If you want to understand the complex and multi-layered history of Thailand, one of the most illuminating cities is Lopburi. Throughout the early history of Thailand, the small city was often a crossroads of culture, and its numerous monuments show a variety of influences ‒ Dvaravati, Khmer and Thai being the most important. Wat Nakhon Kosa is neither the largest nor the most impressive of Lopburi’s monuments, indeed it is rather unprepossessing. But it is one at which the multiple layers of Lopburi’s history are most dramatically juxtaposed. Here, in close proximity, we find a Dvaravati chedi (11th century or earlier), a small Khmer-era prang with some stucco decoration and a 16th century Ayutthaya-era vihaan. Three civilizations rub shoulders in a single complex, showing how cultural influences cross-fertilized in the ancient city of Lopburi.
The Dvaravati-era is largely a ruin, though the base is well-preserved in this corner
The oldest of the monuments at Wat Nakhon Kosa is an especially rare treasure: a Mon-Dvaravati chedi which may well date from the first millennium AD. There are very few extant monuments from the whole Dvaravati culture, so for this reason alone, the chedi is valuable heritage. For the most part, it looks like a rather shapeless block of red bricks, but in one corner (pictured) the chedi is still comparatively intact, and we can see the brickwork of the base clearly. It slants inward and then outward, giving it a simple but elegant appearance. It supports a narrow ledge which runs around the edge of the monument. This was where devotees had once circumambulated around the central hump of the chedi, thereby earning Buddhist merit. It gives us a rare hint of the religious life of the denizens of Dvaravati-era Lopburi.
Stucco ornamentation on the walls of the Khmer-era prang
Of the three monuments on the small site, easily the best-preserved is the Khmer-era prang. It is a small, red-brick tower which was once coated in pale, white stucco. The traces of remaining stucco reveal some delicate decorative work. It is markedly different from the stucco work we would find in Cambodia itself, showing the absorption of local influences. The Dvaravati civilization had specialized in stucco decoration and it seems that Khmer prangs in the city had absorbed this aspect of Mon-Dvaravati culture. This process is clearest in the niches which house standing Buddha figures, a common feature in Mon monuments, especially in the city of Lamphun. There is a clearly Mon influence in the Buddha niches on the prang.
The standing Buddha niche
The third monument on the site is a vihaan from the late 16th century. By this time the city of Lopburi had been absorbed by Ayutthaya, becoming a satellite city of the great Thai kingdom. However, it is interesting that the Dvaravati chedi and the Khmer prang were now re-purposed as part of a Thai wat. Thai religious culture proved to be very syncretic, especially when meeting other Hindu-Buddhist cultures. During the Ayutthaya kingdom, we would often see Mon-style chedis and Khmer-style prangs incorporated into Thai temple complexes. Part of the richness of Ayutthaya-era architecture was due to its judicious absorption of the built heritage of earlier South-East Asian civilizations. Lopburi was one of the crossroads of culture where this process was particularly pronounced.
It is often said that little remains of Thailand’s Dvaravati period, especially in the form of monuments of archaeological sites. Guidebooks to Thailand give very little to no attention to the historical remains of the Dvaravati civilization, giving the false impression that there is nothing to see. However, the more I have researched Dvaravati, the more inaccurate this impression has come to seem. There are quite a number of interesting sites in Central Thailand where you can see traces of Dvaravati. One of these are Mueang Khok Mai Den (also known as Meuang Bon) in the modern province of Nakhon Sawan.
In the early period of Thailand’s history, its highways were its rivers, and the rivers of Thailand clearly played a crucial role in the spread of civilization in this part of the world. Tellingly, almost all early settlements were located on or near major rivers. The city of Nakhon…
One of the unique historical legacies of Chaiyaphum province, a remote province in Thailand’s Northeastern region (Isaan), is two Dvaravati-era sites which date back to the ninth century. They have never been comprehensively explored by archaeologists, but if they were, there would doubtless be much to discover: a small museum in a local school contains examples of ancient bricks and pottery. Yet until such excavations are made, the best evidence of the historical importance of the village is its collection of ninth century bai sema, Buddhist boundary markers which were once used to delineate the sacred place of places of worship. No less than 29 stone boundary markers have been found in the small village of Ban Kut Ngong, making it one of the biggest treasure troves of such antiquities in the region.
This suggests that the village was once home to a sizeable community of Buddhist monks and perhaps even a workshop of skilled artisans who could make bai sema of high artistic quality. Ten of the Ban Kut Ngong bai sema feature jataka scenes which tell the life of the Buddha, and they are rendered with considerable artistic skill. Though they are not as crisp as the masterly specimens in the Khon Kaen National Museum, they predate the examples in that collection by a few centuries, making them amongst the old examples of narrative art surviving from Thailand’s Northeast. Some of the other boundary markers feature simpler motifs such as the stupa-khumba design, which is more typically associated with sites in the Chi River system.
