which Bangkok was to be built already had a moat, dug in the time of King Taksin, and there was a defensive wall running along its inner bank. Inside the moat were a number of ancient temples, and prior to their relocation, this is where the Chinese community had lived. Far from being just an overspill from Thonburi, they were an organised community, many of them having been encouraged to come from China to Siam by Taksin. Their leader was a man named Phraya Choduek, who was greatly trusted by the king and who handled diplomatic relations with China. Outside of the moat and defensive wall were villages and agricultural areas, marshy ground and creeks alternating with patches of dryer ground, although most of the scattered population lived on rafts or houseboats, tied up at the banks of the river or in the streams.
To expand the size of the fortified city Rama i ordered the digging of a second moat, running parallel to the first, 10,000 Khmer levies being used for the work. The first moat was named Klong Ku Muang Derm (Old City Moat Canal), and the second moat Klong Rop Krung (Canal Encircling City), although in accordance with Siamese tradition different stretches of the waterway were known by names relating to the immediate locality. Two small canals known as lot, which means “tube”, were dug to connect the two, for transport and for adjusting the water levels.
Using Ayutthaya as the blueprint, land planning for Bangkok fell naturally into three divisions: Inner Rattanakosin, Outer Rattanakosin, and the outlying areas beyond the city wall, which was rebuilt alongside the second moat. The inner island was for the Grand Palace, residences for royalty, royal temples, institutional buildings, and the assembly ground and royal cremation area named Sanam Luang. The outer island was residential, divided by the two lot canals, and was for court officials, low-ranking officials, general residents, and foreign communities such as Malays and Vietnamese. Outside the wall, on the riverbank, the Chinese were making their new home. The ox-bow shape of the river protected the city to the west and north, the Sea of Mud was an effective barrier to the east, and anyone making their way up the river from the south would have to pass the forts that Rama I began building at the coast and upstream.
Building of the Grand Palace began on 6th May 1782, presenting the king with a problem of where to find sufficient building materials in this flat, muddy delta region. He was also short of ILmds. Consequently the original palace was made entirely from wood, a collection of structures surrounded by a long palisade, occupying a rectangular piece of land on the west side of Rattanakosin Island, with the existing temples of Wat Pho to the south and Wat Mahathat to the north. On 10th June 1782 the king made a ceremonial crossing of the river to enter the palace, and three days later underwent a brief coronation ceremony. A more solid and palatial palace was needed, and Rama I despatched officials and labourers up the river to the ruins of Ayutthaya. There, while leaving what remained of the temples intact, they removed the bricks from the old royal palaces, from the forts and from the wall, and floated them down the river. These bricks were then used to form a new palace, and walls for the city. The timber palace was dismantled building by building as the brick palace complex took shape. Once the ceremonial halls were completed, in 1785, the king held a full coronation.
Cannon at the Ministry of Defence building, with the Grand Palace in the background.
By modelling the Grand Palace on the Royal Palace at Ayutthaya, in the positioning of the courts, walls, gates and forts, the builders could move quickly. Five thousand Laotians were levied from Vientiane and brought to Bangkok, along with local officials to oversee them, and were put to work digging the foundations, building new structures and erecting the new city wall and its forts. Craftsmen and artists from Thonburi, most of them originally from Ayutthaya, fashioned the palatial residences. There were actually two palaces: the Grand Palace, and at the northern end of the inner island, the Front Palace, which was the residence of the deputy king, Rama I’s younger brother Bunma, who became Maha Sura Singhanat. A Rear Palace was also built at the mouth of the Bangkok Noi canal for the administration of Thonburi, which remained a defensive line for the city’s western side. Prince Anurakthewet, a nephew of Rama I, was installed at the Rear Palace.
The Grand Palace is divided into four main courts, separated by numerous walls and gates. These are the Outer Court, within which were the royal offices and ministries. The Middle Court housed the state apartments and ceremonial throne halls. The Inner Court was reserved solely for women, as it housed the king’s harem, and even the guards and internal security personnel were female. The fourth court was for the royal chapel, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. During the reign of Rama II the total area was extended to the south, up to the walls of Wat Pho, and this new area was used for offices for palace officials. New walls, forts and gates were built to accommodate the enlarged compound, which now covers a total of 61 acres, but since that time the palace has remained within its walls. Successive reigns and the growing needs of the nation saw new structures erected within the walls, until it became overwhelmingly crowded, and Rama V had a new royal district built at Dusit. The Grand Palace is no longer used as a residence, although it is still used for state occasions.
