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.
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.
Kanchanaburi province’s premier ancient site is undoubtedly Meuang Singh Historical Park, located in Sai Yok district, out towards the border with Myanmar. However, there is another site which is of some historic importance, especially for those interetsed in the Mon-Dvaravati culture, and that is Phong Tuek. Located in the small village of Ban Phong Tuek on the banks of the Mae Khlong River, Phong Tuek Archaeological Park contains the scant remains of what was once a medium-sized Mon-Dvaravati settlement. After being briefly explored by the famous French archaeologist George Cœdès in the 1920s and by the British archaeologist Quaritch Wales in the 1930s, the site was largely forgotten by the outside world. However, in recent years it has began to receive a little more interest from academics, especially in terms of its Hindu cultural features, so it may be worth a little more attention from travellers too. It can be explored on an interesting half day-trip from the provincial capital Kanchanaburi.
Ban Phong Tuek is situated 37 kilometres from Kanchanaburi city, and there are local buses and songthaews which ply the route in under an hour. You get off in town- more of a village really- at the police kiosk, and the main attractions are right alongside that. These amount to two main sites: the Phong Tuek Archaeological Park and Wat Dong Sak. However, really this is a place of memory; the sights aren’t as interesting as the archaeological finds and the knowledge of what this place once was.
Phong Tuek was one of dozens of ancient sites related to the Mon-Dvaravati culture, which was the earliest historical culture from the land now known as Thaiand, reaching its peak between the 6th to 11th centuries. Its capital was thought to be at Nakhon Pathom, which was today a neighbouring province of Kanchanaburi. That placed the historical settlement of Phong Tuek well within the heartland of the Dvaravati kingdom; it would have enjoyed easy access with other Dvaravati settlements, including the capital, along the Mae Khlong River. Yet if Phong Tuek was in some ways one among many, it was its distinctive features which have attracted most of the attention.
Its early claim to fame was the fact that a so-called Mediterranean lamp had been found at the site. This little, metal oil-lamp was originally dated to the 1st or 2nd century, which inspired the notion that Phong Tuek was the first of the Dvaravati settlements. This date was based on the idea that the lamp was of Graeco-Roman origin. However, later analysis found that the Mediterranean lamp was in fact Byzantine, and hailed from either the fifth or sixth centuries. This was still early for a Dvaravati site, and it was still unique evidence of Dvaravati’s early links with the Western world, but it was more within the usual time span ascribed to the kingdom.
Another peculiarity of Phong Tuek is that the settlement did not have a moat. Of all the Dvaravati settlements discovered to date, all but three of them are moated. These earthworks and moats and considered one of the trademark signs of a Dvaravati settlement. It is not known why this site did not have a moat whereas most of its contemporaries did. One possible reason is that Phong Tuek is situated in a rain shadow and hence surrounded by unusually dry and infertile agricultural land. Perhaps they did not build a moat around Phong Tuek simply because there was not enough water to keep it filled. Yet even more than this mystery, it is the Hindu identity of its most celebrated sculpture which has kept the minds of historians exercised.
At Wat Dong Sak there are a number of terracotta plaques and statues from the excavations in the village, by far the most famous of which is the Vishnu of Phong Tuek, which was excavated alongside a cart trail in the 1950s, restored with concrete and then enshrined in the wat. The 80 centimetre tall stone statue is now set on a marble base in an old assembly hall (ubosot) at the village wat, and it remains actively venerated, with floral votives much in evidence. It is now covered in various layers of gold leaf, but these, like the concrete backing slab of the statue are a recent accretion. When the statue was unearthed in the 1950s, it was a plain stone statue carved in the round. The four-armed Vishnu has two upraised arms, one holding a cakra wheel, the other holding a conch. His lower arms appear to hold a pair of maces. He wears an elaborately draped sampot around his waist and there is a high mitre on his head. Art historians who have studied the image find a lot of Khmer artistic influence and argue that it is evidence that Khmer art styles had permeated as far as Western Thailand by the eighth century.
The head of the Phong Tuek Vishnu
Just as intriguingly, it is proof that there were Hindu elements within the religious life of Dvaravati, a civilization which is almost always described as being Buddhist. It has even been argued that Phong Tuek might have been a ritual centre for Hinduism within the Dvaravati realm. This particular Vishnu image would probably have been enshrined in a small temple and devotees would have performed puja before the beautiful image. There were other Hindu elements found in the vicinity such as a Shiva lingam which support this view. I also recall that many of the gold coins I have seen from the Dvaravati kingdom featured a conch, one of the main symbols of Vishnu. Certainly the idea that Vishnuism was alive in Dvaravati does not seem hard to accept.
