Wat Phra Si Sanphet
Interesting facts
- The great Buddha that gave the temple its name had a bronze core weighing about 64 tonnes and took more than three years to complete.
- After founding Bangkok in 1782, King Rama I had the surviving fragments of the Phra Si Sanphet image moved to Wat Pho and enshrined in a chedi built for them.
- The temple stands on the site of Ayutthaya's very first royal palace, ordered by King U Thong in 1350, whose three main halls were built of wood.
- The temple's name translates roughly as the Temple of the Holy, Splendid Omniscient One, an epithet of the Buddha.
- The Burmese sack of 1767 brought down two of the three chedis; only the eastern one was still standing when the Fine Arts Department rebuilt them in 1956.
- A royal hall to the north of the main chapel housed another colossal image, the Phra Phuttha Lokanat, which stood more than 10 metres tall.
- The royal chapel that sheltered the giant Buddha was built in 1499, and its image rested on a pedestal about 8 metres long.
- The temple was renovated in 1742 under King Borommakot, only 25 years before Ayutthaya was burned and abandoned.
- The whole precinct was enclosed by a high wall with four gates, lined inside by small chedis and open pavilions, some of which still survive.
Why it is worth it
Three tall bell-shaped chedis standing in a row, their spires tapering to fine points against the sky, are the image that most people carry away from Ayutthaya — and they belong to Wat Phra Si Sanphet. Built of brick, they swell from stepped bases into smooth, rounded bells. Lined up on a single axis, they give the ruined precinct an almost architectural calm.
This was not a monastery but the royal temple of the kings of Ayutthaya, used by the royal family alone and standing within the grounds of the palace. In 1448 King Borommatrailokkanat moved his residence further north and turned the old palace site into a sacred precinct. The chedis are royal reliquaries: the eastern and central ones were raised in 1492 by King Ramathibodi II for the ashes of his father and his brother, and the third was added in 1529 for the ashes of Ramathibodi II himself.
The temple took its name from the Phra Si Sanphet, a standing Buddha about 16 metres high cast in bronze and covered in gold leaf — some 343 kilograms of gold in all. When the Burmese army took Ayutthaya in 1767, the city was burned; the gold was melted off and the image destroyed, and the halls around the chedis were reduced to the brick shells, bare platforms and rows of column stumps that remain today. Thailand's Fine Arts Department restored the chedis in the 1950s, and in 1991 the site became part of the Historic City of Ayutthaya World Heritage Site.
The best time to see it is late in the day, when the brick turns warm orange and the chedis throw long shadows across the lawns. Right next door stands Wihan Phra Mongkhon Bophit, a rebuilt hall sheltering one of Thailand's largest bronze Buddha images.
Getting there
Wat Phra Si Sanphet lies in Ayutthaya Historical Park, about 2 km from the centre of Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya. Trains from Bangkok's Krung Thep Aphiwat Central Terminal reach Ayutthaya station in about an hour; from there the park is a short tuk-tuk or bicycle ride across the river. The nearest airport is Bangkok's Don Mueang International (DMK), about 49 km away; Suvarnabhumi (BKK) is the main international gateway.
Plan your visit
We have no confirmed visit data yet. Once it is confirmed, this block also carries the date it was checked.
Nearby places
- Wat Mahathat (Ayutthaya) 1.0 km · monastery
- Wat Chaiwatthanaram 2.3 km · temple
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Wat Phra Si Sanphet was the holiest temple on the site of the old Royal Palace in Thailand's ancient capital of Ayutthaya until the city was completely destroyed by the Burmese in 1767, during the Burmese–Siamese War.
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