Although usually referred to as the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, Wat Phra Kaew is actually a chapel, not a temple, the difference being that in accordance with Siamese royal tradition, there are no living quarters for monks within the palace precincts. The figure of the Emerald Buddha is housed in the ubosot. At first appearing surprisingly small, at about 66 centimetres (26 in) high, the figure is believed to protect the safety of the nation in which it resides, and to give legitimacy to a ruler, which is why it has been coveted and fought over for centuries. No one really knows its origins. There is in existence the Chronicle of the Emerald Buddha, which relates its many journeys, but no one knows the origins of that, either. The
Chronicle states that a Buddhist sage named Nagasena created the image in the Indian city of Patna around 43 b. c. Both Indra and Visnu aided him in creating the figure, and the intention was to encourage the flourishing of Buddhism in lands beyond India. The image was later sent to Sri Lanka, where Buddhism took root in an intensely pure form. When the Burmese requested the image for Pagan, it was loaded onto a boat that never reached the Burmese shore. The image was next seen at Angkor in Cambodia, and after the Siamese invasion of Angkor it was taken to Ayutthaya. So far, so legendary. The Emerald Buddha begins to emerge into history in 1391, when it was carried from the Siamese city of Kamphaengphet further north to Chiang Rai. Both these cities even now have temples named Wat Phra Kaew. In Chiang Rai the image was encased in stucco, as a protection against invaders, until in 1434 the temple in which it was kept was struck by lightning and the stucco was damaged, revealing the image. The king of Chiang Mai directed it be taken to the Lanna capital, but the elephant carrying the image refused to take the trail to the city, and repeatedly tried to take the road to Lampang. This was regarded as an omen, and the image was housed in Lampang for thirty-two years before finally being taken to Chiang Mai, where it was placed inside Wat Chedi Luang, where it remained for eighty years. King Chai Setthathirat, the son of a Luang Prabang king and a Chiang Mai princess, ruled Chiang Mai briefly from 1546-47, and then went back to Luang Prabang, taking the Emerald Buddha with him. Later it was taken to Vientiane, and stayed there for 218 years before King Taksin dispatched Chao Phraya Chakri to quell the Lao rebellion and bring the image back to Siam. It resided in Wat Arun before Chakri, now Rama I, took the image across the river to Bangkok, where it remains to this day, venerated by all Thais. As with its origins, the actual material from which the image is made remains a mystery, for no one has ever tested it. Jasper or jadeite are the two most likely contenders.
The Front Palace, residence of the deputy king, was the second centre of government, and equalled in size the Grand Palace. The two
Were ready for occupation at the same time, in 1785, when there was a combined celebration. The palace faced east, with its back to the Chao Phraya, and fortified walls surrounded the compound, with a wall along the river serving as the palace back wall. The compound was, like the Grand Palace, divided into distinct sections: an Outer Court for officials, a Middle Court for the royal residence, and an Inner Court for women only. The only difference was the lack of a chapel. The two palaces were connected by one of the very few roads in Bangkok, which ran alongside Sanam Luang.
The position of deputy king was not a consistent one, unlike that of the reigning monarch, and there were times when the Front Palace was unoccupied. Even so, as with the Grand Palace, successive incumbents added new buildings. When Rama iii ascended the throne the Front Palace had been vacant for seven years. He appointed an uncle, Maha Uparaja Sakdibalaseb, to the position. There had earlier been a mansion used for housing monks, but it had fallen into disuse and was eventually pulled down, Rama II using the plot of land to breed rabbits. The new deputy king decided the Front Palace had to have a temple, and so he built Wat Bovornsathan Sutthawat on this site. Rama IV decided to elevate the position of deputy king to second king, having the same powers as himself, and his brother, Chutamani, was appointed as Second King Pinklao. This time, the Front Palace had been empty for eighteen years. “I was fine and happy, and then all of a sudden I was made the abbot of a long deserted monastery,” the second king grumbled in a private correspondence. Many new buildings were added during this period.
Pinklao died of tuberculosis in 1866, and Rama IV died two years later. Prince Chulalongkorn was only age 15 when he became Rama V, and a regent, Chuang Bunnag, the eldest son of Dit Bunnag, governed Siam. Prince Vichaichan, Pinklao’s 30-year-old son, was controversially appointed second king without the full consent of the monarch. Rama V was a reforming king, while Vichaichan was a conservative. A power struggle developed between them and came to a head at the end of 1874 when a fire broke out in the Grand Palace and the blame was directed at the second king’s faction. Vichaichan fled and took sanctuary in the British Consulate.
Afterwards, the Front Palace was stripped of its power and after Vichaichan’s death in 1885 the title was abolished, Rama V taking the British system of making his eldest son crown prince. The king had the Outer Court of the Front Palace converted into barracks for the royal guards, and today the buildings form Thammasat University. The buildings of the Middle Court became the National Museum. The Inner Court was at first retained for the women, but their numbers gradually dwindled and they were moved to the Grand Palace. The buildings have over the subsequent years either been demolished to make way for roads, or converted into offices.
World History