From Wat Dong Sak, the second site worth looking at is the Phong Tuek Archaeological site. This site preserves the remains of a pair of two former stone monuments, known as Monuments 1 and 2. They are both rectangular monuments made of laterite blocks which have badly eroded. Nothing more than the foundations now remains, but I presumed that the remains would have been religious structures related to a Buddhist monastic community. Possibly they were the vihara and ubosot of an ancient wat. Today the site is overgrown with weeds and creepers. Vines climb over the remaining blocks of stone and the trees add a thick level of leaf-litter, which crunches underfoot. These natural settings add to the appeal of the place, but you will be hard pressed to make much of the scant offerings here unless you are a trained archaeologist. Nonetheless, a trip out to Phong Tuek does open a window on an enigmatic settlement from the Dvaravati kingdom, one which few outsiders will ever visit.
Muang Sema is certainly not a well-known site among travellers. Like most of the other major Dvaravati sites, it isn’t even mentioned in the Lonely Planet guidebook. The publishers of that traveller’s ‘bible’ seem utterly unaware of Thailand’s history before the Sukothai era. It has been visited by a few plucky bikers and bloggers, who have raised its profile, at least a little, on the Internet. But they were not particularly excited about what they had seen either. There was none of the soaring architecture which made Khmer temples such as Phimai an easier sell to backpackers, so the site had not made devout converts of the people who had taken the trouble to visit it. Nonetheless, it had remained somewhere that I wanted to see, if only for the reason that it contained the word sema, which had lent itself to the hundreds and hundreds of bai sema– the intriguing boundary markers which are one of the unique cultural attractions of the Isaan plateau. So my visit to Muang Sema was not taken in the hope of seeing glorious remains, but rather in the desire of visiting a place which had been influential in the history of the region. After all, it has been suggested that, along with Si Thep, Muang Sema was one of the two main settlements through which the Buddhist culture of Dvaravati permeated the Khorat Plateau.
The site is set about 32 kilometres from the capital of Nakhon Ratchasima province. It is on the banks of the Lam Takhong River, with is one of the major tributaries of the Mun River. As is typical of ‘Dvaravati’ sites in Thailand, Muang Sema is an oval-shaped moated settlement. This is one of the identifying features of a Mon-Dvaravati city. This moated area is especially large, being three kilometres wide and four kilometres long. This was an especially large area for a city of that time, marking out the site as a former centre of some importance. This moat is still visible today; in fact, it is possibly the single most preposessing feature of the site. Filled with dark water and partly choked with water-weeds, it had a swampy, frog-accomodating look. Some of the villagers were fishing in it at the time of our visit. As so often in Thailand, it is interesting to see how the ancient past and modern village life intermingle in surprising ways. We also talked about the logistics of building the moat. In terms of the work hours involved, it would have been a sizeable project at the time, attesting to the power of the local ruler.
Within the moat are the scant remains of what would once have been one of the largest settlements in Thailand. Today a metal signboard announces the site and gives a brief overview of its history. It suggested that the site had been founded in the Dvaravati period around the 7th to 8th centuries and had later been occupied by the Khmers. One inscription from the site mentioned the overlord of a kingdom called Sri Canasa, and a later one mentioned King Jayavarman V, who ruled Angkor around the end of the first millennium AD. It mentioned that most of the excavated material was similar to that was other Dvaravati sites. This mixed Dvaravati and Khmer heritage was also evident in the moats; while the larger egg-shaped moat was Mon, it contained a smaller, rectangular moat that was attributed to the Khmers.
The modest remains of Monument 2
With this overview in mind, we set off to explore the monuments of the moated city, as meagre as we expected them to be. As it turned out there really was very little above ground level, with the ‘remains’ amounting to little more than several piles of bricks, most of them a mere a foot or so tall. There were mostly just the clay brick foundations of various religious structures. It was possibly to discern no more than their general dimensions, as all but the foundations had been lost. The largest of them, known as Monument 1, must have been an impressive structure in its day, as it measured 46 by 50 metres. It has been suggested that this was the vihara of a monastery. The second largest ruin was known as Monument 4 and it was probably the ubosot, where the monks performed certain rites. A short staircase was discernible at the front. There were also leaf-shaped bai sema, Buddhist boundary markers, outside this structure, which had helped archaeologists to guess its original function. Apart from these main two ruins, there was five more minor ruins scattered around the area, situated picturesquely in clearings in the trees and shrubs. These were much smaller in size, and are presumed to have been stupas on the grounds of the monastery. Some of them were square-based, and some of them were octagonal, but so scant are the remains that they barely rise above the grass and leaf -litter now. The site showed the value of doing some research in advance: If you hadn’t read something about Muang Sema beforehand, it would have been hard to make anything at all of the slight remains. Armed with an essay on the place from Stephen Murphy, we at least got some sense of a ruined monastery.
