AYUTTHAYA HISTORICAL RESEARCH



WAT PHO CHAI





Wat Pho Chai (Rang) is a not restored ruin located off the city island in the southern area of Ayutthaya in Samphao Lom Sub-district (1). The temple's name could be translated as the Monastery of the Victorious Bodhi Tree "Rang" stands for "vacated".

The monastery is south of Wat Phraya Phan (ruin) and west of the location of the San Paolo Church (defunct).

These ruins were thought by quite a few scholars to be the location of the Portuguese Jesuit Church of San Paolo until excavations performed by the Fine Arts Department in 2008 CE concluded it must have been a Buddhist monastic site. [1]

Historical data about the monastery and the exact time of its construction are unknown.

Excavations resulted in the findings of several small Buddha images and pieces from the boundary stones (sema) dating from the late Ayutthaya period (1629-1767 CE). [2]

Other discoveries, for example, pieces of a small bottle dating back to the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279 CE), indicate that before the arrival of the Portuguese in this area, the location was already inhabited by an ancient local community, pre-dating the Ayutthaya-era. [3]

The site is not indicated on Phraya Boran Ratchathanin's map of 1926 CE, as the latter indicated the Wat Portukes Yesuwid Nikai (Monastery of the Portuguese Jesuit Sect) in that area (2).

The site of the Jesuit Church has not been discovered as yet.

The ruin of Wat Pho Chai is in geographical coordinates: 14° 19' 39.80" N, 100° 34' 16.20" E.




(View of a remnant of Wat Pho Chai)



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) The Bangkok River was in the Ayutthayan era, the stretch of water of the Lopburi River from Bang Kraja at the southern point of Ayutthaya till its confluence with the Chao Phraya River at Bang Sai. The Bangkok River became a stretch of the Chao Phraya River in the 19th century after the latter was diverted from Ban Kum to Ayutthaya in 1857 CE. The stretch of water from Ban Kum until Bang Sai is called today the Bang Ban Canal and joins the Noi River at Nam Tao. The latter flows south until Bang Sai, where it joins the present Chao Phraya River.


References:


[1] Blog from Bidya Sriwattanasarn - http://bidyarcharn.blogspot.com/retrieved - 8 June 2010.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.



Selected PICTURES



Pictures taken January 2009 CE



MAPS



Map 1 - Google Earth.



When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.
(Alexis de Tocqueville)





HISTORY OF AYUTTHAYA



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