As at Ban Khon Sawan, a similar site from Chaiyaphum province, the boundary markers are no longer placed in situ. They have been rounded up and put together under a protective shelter in the grounds of a local wat. While something has been lost in terms of historical authenticity, keeping them all in one place makes it easier to protect the stones from art thieves or merely weathering from the elements. In recent years chicken-wire has been fitted to the underside of the ceiling as well. This would stop birds nesting under the shelter and defecating on the ancient stones. It is encouraging to see that the unusual heritage of the village has been protected in this way.
A time-worn image of a seated Buddha
One of several beautiful images from the site is the image featured to the left. Though time-worn, the image of the Buddha is still very beautiful, showing an elegant head-dress,the broad nose and thick lips of the Mon people, slender, delicate limbs and a lower body folded in the lotus position, with the feet seemingly crossed Sri-Lanka style. A figure to the right is shown in a attitude of devotion. The comparatively small size of this figure emphasizes the preternatural qualities of the Buddha, who assumes a larger-than-life presence.
A standing Buddha and the banyan tree
Perhaps the greatest masterpiece of the Ban Kut Ngong boundary markers is the one featured to the left. It shows a beautifully rendered standing Buddha with a graceful form adorned with a loincloth, a towering head-dress showing the Buddha’s worldly status and a slight, almost feminine torso. To the left of the image is a highly stylized image of a tree, presumably the banyan tree beneath which the Buddha attained enlightenment. Once more, there is a second humanoid figure on the stone, and again its comparatively diminutive size appears to emphasize the particular status of the Buddha. This is the crispest of the Ban Kut Ngong bai sema and the most interesting scene to the casual visitor.
A third memorable image from Ban Kut Ngong shows another standing Buddha, but this one without the banyan tree. This Buddha is demonstrating the vitarka mudra hand position, which looks somewhat like the Western ‘okay’ hand gesture. The significance of this hand gesture is that it is the delivering a sermon posture, which would be far from obvious unless it was explained to you. This beautiful carving has its eyes averted downwards and the facial features are again typically Mon and rendered with sensitivity and finesse. The Buddha has wearing a cloth about the waist which resembles a delicately draped Khmer sampot (sarung). Behind the Buddha’s head is what appears to be an ornamental wooden pavilion with a pair of lanterns hanging down from it. It is yet another example of the little-known artistic legacy of this small Thai village.
Even though Phu Phra Bat Historical Park ranks as one of the greatest historical sites of both the Dvaravati civilization and the entire Isaan region, it is a site which attracts few foreign visitors. The reason for this is fairly simple to discern: the site occupies a remote location in the forests of the Phu Phan Mountains. It requires a fair bit of determination to get here, but if you make the effort, you will find a strange and alluring cultural landscape which combines ancient rock art, Buddhist shrines and bizarrely weathered sandstone rock-forms. If a traveller only had time to see one Dvaravati-era historical site on their holiday, I would recommend either this one or Si Thep in Phetchabun Province.
If you have your own car, finding your way here is an easy day trip from either Udon Thani or Nong Khai. However, even not having our own transport, we managed to visit Phu Phra Bat Historical Park an a long but not overly rushed day trip. Songtheaws run hourly throughout the day from Udon Thani to Ban Phue (บ้านผือ), the closest town to the historical park. They leave from Rangsina Market, which is about six kilometres from the centre of Udon Thani. Ban Phue is pronounced something like baan per (say per with your clenched together and it should work). The trip will take around an hour but the rural countryside you pass through makes for a pleasant enough trip. When you arrive in Ban Phue, a town with a few markets and an obligatory branch of 7-11, you are now within about 10 kilometres of the historical park. I walked up and down the main street of Ban Phue asking every tuk-tuk driver if they wanted to take me out to the park, but a few of them turned me down. The fourth driver I asked finally agreed to go to Phu Phra Bat, quoting me a price of ฿400 including two hours’ waiting time.
The park is located in a sizable forest reserve, which you enter a few kilometres before reaching the tourist centre. It is not the lush, wet rainforest associated with popular parks such as Khao Yai, however; the forest here is classified as dry evergreen forest and it has a sparser, scrubbier feel. It certainly makes a peaceful, beautiful surrounding for the cultural relics of the area. It would be worth coming to the site just to hike through the forest here alone.
At the main trail-head there is a small car park, which is completely surrounded by forest. The ranger station is here. The sight of foreign tourists is still rare enough that the rangers seemed surprised and pleased to see us. One of them seemed to view it as an opportunity to practice his English by asking about Australia and telling us a little about the history of the site. He also gave us a map of the site: it contained 21 different cultural objects which could be seen on a long loop. He said that the full loop would take us about two hours to walk, including a diversion up the cliff-tops to see the views from the top of the hill. We paid our ฿100 (foreigner price) each and set off on the walking tour.
Phu Phra Baht Historical Park could best be described as a cultural landscape: a natural landscape which contains many marks and vestiges of traditional land use. However, at Phu Phra Baht this is not related to the economic use of the landscape. This area seems mostly to have been used for ceremonial or religious purposes. These connections happened both in Thailand’s prehistoric past, when earlier peoples used the rock shelters of the hill as a site for paintings, and in the Dvaravati era when Mon peoples transformed rock formations into religious monuments demarcated by carved stone boundary stones. In both cases the attraction is a combination of the striking features of the natural environment and human creative endeavours at the site. Exploring these cultural relics in such a beautiful setting is what makes Phu Phra Baht special.