But if you want a more substantial reward for the trip out to Muang Sema, it is necessary to go outside the moat to Wat Phra Non, where easily the most impressive ruin in the vicinity can be found. Here, in a modern shed housing the antiquities, is the oldest reclining Buddha in all of Thailand. Believed to date back to the ninth century, it is fashioned of red sandstone and eleven metres in length. It is probably one of the most eye-catching monuments of the whole Dvaravati civilization, and it serves not only as the most compelling reason to come out to Muang Sema today but also as a reminder of the likely role that Muang Sema had played in the transmission of Buddhism to the Northeast of Thailand.
The Khorat Plateau, a sandstone formation of an average height of about one and hundred and fifty to two hundred metres above sea level, dominates much of Northeastern Thailand, the part of the country usually known as Isaan. This part of the country is unusually dry, with sparse vegetation and yellow grassland replacing the vivid green vegetation of Central and Southern Thailand. If you come through here, many of the houses are on stilts with huge, earthen water-jars under the houses to store water for the long, dry months when there is little precipitation. It is a very different part of the country that few Western tourists ever see, being much more poorer and more rural than most other parts of the country. There is very little English spoken and it can take some time and effort catching local transportation out to remote villages and sites, but travel in Isaan can be an adventure in a way that the main tourist destinations of Thailand have not been for decades. And if you are interested in history and culture there is a lot to see.
On our trip to Chaiyaphum, an Isaan province well off any tourist trail, we focused on the province’s rich heritage from the Mon-Dvaravati period. According to Stephen A. Murphy, the leading expert on the bai sema monuments of Isaan, the province contains one of the most important clusters of these ancient stones. Around a tenth of all 110 known bai sema sites are in the modern province of Chaiyaphum, all of them located near the Chi River or its numerous small tributaries. At 750 kilometres long, it is the longest river wholly within Thailand, running through some of the driest territory in the country. It was clearly used as a river for trade by the ancient Mon, as numerous moated settlement sites are situated near the Chi and its tributaries. During the 8th and 9th centuries these sites produced beautiful carved stones called bai sema depicting jataka scenes, scenes from the life of the Buddha. Artistically, these rank as some of the most beautiful ancient art of the Isaan region. Perhaps the two best sites, as suggested by Murphy, are at the modern villages of Ban Kut Ngong and Ban Khon Sawan.
Ban Khon Sawan is set in the easternmost part of Chaiyaphum province along a small tributary of the Chi River. It is situated about thirty-eight kilometres from the provincial capital and it can be accessed by local bus from Chaiyaphum city. The trip out there takes you through dry, sere Isaan countryside, with timber houses rising up on stilts above the flat, infertile land. It was far from obvious during our trip, but Isaan’s flat terrain can be subject to catastrophic flooding if the Chi River bursts its banks. This last happened in 2011, and many photos of the province we encountered in researching our trip depicted the province in a state of inundation.
The shelter containing the bai sema
When you finally arrive at Ban Khon Sawan, it is a very quiet, almost deserted, Thai village of timber houses, gardens full of banana palms and concrete public buildings by the side of country lanes. It does, however, boast an impressive collection of bai sema at Wat Ban Khon Sawan, the main temple in the village. Within the grounds of the temple is a very Thai-looking wooden shelter housing a collection of about two dozen carved stones. The shelter itself is a white, open-walled structure with a running flame motif around the edges of the roof. It is the ancient stones within that are the treasure, however.
These sandstone slabs are in various states of repair but many of them depict jataka scenes from the life of the Buddha. One especially fine carving depicted a Buddha seated in the lotus position with an aura of mystical energy around him as he looks down, with a serene expression, on a slightly grotesque seated figure. Another important one, identified by Stephen A. Murphy as Sema 662, depicts the Brahmin Alambayana seizing the Bodhisattva in his incarnation as a naga meditating on an anthill. The Brahmin wrestles him from his perch and put him into a basket. After that he brings him to a village and uses him to make money as a snake-charmer. Another important stone, Sema 663, depicts the story of Prince Temiya and the charioteer. The charioteer has been tasked with digging a grave for Prince Temiya, whom the evil king believes is deaf and dumb, a mere ‘idiot’. This finally forces the prince to reveal that he can speak and move. Overall, the condition of the carving on the bai sema was not as crisp as at Ban Kut Ngong, but it is still affords fascinating insights into the history and culture of Thailand before the Thais.
