In the early morning, when light falls low across the grounds, the shadows of the three towers stretch long and straight upon the earth. The white bell-shaped curves rising into the sky — like great inverted bells — still have the power, after all these centuries, to straighten the spine of anyone who stands before them. This was once a place where only kings were permitted to stand.
This row of three chedis marks the heart of
[Wat Phra Si Sanphet](https://woud.io/ayutthaya/ja/ayutthaya_5). In the reign that began in
1448, this ground formed the very center of the royal palace. In time, the palace was moved elsewhere, and this precinct was reborn as a sacred sanctuary of the royal family. The bell-shaped towers — known as
chedis, a form drawn from the traditions of
Sri Lanka — are said to each hold within them the remains of kings of generations past. A father, and two kings. Three towers — tomb, prayer, and the very backbone of a dynasty.
Once, within this sanctuary, there stood a great standing Buddha sheathed entirely in gold. It rose to ten times the height of a man, and the weight of its gold was said to number in the hundreds of kilograms. Merchants who had traveled from distant lands heard rumors of its radiance in port taverns; pilgrims knelt before the towers and pressed their foreheads to the earth in prayer. In the years when the kingdom shone most brilliantly, this place was the beating heart of the capital.
And then, in
[1767](https://woud.io/ayutthaya/ja/ayutthaya_12), that gold melted away in flame. The Buddha crumbled, the roofs burned, and only the three towers were left standing — their brick cores laid bare. Yet the towers did not fall. Stripped of their ornament, robbed of their gold, even as the capital itself was reduced to ash — their silhouettes still rise, thrust upward toward the sky.
The more deeply one feels the weight of what has been lost, the more quietly — and the more profoundly — these three forms that continue to stand press themselves upon the soul.
Name:
Wat Phra Si Sanphet
Location: Ayutthaya Historical Park, south side of the former Royal Palace
Foundation: 15th century; originally the center of the royal palace, later converted into a royal sacred precinct
The Three Chedis: Bell-shaped chedis in the
Sri Lankan style, said to enshrine the remains of successive kings
Destruction: The
gilded standing Buddha was destroyed when
Ayutthaya fell to Burmese forces in 1767
Map:
Ayutthaya Historical Park
Official Site:
Tourism Authority of Thailand
Photo: BondSupanat /
Pixabay (pixabay)