Everywhere along the main loop you will encounter strangely weathered rock formations. These are most often large rocks which are balanced on small ‘stems’. Despite their unearthly shapes, they are natural forms, created when a glacier carved its way through the hill a couple of millions of years ago. These rock formations which provided the inspiration for cultural activity at the hill during two distinct periods of history: first, during the prehistoric era, when the natural rock shelters beneath the formations provided an ideal place for primitive artworks; and secondly during the Mon period, when the rock temples were transformed into Buddhist temples by the addition of boundary stones. This combination of cultural relics at Phra Phra Baht is utterly unique in South-East Asia.
We set off on our walk, heading towards an area of the site known for its caves; not far along the walking trail are the two best rock art sites at Phu Phra Baht. They are both thought to date back between two and three thousand years ago. One is called Tham Wua (the Cattle Cave) and the other is known as Tham Khon (the People Cave), both of which are named after the rock paintings within. We visited Tham Wua first. It consists of a row of cattle-like creatures which are rendered in a reddish-brown ocher. Perhaps they represent the banteng, a form of wild cattle which still exists in the remote forests of South-East Asia. The next stop was Tham Khon, which is probably the most impressive of the rock art sites at Phu Phra Baht. It consisted of a row of stylized figures in reddish-brown hues. They have a strange stance, almost as if they are performing a dance, which may suggest some kind of spiritual aspect to the painting. However, my interpretation could easily be off the mark.
The humanoid figures in Tham Khon at Phu Phra Baht Historical Park
In this part of the site, the forest is very close to the relics, closing around the rock forms on all sides. The sound of insect life and bird-life is always audible, and at one point there even came a loud whoop, which sounded very like a gibbon calling in the forest canopy. I later checked later to see if there were any primates in the forest park and was unable to find any mention of them: perhaps it was just an unusual bird call, after all. Nonetheless, the closeness of the natural world at Phu Phra Baht makes it unique among Thailand’s ten great historical parks. We looked around the caves and the rock formations, the only people in the vicinity. From there, we began the climb up towards the cliff-tops, the walking trail occasionally passing by rock forms of greyish-pink rock.
A strangely weathered rock formation along the side of the walking-trail
At the top of the ascent is a flat area of stone with the best views at the whole site. These cliff-tops are known in Thai as Phra Sadej, and they are for the more scenically inclined, a bigger attraction than the historical relics. From here you have views down in a small valley outside the edge of the forest reserve, some of which is under cultivation. Yet there is no settlement in view and the area is lushly green and very peaceful. It reminded me very much of Phu Por, the Buddhist mountain in Kalasin province, which also combines hilltop views and Buddhist history, but there was no doubting the superiority of the views at Phu Phra Baht.
The views from the cliff-top of Phra Sadej
From Phra Sadej, the trail curves down to the largest cluster of historical sites, which was presumably any area of great ritual significance in the Mon era. It is so rich in Buddhist antiquities that to try and describe them all would be tiresome for even the most patient blog reader. So I will just give an overview of what struck me as the most eye-catching and remarkable parts of its Buddhist heritage. And the first thing that comes to mind is Bo Nang Usa, a roughly square-shaped ‘well’, which is carved straight down into the sandstone of the hill, reaching a depth of several metres. It must have been a truly painstaking feat to carve this ‘well’ out of solid rock, and it exemplified better than anything else I saw at Phu Phra Bat the patience and dedication of Buddhist monks who used the hill as a retreat. Happily, Bo Nang Usa has lasted to the present day, still serving as a receptacle for rain water in an area which no supply of fresh water.
In the tourist literature about the site, it is sometimes stated that Phu Phra Baht is an enigma. While it may seem mysterious and unexplained to the casual visitor, the original function of the site is well-established. It served as a Buddhist ritual centre for forest monks during the Mon-Dvaravati period. The Buddhist religious elements of the site are readily apparent. The most noteworthy of these are collections of bai sema (beautifully shaped stone boundary markers), which are typically placed in a circle of eight. This was the number often used to mark the boundary of an ubosot, one of the main buildings in a Buddhist temple complex. The twist at Phu Phra Baht is that the stones enclose some of the fantastic rock formations, creating a kind of stupa out of the natural rock-forms. One of the most famous groups in this category is known as Kou Nang Usa. Seven beautifully tapered boundary markers surround a jagged sandstone formation, creating one of the most memorable silhouettes at the site. It is only somewhat fancifully referred to as the Thai Stonehenge in the literature. Another very famous Buddhist relic is the monument known as Hor Nong Usa. This column of stone has a small cell beneath its mushroom dome, which is partially walled in with bricks. Perhaps it was originally a monk’s cell. However, it is now associated with a mythical princess who was said to have lived inside this tower. This myth is a later Thai invention which has been used to explain the unusual collection of Mon relics on the site. It is featured prominently in Thai tours of the site, but there seems to be no historical basis for any of it. The site was associated with forest monks, not Thai princesses.