Before leaving the wat, there was one more important thing to see. In addition to the shed housing the bai sema, there is a shrine at the site which contains a stone statue dating back to the Dvaravati period. It was largely covered in a monastic robe which had been wrapped around it, but the ancient head was still visible. The plethora of votive offerings left at its feet revealed that the image was still much venerated by locals. As many places elsewhere in Thailand, the Thais had adopted a former Mon statue as their own, absorbing it as part of their own cultural heritage.
After leaving behind Si Thep, I told the samlor driver I wanted to go to Wat Khao Klang Nok, a name which he immediately recognized, somewhat to my surprise. I hopped on the back and we set off, driving out of Si Thep Historical Park and down a series of back roads. In truth, I didn’t have much faith that he knew where he was going, but I was to be proved wrong. A few minutes later we were approaching a monument which was set in a rather dry-looking landscape of grasses, shrubs and only occasional trees. Off to one side were a couple of ramshackle-looking street stalls built of wooden poles, canvas and galvanized iron. The whole had a dusty, forsaken look; overall, it seemed a very inauspicious setting for the largest Dvaravati monument still in existence.
It was a hot day, so I went over the stall-keeper and her sidekicks to buy a bottle of water. As so often happens in out of the way places, the people were very friendly and warm. We agreed on a price for the bottle of water and they laughed and had a lot of fun with it all. They asked me a few questions but I had no idea what they were saying and looked to my samlor driver for assistance; he had been lingering in the background the whole time. He gave a long answer using vigorous arm movements, the thrust of which was probably that he had been hired to take me around the historical relics in the area. They seemed to consider this very pleasing and there was more smiling and nodding. Eventually I thanked them and took my leave, oddly cheered by the friendly dispositions of the drinks sellers at Wat Khao Klang Nok .
The monument was a very considerable chunk of masonry, especially considering how slight the architectural record is for Dvaravati generally. This temple was on a square base of 64 x 64 metres, reaching a height of 20 metres. In the photos I had seen before going there, it was a mass of pitted laterite with only a scant brick coating on some parts, but a restoration of the monument was now well underway and in some portions the laterite core was now encased in reddish bricks again. But the restorers had not been over-zealous. It still had a somewhat decayed look, with laterite showing through the brickwork in many sections and the top of the monument having a great knob of weathered masonry protruding above the rest of the structure. Presumably, this had been intended as a kind of temple-mountain, and it would once have had a flat terrace on top. Part of the main staircase had now been restored and it was particularly broad and grand, projecting out from the main body of the temple with tall sections of wall on either side. This dignified staircase would once have led right to the top of the monument, which would have commanded a good view over the scrubby plains thereabouts.
The monolithic remains of Wat Khao Klang Nok
You were not allowed to clamber up on the ancient stupa these days, so I decided to circumambulate the monument instead, getting a look at it from all sides. Unlike at its sister stupa at Si Thep, there was no terracotta art, which struck me as curious. Why had the Mon not applied terracotta decoration to this monument when they had not only done so at the other stupa at Si Thep but everywhere else throughout their culture zone too? Did it have something to do with the encroachment of Land Chenla, the neighbouring Khmer state, whose Hindu artistic influence is very evident in the sculpture from Si Thep? Had the Khmer not only influenced Mon art at Si Thep but Mon architecture as well? It certainly seemed possible. Instead of relying on terracotta for its decorative impact, this stupa used beautiful, understated motifs in its brickwork. What exactly these motifs represented was not clear, but to me the resembled some kind of stylized temple or shrine.
A detail from the walls of the stupa
By the time I had done a complete lap, I was certain that the most impressive vantage point was the initial one. The broad staircase had a majestic look, emphasizing the great weight and dignity of the ancient monument. Yet incredibly, the stupa had only been dug out of the earth less than a decade ago; as late as the earliest twentieth-century, it was still an unexcavated mound that was merely presumed to contain a temple. Archaeologists had been right, of course, and now a massive 8th or 9th century ruin was slowly being restored to something approaching its original grandeur. It was easily the largest surviving Dvaravati monument in existence, and its size and grandeur hinted not only at the prosperity of ancient Si Thep but the cultural richness of the entire Mon-Dvaravati realm. It was now one of the best surviving windows on this enigmatic kingdom.
