WAT SING RAI





Wat Sing Rai is a defunct monastery situated on Ayutthaya’s city island in the southeastern part of the city in the Pratu Chai Sub-district. The monastery stood on the present property of the Rachaphat University Student Dormitory.


The temple was situated west of Khlong Makham Riang (1) and south of Rojana Road. Wat Tha Phai (defunct) was north, Wat Jin (defunct) northwest, Wat Tha Ma south.


Wat Singha Rai was likely part of the Chinese quarter, east of Khlong Pratu Jin (2), situated on the island's southeast corner. ‘Jin’ is the Thai denomination for Chinese.


Chris Baker wrote: "In the seventeenth-century European accounts, the main Chinese commercial settlement was in the southeast, behind the port, where the main thoroughfare was called Chinese Street and the city gate called Chinese Gate. In the Description, this market stretches over half a kilometer along Chinese Street, which is lined with “Chinese brick shops on both sides” selling “all kinds of goods from China, including food and fruit”. This market has also expanded to the east and merged with the Three Horses Market behind Diamond Fort. On the island, close to the main Chinese market, there are Chinese settlements making sweets, noodles, barrels, water jars, rattan furniture, and metal ware." [1]


Historical data about the monastery and its construction are unknown.


Wat Sing Rai on the maps:


On a 19th century map by an unknown surveyor, we find the temple south of the old road linking the Sing Bridge over the Wanon and Talat Jin Bridges with the Nai Kai Bridge over the Makham Riang Canal. Wat Tha Ma was east, Wat Sam Jin west and Wat Tha Phai northeast, opposite the road. The map indicates no stupa.


The monastery shows on Phraya Boran Rachathanin's [PBR] map drafted in 1926 CE as Wat Sing Thai. Phraya Boran (1871-1936 CE) was the Superintendent Commissioner of Monthon Ayutthaya from 1925 till 1929 CE but occupied important functions since 1896 CE in Monthon Ayutthaya. Here also, the monastery is situated west of Khlong Makham Riang. PBR drafts the temple on the north bank of a canal linking Khlong Pratu Jin with Khlong Makham Riang. Wat Jin stood northwest, Wat Sam Jin west and Wat Tha Ma south below the canal. An unnamed temple was northeast, what I believe must be Wat Tha Phai.


A 2007 GIS Fine Arts Department map indicates the temple’s position in geographical coordinates 14° 21' 0.02" N, 100° 34' 30.68" E.


Footnotes:


(1) Khlong Makham Riang, or the Canal of the aligned Tamarind Trees, was before called Khlong Nai Kai. It is a still existent canal situated east on Ayutthaya's city island. The canal was a shortcut in the oxbow of the old Lopburi River. It has today its origin at Khlong Ho Rattana Chai below Wat Senasanaram and the Front Palace, and its mouth at the present Chao Phraya River, west of Phet Fortress. At the mouth was one of the eleven water gates of Ayutthaya called Pratu Nai Kai. The southern exit of the canal, having today a water regulator, has been altered. The original mouth was about 170 metres more south, close to Pom Phet. Khlong Makham Riang is one of the three large canals running north to south, of which two still are in existence.

(2) Khlong Pratu Jin was the southern extension of Khlong Pratu Khao Pluak and part of a waterway running through the middle of Ayutthaya from north to south. The canal, a shortcut in the oxbow of the Lopburi River, ran until the Chikun Bridge and continued to the Chinese water gate (Pratu Jin).


References:


[1] Baker, Chris (2011). Before Ayutthaya Fell: Economic Life in an Industrious Society. Markets and Production in the City of Ayutthaya before 1767: Translation and Analysis of Part of the Description of Ayutthaya. Journal of the Siam Society. Vol. 99.