Wat Phra Kao by Esther Singleton
"Wat Phra Kao, Bangkok" is a descriptive essay by Carl Bock, excerpted from his 1884 travel narrative *Temples and Elephants* and included by Esther Singleton in her anthology *Turrets, Towers, and Temples*. The piece moves from a broad survey of Siamese religious culture to a detailed account of Bangkok's most sacred royal temple. Bock opens at Paknam, the point of the traveller's first entry into Siam, where the landscape immediately signals the country's defining devotion: as Constantinople is called the City of Mosques, Bangkok may with even greater reason be called the City of Temples. Across every terrain — rich plains, forest recesses, mountain summits — stand *Wats* housing images of the Buddha, ringed by *phrachedees*, those tapering votive structures that every Buddhist erects as an act of piety or atonement. The wealth, time, and labour consumed by these monuments, Bock observes, are beyond calculation. The essay then narrows to its principal subject: the royal temple known formally as Phra Sri Ratana Satsadaram and commonly as Wat Phra Kao. Its foundation was laid by King Phra Puttha Yot Fa Chulalok (Rama I) as a shrine for the Emerald Buddha — the palladium of the capital — and as a monument to royal piety. The temple was inaugurated in 1785 at the third anniversary of Bangkok's founding, but only the church and library were finished in time; successive reigns added to it without completing it. That distinction fell to King Chulalongkorn (Rama V), who on 23 December 1879 vowed to finish what his ancestor had begun. The restoration was accomplished on 17 April 1882, after two years, three months, and twenty days of work — and exactly one century after the capital's foundation. The formal dedication ceremony was held on 21 April 1882, amid general rejoicings. The work of restoration was distributed among the king's brothers, each charged with a specific portion: one relaid the marble pavement of the Obosot; a second renewed the stone inscriptions within it; a third laid a brass floor; a fourth restored the pearl inlay throughout; others repaired the ceiling, paved corridors, changed decayed roof-beams, covered the great phrachedee in gold tiles manufactured in Germany, renewed stone ornaments, erected gilt copper demon-figures, purchased marble statues, and repaired the cloisters. The result of this coordinated fraternal effort, driven by religious devotion and loyalty to the crown, was the completion of a structure a hundred years in the making. Under the name Wat Phra Kao is gathered a complex of buildings enclosed by walls painted with elaborate frescoes. At its centre stands the Phra Marodop, a cross-shaped chapel where the king hears sermons from the prince-high-priest on festive occasions. Its walls are richly inlaid and its ceiling painted in blue and gold, but its most remarkable feature is the ebony doors, inlaid with mother-of-pearl figures of Thewedas set within scrollwork borders. Behind this chapel rises the Sri Ratana Phrachedee, entirely sheathed in gilded tiles, which blaze with extraordinary beauty in the tropical sunlight. The building of supreme religious interest is the Obosot, which houses the Emerald Buddha. This figure — carved from green jade, described by Bock as of matchless beauty — was discovered at Kiang Hai in A.D. 1436 and, after many vicissitudes, was eventually enshrined in Bangkok's royal temple. According to the season, it is dressed in different sets of gold ornaments and robes. The image is placed at the very summit of a towering altar, which makes it difficult to see clearly, as the Obosot's windows are usually kept shuttered. Attendants will open one or two shutters for a small fee, and when sunlight finally penetrates the dim interior it falls on the figure enthroned above an array of coloured vases, real and artificial flowers, gold, silver, and bronze Buddhas, Bohemian glassware, lamps, candlesticks, and flickering tapers — the whole crowned by a profusion of multi-tiered umbrellas signalling the image's supreme sanctity. The effect on the worshipper who has been raised to see in this calm, solemn figure the embodiment of earthly goodness and the promise of future happiness is, Bock writes, powerful and lasting. The Obosot's floor is tessellated brass; its walls are covered with the flat, perspectiveless frescoes characteristic of Siamese sacred art, depicting scenes from Buddhist history. Beyond its devotional function, the Obosot serves as the setting for the semi-annual *Tunam* ceremony — the ritual drinking of sanctified water by which princes, officers of state, and the representatives of the Siamese people renew their oath of allegiance to the crown. This ceremony takes place twice a year, in April and in September. Bock closes with candid modesty, acknowledging that the foregoing account conveys only a faint idea of the true character of this sacred and historic edifice — a monument that will henceforth stand as the symbol of the reigning Siamese dynasty and as a permanent marker of an epoch in Siamese history. Sources: - [Turrets, Towers, and Temples — Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/72946/72946-0.txt)
By Esther Singleton · First published 1901 · Genre: Travel Literature, Architecture and Architectural History, Religious Studies and Buddhism