WAT BANDAI NAK





Wat Bandai Nak, of the Monastery of the Naga Staircase, is a not restored ruin located off the city island in the southern area in the Samphao Lom Sub-district. The monastery was one of the many on the westbank of Khu Cham (1).


Wat Tama stood north, Wat Kaeo Fa south and to the west was Thung Pak Kran (2).


The only remains in situ are a brick mound covered in vegetation and remnants of a large chedi. The site has been victim of treasure farming in earlier times (3).


Its historical background and period of construction are unknown.


The site is in geographical coordinates: 14° 20' 3.80" N, 100° 33' 48.87" E.





(View of a chedi at the site of Wat Bandai Nak)



Footnotes:


(1) Khu Cham, or the Cham Moat, is an existent canal situated off the city island in the southern area of Ayutthaya, running through the Samphao Lom and Khlong Takhian sub-districts. The canal splits off from the present Chao Phraya River about 500 meters east of Wat Phutthaisawan and runs south to join Khlong Takhian, nearly at the latter’s confluence with the Chao Phraya River.

(2) Thung Pak Kran is difficult to demarcate as the sub-district of Pak Kran, in my opinion, does not correspond with its old boundaries. Thung Pak Kran was an area southwest of the city of Ayutthaya bordered more or less on the north by Khlong Klaep leading to Wat Suren, on the east by the Lopburi River (Chao Phraya River), on the south partly by Khlong and Khlong Takhian—several canals cut through the area. North of Thung Pak Kran was Thung Prachet (Worachet).

(3) The Ayutthaya monasteries were sacked and plundered by the Burmese and further dismantled after the fall of Ayutthaya to reconstruct the Siamese capital in Bangkok. Most parts of the wall and the forts were dismantled in the reign of King Rama I (1782 - 1809 CE), who had the bricks taken to be used in constructing the city walls for the new capital in Bangkok. In 1784 CE, bricks from the ruins of Ayutthaya were used to build a barrage in the Lat Pho Canal at Phra Pradaeng to halt the intrusion of saline water farther inland. Another round of collecting building material occurred in the reign of King Rama III (1824 - 1851 CE) when remaining bricks and laterite stones, including those of the Thamnop Ro causeway and the Elephant Bridge, were sent down to Bangkok to be used in the construction of a giant stupa, a copy of Ayutthaya's Chedi Phukhao Thong, called Wat Saket which collapsed into rubble. Ayutthaya's temple bricks were also used to strengthen the bed of the Bangkok - Ayutthaya - Lopburi railway track at the end of the 19th century. When, in the last century, the demand for antiques increased, and the amulet markets mushroomed, Ayutthaya's ruins were plundered one more time. During the fifties and early sixties, witnesses recount, it was common for locals in the Ayutthaya area to collect the bricks of the ruins. The bricks were locally used to help expand other temple sites but were mostly sold to contractors and shipped on a large scale as there was a demand from Bangkok. Trucks and boats from Bangkok collected the bricks at 20 Baht a load.