Introduction to Wat Suthat

King Rama 1 intended to make his new capital of Rattanakosin as grand as Ayutthaya; he started by calling on architects from the former capital to build a temple as grand as Wat Phanon Choeng which was Ayutthaya’s largest temple.

Wat Suthat was intended to not only mark the heart of Bangkok, but also to mark the center of the universe. In fact, the name “suthat” denotes Suthatsa Nakhon, the celestial city of Indra which sits at the top of the mythical Mount Meru. The temple halls and other structures clearly resemble the traditional pattern of the Buddhist universe.

Precise planning from the beginning earned it praise as “the most finely proportioned temple.” Wat Suthat also contains some of the most excellent examples of Thai Buddhist art and architecture outside of a museum.

Despite its reputation as one of Bangkok’s finest temples, the temple has yet to become a popular tourist destination. Nevertheless, Wat Suthat remains one of Bangkok’s four most important temples; it is in the highest grade of first-class royal temples and has been under royal patronage since Bangkok’s founding. The temple school trains and supplies priests for many important royal ceremonies. The compound is enormous, covering almost 45,000 square meters, that’s over 10 acres of temple. It boasts Bangkok’s tallest temple hall as well as Bangkok’s largest ordination hall. It is also home to the largest bronze Buddha image in the country, a Buddha image made entirely from used opium containers, and one of Thailand’s oldest Buddhist engravings.

Construction on the temple began in 1807 and took 40 years to complete, from the first to the third reigns. Rama 1 installed the main Buddha image and laid the foundation for the grand viharn that was built up around it. King Rama 2 continued work on the viharn by adding all the ornamentation, he then started work on the ordination hall behind it. It was left to King Rama 3 to finish the entire construction according to the original plan. He added many more buildings all over the temple compound and gave names to all the Buddha images inside. He was also responsible for naming the temple itself.


Terraces of Wat Suthat

A gallery encircles three terraces with the grand viharn in the middle. 156 Buddha images in meditation are placed in a row along the walls of the gallery which is lined with murals depicting the life story of Rama. The lowest terrace is a wide courtyard filled with odd cement statues of scholars, sailors and warriors which were brought as ballast in rice boats returning from China. On the second level are twenty-eight Chinese pagodas signifying the 28 different Buddhas born on Earth.

In each corner of the terrace stands a bronze horse, all of which were cast and installed in 1855 and have since turned green with age. The enclosed upper terrace holds four small pavilions. They are small-scale wooden replicas of the image hall, with each pavilion housing two Buddha images.

Viharn Exterior

You should now be standing in front of Bangkok’s tallest viharn.

The Chinese stone pavilion in front of the main hall was formally located inside the temple hall, but was placed here during the eighth reign so that the public could get an unhindered view of the presiding Buddha image.

This image hall was intentionally built to predominate and be a landmark like Suthatsa Nakhon atop Mount Meru. The base was specially made to stand 6 meters high in the concept of a heavenly abode. The image hall itself is a structure with a two-tiered roof and front and back porches, the roofs of which are also two-tiered. On the gable of the roof is an exquisite wood carving with colored glass of the god Indra atop Erawan, a mythical 3-headed elephant.

Climb the staircase onto the frontal porch This porch was added in the fourth reign, to reduce the distance from the main gate to the main temple hall. The porches are of the same construction as the viharn, but instead of Lord Indra on the gable you will find Lord Vishnu.
beep… You are requested to take off your shoes before entering the viharn. As you do this please take a look at the large wooden doors leading into the hall.

Viharn Wooden Doors

These door panels are superb examples of Thai wood carving and are considered to be the most important art pieces of the period. There are three panels on each side in front and at the back. Each is a single thick plank of teak wood about 1 1/2 meters wide, 5 1/2 meters tall, and 16 centimeters thick. Each is individually carved in five layers of different depths, with the deepest layer at 15 centimeters. The carved designs are of squirrels, monkeys, and hermits living in the mythical forests surrounding Mount Meru.

The carvings on the original front doors were partially the work of King Rama 2, himself a noted artist. But these were moved to the National Museum after one door was partially burned by incense sticks in 1959. The original doors were replaced by the doors from the backside of the temple. Supposedly the tools and molds used to carve the originals were thrown into the river so that these works could never be copied.

Sri Sakyamuni Buddha Image

The first thing you will see after entering the hall is Phra Sri Sakyamuni, the name given to the oldest cast bronze image from Sukhothai. The image used to be called Phra Doh meaning “Big Buddha” because it is one of the largest metal Buddhas in Thailand.

The image was cast in 1361. It was later found in the crumbling ruins of Mahathat Temple in Sukhothai where it had been exposed for over 4 centuries to rain, sun, and forest fires. King Rama 1 hoped to salvage the image and had it floated down the river to be installed here. It landed in Bangkok in April of 1808, and festivities were held for three days to celebrate its arrival. But the Big Buddha, at over 8 meters tall, was so large that it could not pass through the pier gate, so a part of the city wall had to be torn down. Rama 1, even though terminally ill, assisted in pulling the image through the hole in the wall and across town to Wat Suthat. It is said that after Rama 1 personally hoisted the image into place, he whispered to his assistants that his work “was now done.” He died later that week.

Behind the throne there is a gilded limestone-carving of the 8th century Dvaravati period, two and a half meters in height. The upper portion tells the story of the Buddha teaching his mother in the heavens. The lower portion portrays the Buddha performing the miracle of the mango tree with which he shocked his rivals into submission by projecting multiple apparitions of himself into a mango tree. This bas-relief is one of Siam’s great masterpieces and one of the oldest Buddhist artifacts in Southeast Asia.

Just under the throne, lie the ashes of King Rama 8. The young king had studied at Wat Suthat and wished that his ashes would be interred here. They were placed underneath the image on the 4th of April after his untimely death in 1950. A life size statue of Rama 8 was installed outside in the northeast corner of the courtyard by his brother Rama 9, the present King. Every year on June 9th the King holds a memorial service for his brother here.
Mural Paintings

Inside the viharn you will see murals on all the walls. These murals were painted during the reign of Rama 3 portraying amazingly intricate details of celestial palaces with deities, unusual creatures, and lotus ponds. Guardians are painted on the window panels and in between the windows are murals telling the life stories of the 28 Buddhas. On the 8 inner columns are beautiful mural paintings depicting the 3-worlds of Thai Buddhist cosmology.

The murals of Wat Suthat are considered to be the most beautiful of the Rattanakosin period. But by the 80s they had deteriorated significantly. At that time there were over 1000 bats nesting in the rafters overhead, and their dripping dung was damaging the murals. Eventually a chemical with a horrible smell was used to drive them all away. Once the bats had been evicted, the German Embassy funded a major renovation of the Wat Suthat murals. The restored works were unveiled in 1985.