Thailand has a huge array of temple complexes from its historic kingdoms. The best ten of these have been preserved as historical parks by the Fine Arts Department of Thailand. This list includes the former Thai capitals of Ayutthaya and Sukothai, and some of the satellite cities of the later. It also includes three historical parks featuring temples from the Khmer period. Perhaps the least known of these historical parks is one which does not fit into any of these categories- the enigmatic Sri Thep Historical Park. It was this site which had brought us out into the little-visited province of Phetchabun (“Land of Crops”) in the first place. After a night amongst the ponds and palms of Wicha Paree Resort, I headed out there the next morning.
The samlor driver turned up the next morning at nine thirty and we headed off towards the site. The road took us into the small modern town, shortly after which was a crossroads with the highway to Lopburi. From here we headed east toward Sri Thep. The driver mimed for me to cover my eyes, though at first I didn’t know why. The reason soon became apparent. There were a large number of canefields in the district and the roads were full of trucks carrying cane towards some sort of sugar factory. There was a large amount of airborne dust and as we approached the factory itself there was an unpleasant odour in the area. Perhaps not surprisingly, it smelt like sickly, overpowering rum.
About eight kilometres from the turn off, we came to the site itself, which was set well off the road. We pulled up in a modern car-park and the samlor came to a rest. I motioned for him to wait for me and he smiled and nodded. Throughout our trip to Phetchabun I was surprised by how relaxed and easygoing the Thais there were. Used to the coldness and indifference of many people in the tourist areas of Bangkok, this came as a refreshing change. The slower, mellower pace of life was one of the things that had appealed to me about South-East Asia in the first place, and I was sorry to see it going in the larger cities.
Sri Thep turned out to be a rather spread out site, but it wasn’t all that hard to negotiate. Near the car park was a visitor’s centre where the tickets were sold. Attached was a very small site museum- really little more than a few objects in a single room. There were some fragments of Buddha statues, some tools and broken pieces of pottery. Very little of it was labelled in English, so I decided my time would probably be better spent out at the site itself. I went over to the woman behind the counter and offered to pay with a 500 baht note. She said she didn’t have change and good-naturedly told me not to worry. She handed me a site map and told me to just go ahead and enjoy the place. I was left feeling that this really might have been the friendliest province in Thailand.
A minor laterite ruin near the entrance
Sri Thep, like most Dvaravati settlements, was surrounded by a shallow moat- this one formed a roughly rectangular shape. Such moats were one of the identifying features of Mon-Dvaravati settlement sites. I couldn’t get much sense of the full layout of the site, but I did notice that there were man-made waterways around it. The largest of these was set on the edge of the main monuments, a few hundred metres away from the visitor’s centre. Consisting of dark water, edged around with trees and shrubs, this ‘pond’ had straight edges and was clearly man-made. It reminded me of the water-tanks (barays) which were so common in ancient Cambodian cities, and I felt sure it was ancient. On the opposite side of the road was a large, unmown pasture, which was interspersed here and there with the bases of former buildings. Little remained now but laterite blocks, some of them arranged in rectangular shapes less than a foot tall. What these structures had originally been, I was not sure, but I would have guessed commemorative chedis of some kind. Their dark-red laterite reminded me of ruins from many former Khmer sites, which heightened my anticipation for the main sights of the central park.
The central zone of Si Thep consists of a three main monuments, set against a parkland background. Surrounded by grass fields, with groves of trees clustered here and there, the monuments are effectively buffered from the outside world, giving the entire area a calm, restful atmosphere. When I arrived there, there was no one else around but the caretaker, which only added to the air of repose. Unlike the religious monuments of Bangkok, which are too often over-run with tour groups, these temples still lent themselves to solitary meditation.
I started with Prang Si Thep, one of a pair of Khmer prangs that have survived at the site. Judging by the large number of brick foundations at Si Thep, there would once have been many more. Prang Si Thep was a red brick shrine on a square base, reaching a height of about 19 metres. It was in a fairly dilapidated state, with no statuary or stucco remaining, but even as a shell of its former self you got a sense that this was once an impressive temple. Dating from the twelfth century, it hailed from the heyday of the Angkorian Empire, when Khmer kings ruled not only Cambodia but much of modern Thailand as well. Highways would once have stretched from here to the major ceremonial centres in what is now Nakhon Ratchisma province, and on to Angkor- then, quite possibly, the largest city in the world.