A mushroom rock at Phu Phra Baht, surrounded by boundary markers
Apart from circles of stones, there are some other interesting vestiges in this area. At Tham Chaang you can see some more paintings from the prehistoric era, these ones of prehistoric elephants. They are quite faint but still worth checking out for a glimpse of the prehistoric fauna of the area. Another very memorable attraction is Tham Phra, where you can see the best preserved Buddha image at the site. Set a little nook between two rock faces, it has a typical elaborate head-dress and long, elongated lobes. It is suggested in some of the sources that this was a Khmer addition to the landscape. Either way, it is perhaps the most obvious reminder of all of the religious significance of the remains. Finally, it is worth mentioning Wat Louk Khoei, which is perhaps the most modern addition to the site. Here a rock shelter has been walled in with pale stone in comparatively recent times, creating a sort of rock temple with a roof of natural rock. An ancient, lichen-blotched boundary marker stands watch outside. Inside a collection of Buddha images, some with a historic look, remain the object of veneration to the present day.
Overall, Phu Phra Baht is a hybrid of man-made and natural structures which is utterly unique. It is its unusual mixture of landforms and relics which makes it one of Isaan’s most compelling attractions. You see that for thousands of years the landscape also had ritual and spiritual significance for the inhabitants of the area, and they incorporated it into their religious architecture. A visit to the Phu Phan Mountains is not particularly easy but travellers there are rewarded with one of Thailand’s most unusual and distinctive historic sites. Hopefully, UNESCO will eventually award it World Heritage status.
After a visit to the temples of Buriram province, we headed north to the little-visited province of Chaiyaphum. We were advised at the bus station in Nang Rong that there was no direct service from Buriram. The bus station touts were all agreed: we should go back to Nakhon Ratchasima first and then get a bus onwards to Chaiyaphum from there. This turned out to be not such a hardship as the connections were quite good and we made it to Chaiyaphum after a few hours on the road.
A Thai-style pavilion at the Siam River Resort
Chaiyaphum was off the main highways, so it seemed a particularly sleepy town even by Isaan standards. There were few cars or pedestrians around as we wandered through the middle of the city towards our pre-booked hotel, the Siam River Resort. It was a sprawling complex with a swimming-pool, a Thai restaurant and…
From Pak Chong, we got on the Nakhon Ratchasima bus, which we had learned passed right through Sung Noen: the town which was home to both Wat Dharmacakra Semaram and Muang Sema Historical Park. After leaving Pak Chong, the bus made good time, and after about forty minutes the conductor signaled for us to get down by the side of the road. It was at this point that our illusions of a trouble-free trip to Muang Sema ran into difficulties. It seemed that the highway passed along the edge of Sung Noen but didn’t head right into the centre of town.
As it turned out, there was a songthaew waiting at the turn-off but this was one of the times when my attempts to communicate in Thai failed completely. The songthaew driver couldn’t recognize my pronunciation of either of the places we wanted to go to, so we were stranded. Instead of renting something there, we decided to hop onto the next kind of public transport that was heading towards town and try and rent something there. After about twenty minutes another songthaew came along that took us the final couple of kilometres into town.
It turned out that Sung Noen was a sleepy country town of two-storey, timber-fronted shops, with few signs of modernization besides the obligatory branch of 7-11. We looked around the street near the railway station but couldn’t find any public transportation for rental. There was a public bus waiting in the street but apparently it just did the run into Nakhon Ratchasima a few times a day. By this point our frustration was mounting and we really didn’t know what else to do. We confronted the possibility that we just have to wait around until the bus to Nakhon Ratchasima left. But fortunately, it didn’t come to that. Cameron eventually found the name of the sights we wanted to see in Thai and a songthaew pulled up just down the road from the bus. It turned out that it was the same vehicle and driver we had met on the main road, but this time he understood where we wanted to go, or at least claimed to. He said he would take us there and back for three hundred baht. It was probably an exorbitant price but we had no other options.
But then the driver took us to a small wat on the outskirts of town, which was clearly not Wat Dharmacakra Semaram. There was simply nowhere that a colossal Reclining Buddha could have been housed. However, there was some sort of community meeting or function happening in one of the halls at the temple, so there were a lot of people around. Fortunately one of the guests could understand my Thai pronunciation and he gave our driver directions to the right place. We set off again and this time there was no more confusion; we pulled up at the historic wat some five minutes later.
It was in most respects a very modest temple which you would not have glanced twice at if you passed it along the road. However, it was home to one extraordinary antiquity, which was now preserved in a custom-built hall. The hall was an open-sided structure consisting of a metal roof on brick pillars. It was really just a protective shelter for the 11-metre long, sandstone Reclining Buddha which was the temple’s main claim to fame. We signed into the visitor’s book, made a 20 baht donation and then went into the hall to get a closer look at the monument.
