About The Author
Beth Fouser is the Project Manager for the ACSAA Color Slide Project at the University of Michigan, a non-profit organization that provides slide sets of South and Southeast Asian art for educational and research purposes. She holds an M.A. in art history from the University of Victoria (Canada), and has lectured on Thai art and architecture. This is her first book.
About The Book
The Lord of the Golden Tower: King Prasat Thong and the Building of Wat Chaiwatthanaram is a study of symbols of power and legitimacy. King Prasat Thong, a usurper, attempted to justify his claim to the throne of Ayutthaya by reviving at Wat Chaiwatthanaram the Khmer-influenced prang in a form that had not been used for two hundred years. The author explores the cultural, historical, political and religious context from which Wat Chaiwatthanaram emerged. She describes its functions on both religious and political levels and the interrelationship between Buddhism and kingship and related conceptions of legitimacy. Prasat Thong followed King Ramathibodhi, the venerated founder of Ayutthaya, who had used the prang in his architecture, and at Wat Chaiwatthanaram the prang, along with other unusual features, such as the eight conical men (meru), the large crowned Buddha images and the twelve stucco relief panels, together create a unified visual statement designed to proclaim his ultimate right to reign as king.
Introduction
This study is concerned with architectural iconography, particularly as it relates to political power and legitimacy. It focuses on the iconography of Wat Chaiwatthanaram and the role this temple-monastery played in the establishment and legitimation of the rule of King Prasat Thong (r. 1629-1656) in Ayutthaya, the capital of the Thai kingdom from 1351 to 1767. The Thai word wat (Pali: vatthu) denotes a Buddhist temple and monastery precinct. A wat usually comprises several structures, each having its own particu-lar form and function. Not only do these structures themselves enable the wat to fulfil an important practical and symbolic role in Thai society, but so too does their architectural style. On a symbolic level, style and form can be seen as a visual language, designed to communicate a specific message. It is from this perspective that the wat known as Wat Chaiwatthanaram, 'the wat of victory and progress',' will be explored. Wat Chaiwatthanaram was built in 1630 in Ayutthaya, overlooking the Chao Phraya River, by King Prasat Thong immediately following his usurpation of the throne in September 1629. Ayutthaya is situated approximately eighty-six kilome-tres north of Bangkok (fig. 1) and today has a population of about 52,000, but in the seventeenth century it had an estimated one million inhabitants, more than contemporary London. Within a short time after its founding in 1351 by King Ramathibodhi (r. 1351-1369), Ayutthaya had become the dominant power in the Chao Phraya basin. Over the next few centuries the kingdom expanded its bounda-ries, incorporating such lands as Sukhothai, the former Thai capital further north, Angkor, the Khmer capital to the east in Cambodia, and several small independent states in the peninsular region to the south. By the seventeenth century Ayutthaya had become a major centre of Asian, European and domestic trade. During its more than four hundred years as the capital of the Thai kingdom, Ayutthaya not only attained a position of economic and political preeminence in the Thai world, it became an empire in the classical tradition of the so-called 'Indianized' states of Southeast Asia,4 Like such earlier imperial capitals as Pagan in Burma and Angkor in Cambo dia, Ayutthaya was the political, cultural and magical centre of an empire. It had inherited from these earlier civilizations the cosmological view that harmony between this world, the world of human experience, and the universe must be maintained to ensure the prosperity and well-being of the king, his subjects and the empire. One way in which harmony could be achieved was by building religious structures designed to bring about such a balance. Like the rulers of Pagan and Angkor, the kings of Ayutthaya undertook vast building projects to achieve these religious and ultimately political aims. The ruins of over four hundred wat built during the Ayutthaya period can still be seen in Thailand today. Of these, Wat Chaiwatthanaram is not only one of the best preserved and most beautiful, but is a unique and important historical and archaeological site that has been recently restored by the Thai government. Because a few centuries earlier much of Ayutthaya's territory had been part of the empire of Angkor, Khmer architecture played a particularly important role in the development of Ayutthaya's own architectural vocabulary. The influence of Khmer architecture can be seen in what is, perhaps, the most prominent feature of Wat Chaiwatthanaram: its large central prang. The prang is a specific type of tower found in Thailand, the form and style of which have been adapted from the Khmer sanctuary tower known as prasat (Sanskrit: prasada). To appreciate the historical and architectural significance of Wat Chaiwatthanaram, a brief outline of the architectural history of Ayutthaya is necessary. This history can be divided into at least three sub-periods. During the first sub-period, from 1351 to the second half of the fifteenth century, the prang was the most common tower form used in wat architecture. During the second sub-period, from the end of the fifteenth century until 1629, the prang was replaced by the bell-shaped chedi (Pali: cetiya, reliquary or memorial); this style was popular in Sukhothai, which was annexed by Ayutthaya in 1438. The third sub-period, from 1629, when Prasat Thong took power and built Wat Chaiwatthanaram, to 1767, when Ayutthaya fell to the Burmese, is noted for the reappearance of the prang as the principal tower in the wat. Wat Chaiwatthanaram occupies a unique position in having been the first major prang to be built in Ayutthaya for almost two hundred years." There seems little doubt that Prasat Thong's decision to revive the prang was deliberate, although it is less certain what motivated his decision, or why the Khmer-inspired prang was chosen in preference to any other architectural form or style.
Art (288)
Biography (235)
Buddha (1977)
Children (97)
Deities (48)
Healing (34)
Hinduism (56)
History (549)
Language & Literature (466)
Mahayana (413)
Mythology (91)
Philosophy (465)
Sacred Sites (114)
Tantric Buddhism (90)
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Visual Search
Manage Wishlist