The lonely ruins of Si Thep in Phetchabun
Through a grove of trees, there was a second set of Khmer monuments. I walked over to these and had a look from the front. Before these temples was an extensive area of brick walling and the foundations of former structures, and I readily concluded that a sizable religious complex would once have existed on the site. In its original incarnation, this site would once have been filled with priests and monks, forming part of the religious zone of a large, multi-purpose settlement.
Today the most impressive remaining building was a large, red-brick prang, Prang Song Phi Nong, the roof of which had long since collapsed. Reconstruction work had shored up the building, but like Prang Si Thep it is a ruin today. What distinguished this Khmer prang from its neighbor was a small brick building which adjoined it. Attached to the main building like a sidecar to a vehicle, this little shrine was just as roofless as its companion, but it maintained one treasure- a largely intact lintel over the door. In typical Khmer style, this revealed the god Shiva mounted atop a naga, all revealed with a crispness of detail which made it difficult to believe it was nine-hundred years old. This lintel is one of the most photographed features of the whole site.
A distance view of Prang Song Phi Nong
But there were numerous Khmer sanctuaries in Thailand, especially in the nation’s arid Northeast. The best of them- Phimai and Phanom Rung– were far superior to anything on offer at Si Thep. What really made the site unique was their juxtaposition against the third monument at the site: the Mon-buit Wat Khao Khlong Wai. There was nowhere else in Thailand where it was possible to see Khmer and Mon monuments in a single location, and the existence of such an arrangement had a lot of clues about the early history of Thailand. It was with great anticipation that I headed over to Wat Khai Khlong Wai- one of the most unusual ancient monuments in all Thailand.
Before arriving at the stupa itself, there was one more discovery to make. Mounted in front of the monument was a large, stone chakra wheel. I had seen these in museums in Bangkok and Nakhon Pathom, but this was the only time I had encountered one in situ. It was a large, intricately carved stone wheel with a hole in the centre. In its design it resembled certain kinds of ancient coin, but really it was a Buddhist meditation device. It is said that these kinds of chakra wheels were the most telltale find from Mon-Dvaravati archaeological sites, as nothing similar appears in the archaeological record from either Khmer or Thai settlements. As such they were a reminder that Central Thailand had once nursed a Mon civilization which was quite distinct from any of their neighbors.
This impression was only confirmed by the monument which stood before it. At first glance Wat Khao Khlong Wai looked like little more than a pile of rubble, but even in this it was of some interest. The dark, grey colour of the quarried stone was a complete contrast with the red brickwork of the nearby Khmer prangs. Yet on closer inspection, it became clear that the stupa was a large rectangular platform quite similar in form to the Mon stupa we had seen at Ku Bua in Ratchaburi. Though it was not as large as its cousin at Ku Bua and nor was it as well-preserved overall, it maintained one feature which more than made up for it.
Projecting outwards from the sides of the stupa were corrugated-iron awnings, held up by steel supports. This rather ungainly roof had been added to protect the terracotta art that was preserved beneath, along on side of the stupa in particular. Along the base of the stupa there was an almost continuous frieze of animal and mythological figures, mostly in a very good state of preservation. The commonest design was a squatting figure which greatly enlarged ear lobes. But there were also buffaloes, tigers, dwarves and a number of other designs. These reminded me of the great Buddhist stupa of Paharpur, the greatest surviving ruin in Bangladesh, and I wondered if there was a direct influence from that part of the “subcontinent” on Mon art.
In the museums of Thailand (and even on online antique shops), it is possible to find a large amount of Dvaravati terracotta art. You could easily become the owner of a panel or figurine from the period for a few hundred dollars. Unlike stone statues from the Dvaravati period, let alone rare Mon-Dvaravati bronzes, terracotta art is still comparatively common and subject to much less strict scrutiny from authroties. The labels in museums usually mention that decorative terracotta was one of the defining aspects of Mon art, but it is only at Si Thep that you find the terracotta panels still attached to the underlying masonry. Everywhere else it has long since peeled away. This fact can make the remaining Dvaravati structures seem much more austere than they would originally have appeared. The example of Wat Khao Khlong Wai suggests that brick stupas cased in terracotta friezes would have been anything but plain.
Yet as interesting as the stupa was, the really interesting part about Si Thep was what the juxtaposition of the early Mon and later Khmer monuments suggested. For the newcomer to the topic, the tableau at Si Thep offers a handy introduction to the history of the entire period. Si Thep started life as a typical Mon settlement, with a oval-shaped moat, modest brick stupas and temples, and a well-developed artistic tradition in a variety of different media. By four hundred years later, it had become a Khmer city, suggesting that an expansionist Angkor had eventually decided to incorporate it into its sphere.