A view from the front of the Reclining Buddha
It was a seventh century Dvaravati Buddha seated in mahaparinirvana, or the ‘sleeping’ posture. The English name of the Reclining Buddha gives a somewhat misleading impression, as the posture is actually a representation of the Buddha’s death scene- literally, the Buddha entering Heaven. The facial features of the figure are somewhat degraded, making it impossible to get a clear sense of his expression; the nose in particular is very damaged. The tight curls of his hair are quite obvious however and these have a typically Mon appearance. In addition, there were traces of gold leaf evident on the face of the statue; however, they were probably not recent. A smaller model of the Buddha had been made in front of the historic statue for devotees to apply gold leaf to. This was presumably so the locals could continue making offerings to the Buddha without damaging the original statue.
The 11 metre-long Buddha’s colossal feet, with traces of gold leaf
It was difficult to get a clear view of the entire statue because of the rather cramped building it has located within. However, he had particularly massive feet which reminded us of the very famous Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho in Bangkok. By going around to the rear of the statue, you get a sense of how the statue consists of many interlocking blocks of sandstone. It would once have had a stucco coating- the Mon were masters of using stucco to face monuments- but the stucco has now mostly peeled off. Nonetheless, sections of it still remain on the head and the arm on which it rests. Originally, the entire statue would have been housed in a timber building which was twenty-six metres long; archaeological work at the site had revealed faint traces of this original structure.
As we looked at the statue, which discussed its extraordinary age: some thirteen or fourteen centuries old. If this date is even close to correct, it is by far the oldest Reclining Buddha statue in the country. As such, it bears testimony to the earliest penetration of Buddhism into Thailand, especially Isaan. It is presumed that Buddhism must have entered Isaan (Northeastern Thailand) via this part of the country, as there is a relatively narrow passageway between the mountains wilds of the Khao Yai area and Cambodia to the South. It is worth noting that there are many carvings of the Buddha in the mahaparinirvana posture from rock shelters in Isaan.
The Buddha’s head and the upturned fingers of the supporting hand
It is possible that this image the precursor or ancestor of the later images from across the Isaan region. It has been speculated that the Sung Noen area was actually the site of the capital of the early Buddhist polity of Sri Canasa. Perhaps Buddhism spread first to Sri Canasa from the Chao Phraya River basin and the art and religion of Sri Canasa was later to influence that of the entire Isaan plateau. Whatever the full story, the Reclining Buddha of Wat Semaram Dharmacakra proved a rare and unique example of the monumental arts of the Dvaravati period.
Apart from the hall of the Reclining Buddha, there is a building known as the Temple Museum. This one-room museum is worth a quick look for visitors to the site. There are a number of Dvaravati antiquities on display, most of them in a highly fragmentary condition. There is a very large lotus pedestal which may once have supported a Buddha statue, but it is only the base which now survives. Behind it on the wall is a pastel-colored painting of a seated Buddha, which may serve as a representation of what the whole statue may have looked like.
There is also what appears to be a headless and armless standing Buddha, as well as various other stone fragments, few of which are very prepossessing. Easily the most interesting exhibit is a magnificent and complete dharmacakra which dates back to the 8th or 9th centuries. With a diameter of 1.41 metres, it closely resembles ‘wheels of the law’ from other Dvaravati sites such as Nakhon Pathom and U Thong. The artefact represents the first sermon of the Buddha at Sarnath, where he set the wheels of a new religion in motion, preaching about the eightfold path to Enlightenment.
The dharmacaka of Sung Noen is now encased in a plastic box to protect it from over-zealous devotees, who would doubtless love to stick gold leaf to its exterior. In front of this protected dharmacakra is another one (perhaps a replica?) which Thai visitors are free to hang floral votives off and make incense offerings to. There is a ceramic pot before this dharmacakra in which incense sticks were burning. It gave the whole place the atmosphere of a smoky village shrine. For me, the most interesting detail of the dharmacakra was perhaps the small lion’s head at the bottom, a common feature on Dvaravati ‘wheels of the law’. You can see a similar motif on the famous example from the Guimet Museum in Paris. Having seen this little museum-cum-shrine, we went in search of our songthaew driver, ready to move on to Muang Sema Historical Park.
During the Dvaravati period (from the 8th to the 11th centuries) Muang Fa Daet Sung Yang emerged as one of the leading artistic centres of Isaan (Northeastern Thailand). Set in Kamalasai District of the modern province of Kalasin, the moated city produced a very large number of carved boundary markers (bai sema in Thai), which served to delineate the sacred area of an ubosot in a Buddhist monastery. While these boundary markers have been found from many different parts of Isaan and Laos, Muang Fa Daet Sung Yang has yielded them in the greatest quantities. The Muang Fa Daet Sung Yang boundary markers are also notable for the artistic skill with which they were composed, suggesting that the city was home to a stonemason’s workshop where high-quality bai sema were commissioned.
We can surmise, without indisputable proof, that this workshop enjoyed royal patronage, as most of the boundary markers were found in the immediate vicinity of the city itself, with numerous examples being located inside the moats. Also, many of them display royal personages or occasionally even palace grounds, which is a further hint of royal associations. A large number of these bai sema have now been relocated to the Khon Kaen National Museum in the city of Khon Kaen. This post will be dedicated to two damaged, lesser-known bai sema from the museum, which, despite their fragmentary condition, remain impressive examples of Dvaravati art.
