Day Three in Bangkok: The National Museum

I did not expect to go out on Sunday as it was supposed to be cloudy, and my impressions of the weather when I woke up seemed to confirm the forecast. As I sat at my desk, however, the sky kept getting bluer and bluer until I could no longer bear staying inside. Walking along the road, I thought I would stop a passing tuk-tuk, but the farther I walked the less inclined I felt to pay money to cover the remaining stretch. My first stop was San Chaopho Suea, a Chinese temple also known as the Tiger God Shrine. Relatively small and lacking an open courtyard, the place was hot and heaving, its thick trails of incense smoke assaulting the senses. In addition to the Tiger God, the Goddess Mazu, and other mainstays of the Chinese pantheon, I noticed that the temple had a large statue of the Monkey King Sun Wukong.

From San Chaopho Suea it is but a short walk to the Bangkok City Pillar Shrine. The Shrine was built in 1782 to inaugurate the building of the new capital, and a horoscope for the city was deposited inside the pillar. In 1852 Rama IV installed a new pillar with a new horoscope, as the first had already started showing signs of dilapidation. Nevertheless, the renovated pavilion now holds both pillars, the older being restored to ensure its continued survival. The pavilion housing the pillars has a brilliant white colour, with a many-tiered roof and a series of golden tympani rising above the entrances.

From the City Pillar Shrine I looped around the deserted square of Sanam Luang to visit Wat Mahathat Yuwaratrangsarit. The Temple houses Thailand’s oldest university for Buddhist monks, and thus enjoys a high status among the country’s proliferation of religious buildings. Architecturally, the most interesting part of this temple are its pagodas. Two white ones stand at the very front of the courtyard, and the main hall contains a giant golden replica.

My final stop was the National Museum, where I spent a good two hours including a quick lunch. Established by Rama V in 1874 to display his father’s collections, the complex is a sprawling one. At its centre stands the Phutthaisawan Hall, which houses a golden statue of the Buddha called the Phra Phuttha Sihing. The second-most revered image in Thailand, it is said the statue was created in Sri Lanka and was brought to Sukhotai in the fourteenth century. Because of different conflicts, the statue changed locations many times, from Phitsanulok to Kamphaeng Phet, Chiang Rai, Ayutthaya, Chiang Mai, and Bangkok, often returning to previous locations in between.

Phutthaisawan Hall seems a fitting venue for this greatly sought-after statue. Its walls are densely covered in paintings depicting scenes from the life of the Buddha, and rows of richly coloured devas look down on the visitor from above. The Hall is the only remaining building of the Front Palace, the former residence of the Uparaja, often translated as “Viceroy” or “Prince-successor.” Before the so-called Front Palace Crisis of 1874, which led to the abolition of this position, the Uparaja wielded considerable power and was the heir presumptive to the throne, though not heir apparent. This dual division of power made some sense in the early days of Ayutthaya’s annexation of Sukhotai, when the king ruling from Ayutthaya named his son the Uparaja of Sukhotai and empowered him to make decisions in his absence.

Behind Phutthaisawan Hall stands the Throne Hall, which in addition to several thrones displays a number of royal memorabilia. The building to the north houses Thailand’s massive and ornate Royal Funeral Chariots, while the building to the south, also known as the Red House, illustrates the life of the royal princess who inhabited it. These buildings stand in the middle of a complex that houses artefacts with mostly longer histories. Going clockwise from the south, the exhibitions trace Thailand’s fortunes throughout the Dvaravati, Srivijaya, Sukhothai and Ayutthaya periods.