Yet rather than razing the city, they had maintained its existing shrines and developed it even further, adding typical Khmer temples in the heart of the city’s ceremonial zone. This suggested a desire to live peaceably with their Mon subjects, and it may have represented a common strategy of “integration” or “assimilation”: many Mon settlements lost their independence during this period, with a final Mon rump state holding out at Lamphun. What there wasn’t at Si Thep was any Thai era buildings. Once the Thais had driven the Khmers out of the area, perhaps during the fourteenth century, the site had finally been abandoned, eventually becoming a very remote, underdeveloped part of the kingdom of Thailand.
The most important river that flows into the Gulf of Thailand is the Chao Phraya. This magnificent river flows right past the Royal Palace and main historic wats of modern Bangkok, considerably enhancing the grandeur of the Thai capital. Though at 372 kilometres it is not one of Asia’s, or even Thailand’s, longest rivers, it has had a tremendous influence on Thai history. Its name translates loosely as the “Grand Duke”, reflecting its significance in the history of the kingdom.The Chao Phraya also has numerous important tributaries. It is itself the product of the confluence of two of Thailand’s longest rivers- the Ping and the Nan.
The Ping links Northern and Central Thailand. Rising in the mountains around Chiang Mai, it flows through the Lanna capital, passing the city of Tak and the Sukhothai-era city of Kamphaeng Phet on the way to Nakhon Sawan, where it joins the Nan. The Nan rises in the Luang Prabang Range in the province of Nan and passes through the pilgrimage town of Phitasanulok on its journey to Nakhon Sawan, where it joins the Ping. At 627 kilometres, it is one of Thailand’s longest rivers in itself.
Another of the Chao Phraya’s important tributaries is the Pa Sak River, which rises in the mountainous province of Phetchabun. The Pa Sak River makes an epic journey of 513 kilometre to the alluvial lowlands of the Chao Phraya basin, joining the Chao Phraya at the former Thai capital of Ayutthaya. Its back swamps were probably fertile rice-growing territory in the past and one of Thailand’s significant ancient towns, Si Thep, was found in the Pa Sak River basin.
One of many more tributaries that have been of importance in the history of Thailand is the Tha Chin River. This river splits off from the Chao Phraya and flows through Saphanburi before reaching the province of Nakhon Pathom. The alluvial lowlands of the Tha Chin in Nakhon Province were the historical core of the Dvaravati kingdom– an ethnically Mon kingdom which had a large artistic and cultural influence on both the Khmers and Thais. Anyone wanting to understand the history of Thailand should spend some time studying the Chao Phraya and its tributaries, which were the highways of Central Thailand from antiquity until the modern era.
Si Thep is an archaeological site in the Pa Sok River Valley in the modern Thai province of Phetchabun. It is a fascinating site for those interested in the succession of historical kingdoms in Thailand as it is unique in containing earlier remains from the Dvaravati kingdom, when Central Thailand was controlled by ethnic Mon groups, and later prasat (temples) from the Khmer period when the Angkorian kings extended control over much of modern Thailand. Despite its historical importance, the site has a very low tourist profile- a fact which I am trying to remedy with this blog.
Apart the temples, Si Thep has been a particularly rich source of statues, dharma wheels, boundary markers and other Dvaravati moveable art objects. Surely one of the most remarkable is the colossal 2.23 metre tall Buddha figure, fashioned from sandstone, which is thought to be an example of the Shakyamuni Buddha– a type which bears considerable semblance to the Maitreya Buddha, which was also popular in this era. The statue has a cavity between the eyes where a precious gem would once have sat and though both arms are broken off, it is assumed they would once have been in the vitarkamudra posture, which was popular during the Dvaravati period. This remarkable and colossal Buddha is now found in a museum in the United States.
Comparing from the larger, better-known sites at Ayutthaya, the most remarkable thing about Wat Phra Men is that it is intact. After a day wandering around the island with its broken pillars, mounds of shattered bricks and cracking stucco, it is a surprise to see that this still a functioning wat with a roof on top. While the structures on the island had been all but obliterated by the ferocious onslaught of an invading Burmese army in 1772, this one wat had been left unmolested by their cannons. So why had the Burmese spared this little temple when so many larger and more magnificent specimens had been dealt with so ruthlessly? It seems that the answer was nothing more than superstition.