Sema 13 from Muang Fa Daet Sung Yang
The first of these two boundary markers (bai sema) is the one which the historian Stephen Murphy has classified as S13. This bai sema is located on the ground floor of the Khon Kaen National Museum. The top of it is broken off and the section which he do have is cracked across the middle. Nonetheless, it presents an enigmatic scene which has proven impossible to identify. At the bottom of the fragment are four seated figures, the ones on the right being rather more distinct. Above the crack are two larger, seated figures, one of which has a Mon style conical head-dress and the other has a rounded halo. At the centre of the scene is an altar with three triangular objects on top. Perhaps they represent some kind of votive offerings. Based on stylistic features, it has been suggested that they date to the early period of Muang Fa Daet Sung Yang, from the eighth or ninth centuries.
S16 features a Buddha with a flaming nimbus
The second bai sema, otherwise known as S16, is also thought to date from this earlier period of Dvaravati art history. Unlike S13, it is located in a small courtyard garden to the rear of the ground floor. It is one of a small subset of Muang Fa Daet boundary markers which depict a standing Buddha with a flaming nimbus around his head. This pointy nimbus suggests a supernatural aura, which would have been an important feature for monks trying to win new converts to the Buddhist faith. Though S16 is cracked, with the bottom section missing, the main features of the scene are clear. The standing Buddha has curled Mon hair, full lips, closed eyes which suggest a blissful spirituality and a richly draped robe. There is a much shorter figure standing beside him, looking up in an attitude of reverence. Despite its damaged condition, this is a very graceful carving, indicating that Muang Fa Daet Sung Yang was an artistic centre as far back as the 8th or 9th centuries.
Khon Kaen is not a city known for its long history or wealth of antiquities, but it does have The Khon Kaen National Museum, which was opened in 1972. This museum has one of the best collections of in Isaan (Northeastern Thailand), with a collection of artifacts not only from Khon Kaen province but also neighboring areas such as Maha Sarakham and Kalasin. Kalasin province is probably the richest source of finds in this museum, in particular the district of Kamalasai, where the archaeological site of Muang Fa Daet Sung Yang is located. This site has yielded an astonishing collection of carved boundary markers from the Dvaravati era, the masterpiece of which is surely the ‘Weeping Princess’ or ‘Yasothara Pimpa’ boundary marker. This exquisite bai sema, or boundary marker, is one of the treasures of Mon-Dvaravati art.
The Weeping Princess boundary marker is housed on the ground floor of the museum and is the centrepiece of the Dvaravati period section. The boundary marker is unusually monumental, with a height of one-hundred and ninety centimetres and a width of sixty-eight centimetres. It is made from golden sandstone, whose subtle coloring contributes a lot its aesthetic appeal. The museum has lit the boundary marker attractively, which brings out the rich, golden hues of the stone. But what will capture your attention most of all is that crisp, vivid jataka carving, which depicts an important episode from the life of the Buddha. Though these jataka scenes have also been found on boundary markers from Chaiyaphum, by far the greatest number of them hail from the ancient city of Muang Fa Daet Sung Yang in Kalasin. Around one-hundred and sixty ancient bai sema (boundary markers) have been located in the vicinity of this ancient Buddhist centre, and the ‘Weeping Princess’ is arguably the most majestic.
A detail of the upper panel
The stone is carved in two panels, the upper and lower sections, with a beautiful lotus bud motif at the bottom, making the entire stone seem as if it rests on a padmasana (lotus throne). The upper panel depicts the scene where the newly enlightened Buddha returned to the city of Kabilapas to bless his father and other relatives. During this visit, he gave a sermon to his sister Yasothara Pimpa at a pavilion the palace and she showed her reverence for her brother, now the Buddha, by brushing his feet with her long hair. In the panel on this scene, the Buddha is shown seated in a wooden arched structure with his feet hanging down. On the left side are two men of high caste, as shown by their pointed top crowns, and on the right side are two women. One of them, the princess, is spreading her hair to clean the Buddha’s feet and the other is holding a baby. In the lower panel there are four guards on the city walls of Kabilapas. In the centre of the wall is a watchtower with a three-tiered roof in the style of a Khmer prasat. The rich and sensuous detail of the boundary marker makes it one of the greatest examples on Mon-Dvaravati stone-carving.
Even by Isaan standards, the province of Kalasin is way off the tourist radar and tourist infrastructure is basic. Still, the area is not particularly difficult to access; the big Issan centre of Khon Kaen is just seventy-five kilometres down the road. But here, in the northeastern part of Thailand’s Northeast, life is much slower-paced than in somewhere like Udon Thani or Khon Kaen, let alone Bangkok. There is not so much traffic on the roads and the cafes and restaurants have fewer customers than most other places in Thailand. Kalasin is a town that feels sleepy even in the middle of the day and it is all but deserted of a night time. Still, while Kalasin is a bit of a backwater day, in the Dvaravati era it was home to possibly the largest and most artistically sophisticated city in the Northeast, Muang Fa Daet. The ruins of this city were on our itinerary in coming here and so was Phu Po, a mystic hill which has been attracting Buddhist pilgrims since at least the ninth century.
