WAT MAI (3)





Wat Mai, or the New Monastery, was located off the city island in the southern area of Ayutthaya in the Samphao Lom Sub-district (1).


The monastery was situated on the east bank of Khlong Takhian (2) and between Wat Nak on the opposite river bank and Wat Samphao Lom in the south.


There are no traces of the monastery above ground level.


Historical data about the monastery and its construction are unknown.


The site is only indicated on a 1974 CE Fine Arts Department map.


Wat Mai must have been located in approximative geographical coordinates: 14° 20' 4.69" N, 100° 32' 55.34" E.



Footnotes:


(1) Sub-district called after the village Ban Samphao Lom near the Chao Phraya River. The village is on the Monthon Krung Kao map (1916 CE). John Bowring (1857, London, John W. Parker and Son, West Strand), in his book ‘The Kingdom and People of Siam’, wrote: "Between the modern and the ancient capital, Bangkok and Ayuthia, is a village called the “Sunken Ship,” the houses being erected round a mast which towers above the surface at low water."

(2) Khlong Takhian is a still existing canal south of Ayutthaya's city island, running mainly through Pak Kran and Khlong Takhian sub-districts. The canal is named after the Malabar Ironwood, a tree often used for making boats and ship masts. The canal originates at the Chao Phraya River near the St Joseph Church in the former Cochin Chinese Settlement. It has its mouth further south, back in the Chao Phraya River, below the former Portuguese settlement and opposite the northern tip of Rian Island (Ko Rian). The canal was a man-made shortcut or 'Khlong lat' between two stretches of the old Lopburi River at a time the waterway was surrounding Ayutthaya, used by boats to avoid the heavy current of the river and the turbulent waters near the Bang Kraja confluence. Takhian is likely a corruption of the name of a former village called Ban Tha Khia near the mouth of the canal.