The later Ayutthaya period had been of frequent warfare and constant instability. During a previous Burmese military campaign, a Burmese king by the name of Bayinnaung had been killed when soldiers were trying to fire cannon on Wat Phra Men in a mid-sixteenth century campaign. The cannon had malfunctioned, killing the king instead. Taking it as a bad omen, the wat had been spared in the next war. This was fortunate for tourists as it meant that there was one Ayutthaya-era wat at the site to compare with all the ruined examples. In entering Wat Phra Men with its twin rows of pillars supporting a sharply sloping wooden roof, I realized that all the lonely pillars set in rows about Ayutthaya would once have supported ornate wooden roofs, topped with coloured tiles. It reinforced for us the scale of the devastation the Burmese had unleashed. And indeed it had so demoralized the Thais that they relocated their capital to Bangkok.
But the fact of it being intact was not the only surprise at Wat Phra Men. After we had seen the main wat, we went into the smaller bot to the side and were met by a massive Buddha statue, which was being fervently worshipped by Thai devotees. Outside were a pile of sandals where the locals had cast off their shoes. Following this cue, I dropped my shoes at the door and went inside into the reverential gloom. There were a number of Thai women kneeling before the large, greenish stone Buddha. At about 4.2 metres in height, it was described as being three times human scale- in which case the locals were much shorter then than are today- and it was famously seated in ‘European style’ with its legs hanging and its feet on the ground. While this might not seem a particularly remarkable circumstance to the average tourist, when you remember that most Buddha statues from Thailand are seated in the lotus position, this seating posture might start to seem of greater interest. For the serious Buddhist art scholar, every gesture of the legs, body and hands is imbued with religious significance and each different posture can be viewed as a reference to a particular story from the Buddhist scriptures; it probably also has a specific Sanskrit term to describe it.
The upshot of all the discussion about this seated posture is that it is typical of the Buddhist depictions from Nakhon Pathom, which was probably the largest settlement in Lower Thailand during the Mon or Dvaravati period. Many reliefs and statues have been found in that city which depict the Maitreya Buddha, or Buddha of the future world, in a seated position with his right hand raised in a teaching position and his left resting on his leg. In short, art historians had categorized this is a Mon-Dvaravati rather than a Thai sculpture. For this and other reasons it was believed that this monumental 4.2 metre tall Buddha had been transported here all the way from Nakhon Patham, probably in the fifteenth century, when the Ayutthaya kingdom was at the height of its power and splendour. The kings of Ayutthaya would doubtless have thought that this revered Buddhist statue, which had already been worshipped by the inhabitants of Nakhon Pathom for seven hundred years at that point, would have brought glory and distinction to their new capital. It had not survived the fourteen centuries since its creation entirely in one piece, however. The hands of this Buddha were both resting on its knees, but this was thought to be due to a poor-quality restoration at one point: the original teaching position hand had been broken off.
For the Thai visitors, this was clearly a revered image and they could be seen praying fervently before it. Previous devotees had left all manner of offerings before it, such as incense, small statues and glittering ornaments. What impressed me most was the size of the thing, the sombre beauty of its black stone and the large head with its tight curls of hair. Sitting there in its flowing robes, as if on a throne, it was a commanding presence. And the idea that it was one thousand three hundred years old, dating back to a previous kingdom that I’d only just heard of and which pre-dated the arrival of the Thais in this part of the country greatly intrigued me. Apart from wanting to know more about this Mon kingdom, Dvaravati, and how it had influenced the Thais who had later occupied the region, I was curious about just how it had got there. I wondered if Ayutthaya had started off as a Mon settlement and had later been conquered by Thai invaders from the north. While the guidebook mentions its age and the fact that it is of Mon provenance, they don’t explain how it got there. It was to be many years before I came across the notion of it being transported there in an academic paper.
After viewing the image, I met with Cameron again outside. Not having any religious beliefs at all, he felt awkward entering active places of worship, feeling somehow that he was disrespecting the believers. He had a quick look at the statue from the doorway and had then waited outside for me. I shared my thoughts with him about the statue and he said that he had never even heard of the Mon or Dvaravati, which prompted a little more discussion. Just outside the compound there was a woman selling chilli squid, which she was barbecuing over hot coals on wooden skewers. Cameron suggested we give them a try and so we stood outside Wat Phra Men, waiting for the squid to cook and feeling content with our day’s sightseeing. As the sun went down over Ayutthaya with the brilliant golden appearance of the interior of a Thai wat, I thought about the ‘Black’ Dvaravati Buddha inside Wat Phra Men and of the Burmese attack on Ayutthaya, and it pleased me to think that the statue had been a magic talisman which protected this wat from destruction by Burmese cannons. My interested in Dvaravati had been peaked.
The Buddha of Wat Phra Men, seated in the ‘European’ style
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