Arriving from Khon Kaen at the Kalasin bus terminal, we found that there were a number of tuk-tuk drivers waiting there who were keen to do business. We told one we wanted to do a day trip out to Muang Fa Daet and Phu Po and he quickly agreed. However, he said that his tuk-tuk was a little slow for so long a trip. He dropped us off at our hotel first and said he would come back with a car. It turned out to be a particularly old and decrepit car which struggled to get to sixty kilometres an hour, but it was still a much faster-moving mode of transport than the tuk-tuk, so we were pleased.
The driver was an affable sort of fellow who didn’t speak much English but who was keen to try out the few phrases he did know. We learned that he was a native of Kalasin who had lived there all his life. He was a family man with two children, the eldest of two was a six-year-old boy who he had to pick up after school by three-thirty that afternoon. We said that we didn’t anticipate that would be a problem, knowing it was only nineteen kilometres out of Muang Fa Deat and about fifty kilometres further to Phu Po.
From Kalasin we headed south into Kamalasai District, which was located at the southernmost tip of the province. After about eleven kilometres, we came to Kamalasai town centre. It was a small town set on the banks of a river; whether it was the Chi itself or one of its tributaries we were unable to determine. As luck would have it, it was a busy day in town because, as our driver reported, it was the day of the dragon boat races. There were large crowds lining the bridges over the river and in the grandstands along the banks, all waiting for the races to begin. He said that the races were not due for another hour or so, so we continued on our way, passing through the town centre, which consisted of a modern of modern concrete shopfronts and older timber ones. Its riverside location and the larger number of timber shop-houses made it a more attractive rural town than most.
About eight kilometres further on again, we came to Ban Sema village, which is located within the territory of the ancient settlement of Muang Fa Daet Song Yang. According to legend, the ancient city had been established in the year 621. It was strategically located near the confluence of the Pao and Lan Pham Rivers, both of which were major tributaries of the Chi. The first trace we glimpsed of its former grandeur was the deep moat which runs along the edge of the village. This moat was full of dark, black water, and the embankments were choked with thick, weedy growth. Its neglected state notwithstanding, we could easily see that this had once been a major construction project. It has been estimated that even if the moats of Muang Fa Daet were only one metre deep, they would have required over one million man hours to complete. Clearly, the ruler who commissioned the project must have had a large workforce at his disposal. Of course, the moat may have been progressively extended at various points, as the heyday of Muang Fa Daet was half a millennium or more, but it still would have been a huge project during each phase.
The ruins of Muang Fa Daet Song Yang
From the highway, we noticed road-sign to Phra That Yahku (the main monument at the site) and turned onto a side-road. There was another section of moat down this road, which emphasized how expansive this former city had been. A few hundred metres down the road, we arrived at the focal point of the site, the main chedi and its surrounding ruins. The car stopped at a sort of impromptu parking area, where there were a couple of stalls selling Buddhist paraphernalia for visiting pilgrims. Due to the modest size of the ruins and the fact they were still an active site of worship, there was no entrance charge. We got out of the car and scanned the surrounding area. Apart from the nearby brick ruins, we could see some earthworks, which were a few hundred metres away across an overgrown field.
We decided to walk over and inspect these earthworks, which were a couple of metres high and quite extensive. These were the vestiges of the former city walls, which, according to legend, had once extended for five kilometres. Though you might guess that these had served a defensive purpose, there is no real evidence to support this view. Archaeological investigations have turned up no hint that they were ever topped with a wooden palisade or other structures that would have strengthened their defenses. In truth, they may have been little more than the place to store the soil which was displaced by the creation of the moats.Like the walls, it is thought that the shallow moats did not serve a defensive purpose but rather were used for water storage. Whatever their original function, substantial areas of the city wall remained, reinforcing the impression that this was once a large and important settlement.
Phra That Yahku, a revered chedi
Having seen the surviving earthworks, we turned our attention to the main ‘sight’: Phra That Yakhu. This chedi is locally famous, being featured on the seal of Kalasin province. It is a graceful, octagonal chedi on a redented square base. The base would once have been covered with stucco, but it is mostly a bare brick structure today. It is presumed that the square base is a Dvaravati original, the octagonal body of the chedi is an Ayutthaya-era reconstruction, and the lotus bud peak is a comparatively modern reconstruction, dating only from the Rattanakosin period.
No one knows whose remains the chedi enshrines, but it has been suggested that they belonged to a highly revered monk. This could explain why the chedi survived when all the other structures at Muang Fa Daet were destroyed- probably in a war in the early twelfth century. According to legend, a rival kingdom by the name of Muang Chiang Som fought at least two different wars with Muang Fa Daet. It is also possible that the city was finally destroyed by the Khmers, who waged many military campaigns in Isaan during this era. However, there are signs that the site of Muang Fa Daet remained a site of religious devotion even after its destruction, as ceremonial burial continued at the site in subsequent years.
A boundary-marker with a floral votive
The chedi is surrounded by a number of small boundary markers, which were produced more numerously at Muang Fa Daet than anywhere else in Isaan. Most of the them have been moved to either nearby Wat Po Chai Semaram or the branch of Khon Kaen National Museum, but a few minor ones remain in situ. In the area around the main chedi, there are also a number of smaller brick structures, some of which may have been the bases of subsidiary chedis or stupas. No effort has been made to restore these, but at least the vegetation has been cleared away to create a sort of ‘historical park’ in the vicinity of Phra That Yahku. These lesser ruins hint at the wealth of other monuments which the city must once have boasted. After all, the boundary stones delineated the outer sacred space of former temples, and at least one-hundred and seventy-two of these stones have been found at Muang Fa Daet; the city must once have claimed a very large monastic population, with all manner of Buddhist religious architecture present. However, these vestiges can merely hint at former glories, because it is only Phra That Yahku which has survived intact. For the most part, the visitor to Muang Fa Daet will need to use their imagination.
The upper Northeast is far away from the Dvaravati heartland of the river valleys of Central Thailand. Therefore, it is not surprising entirely surprising then that this area has some different artistic traditions from the central zone of Dvaravati. One of the artistic treasure troves of this zone was the small moated and ramparted mound of Kantarawichai in the modern Thai province of Mara Sarakham. The egg-shaped settlement, also known as Kantharavisai, was about five hundred metres across. Here in 1972 the Thai Fine Arts Department unearthed the foundations of an early Thai ubosoth (ordination hall), which attested to the existence of a Buddhist monastic community at the site. Some fragmentary sema (boundary stones) which were found at the site helped to identify the original identity of the structure. The ordination hall measured 37 by 10 metres, indicating it must have been a very large temple by the standards of Dvaravati sites. However, it is not the ubosot which has attracted most attention here; after all, literally remains of it but brick and laterite foundations. The main object of interest were the ritual deposits found at the northeast corner of the former hall.
The find which excited archaeologists was a small terracotta bowl which contained silver repoussé plaques, most measuring 5 by 10 cm. Repoussé was a technique whereby the image of figures was chiselled into metal. These plaques, believed to date to the eighth or ninth centuries, depicted Buddha images, divine or royal figures, stupas, and dharmacakras (the Buddhist wheel of the law). The stupa types depicted are similar to those of central Thai Dvaravati sites such as Nakhon Pathom, and indicate similar examples were also present in the northeast.
A silver plaque from Isaan
Interestingly, there were numerous fragments of stucco decoration found at the site as well. During the Dvaravati culture, stupas were often encased in a layer of stucco decoration. It is not too great a leap to suspect that the stupas depicted on these plaques would have resembled those once found at Kantarawichai. The Buddhas are very similar to those on the famous sema stones at Muang Fa Daet, an important Mon settlement just twenty kilometres away in Kalasin province. For example, one of the plaques depicts an image of the Buddha descending from the Tavatisma heaven, and a very similar design is found on one of the semas at Muang Fa Daet. Both sites seem to have belonged to the same regional variant of Mon-Dvaravati culture. However, for the visitor today, there is almost nothing left to see at Kantarawichai. You are better off heading to the museums in Bangkok or Khon Kaen, where examples of some of the silver plaques are still housed.
A third memorable image from Ban Kut Ngong shows another standing Buddha, but this one without the banyan tree. This Buddha is demonstrating the vitarka mudra hand position, which looks somewhat like the Western ‘okay’ hand gesture. The significance of this hand gesture is that it is the delivering a sermon posture, which would be far from obvious unless it was explained to you. This beautiful carving has its eyes averted downwards and the facial features are again typically Mon and rendered with sensitivity and finesse. The Buddha has wearing a cloth about the waist which resembles a delicately draped Khmer sampot (sarung). Behind the Buddha’s head is what appears to be an ornamental wooden pavilion with a pair of lanterns hanging down from it. It is yet another example of the little-known artistic legacy of this small Thai village.
A Thai-style pavilion at the Siam River Resort 
The Weeping Princess boundary marker is housed on the ground floor of the museum and is the centrepiece of the Dvaravati period section. The boundary marker is unusually monumental, with a height of one-hundred and ninety centimetres and a width of sixty-eight centimetres. It is made from golden sandstone, whose subtle coloring contributes a lot its aesthetic appeal. The museum has lit the boundary marker attractively, which brings out the rich, golden hues of the stone. But what will capture your attention most of all is that crisp, vivid jataka carving, which depicts an important episode from the life of the Buddha. Though these jataka scenes have also been found on boundary markers from Chaiyaphum, by far the greatest number of them hail from the ancient city of Muang Fa Daet Sung Yang in Kalasin. Around one-hundred and sixty ancient bai sema (boundary markers) have been located in the vicinity of this ancient Buddhist centre, and the ‘Weeping Princess’ is arguably the most majestic.
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