Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
wise enough to correct one of the king's poems, and was stripped of his title. He became
a vagrant, and it was at this time that Sunthorn entered Wat Theptidaram, where he spent
three years as a monk, living in the monks' quarters behind the temple, where his room
is still preserved and has been declared a national monument. Sunthorn was rehabilitated
in the reign of Rama
IV
, when a daughter of the king read the unfinished Phra Aphai Mani
and persuaded the poet to complete it. Rama
IV
appointed him as director of the royal
scribes, and awarded him the title “Phra”. Sunthorn spent the remainder of his life in re-
lative tranquillity, and died in 1855. Another statue of him stands in Klaeng, in Rayong
Province, where his father had been born and where Sunthorn spent several years living
and writing. His birthday, 26
th
June, is celebrated each year as Sunthorn Phu Day.
The second moat runs alongside Wat Theptidaram, and along here stood the old city
wall. Bamrung Muang Road passed through a gate here, a gate that was used for trans-
porting the dead out of the city. The immediate area is still known today as Pratu Phi, the
Ghost Gate, and through here the departed were carried over the Sommut Amornphan
Bridge on their final journey.
“Opposite the Brahmanee Watt, at the distance of about a mile, are the extensive
grounds and buildings of Watt Sah Kate, the great national burning-place of the dead.
Within these mysterious precincts the Buddhist rite of cremation is performed, with cir-
cumstances more or less horrible, according to the condition or the superstition of the
deceased. A broad canal surrounds the temple and yards, and here, night and day, priests
watch and pray for the regeneration of mankind. Not alone the dead, but the living like-
wise, are given to be burned in secret here; and into this canal, at the dead of night, are
flung the rash wretches who have madly dared to oppose with speech or act the powers
that rule in Siam. None but the initiated will approach these grounds after sunset, so uni-
versal and profound is the horror the place inspires… The walls are hung with human skel-
etons and the ground is strewed with human skulls. Here also are scraped together the
horrid fragments of those who have bequeathed their carcasses to the hungry dogs and
vultures, that hover, and prowl, and swoop, and pounce, and snarl, and scream, and tear.”
Anna Leonowens certainly laid it on a bit thick about Wat Saket, but she had a book to
sell. And she was certainly right about the temple being used for cremation ceremonies,
which were not permitted inside the city walls. During the frequent outbreaks of plague
and cholera the temple was a grisly sight, the corpses frequently stacked in the courtyard.
Yet oddly enough, Anna does not mention the outstanding visual feature of this temple, a
feature that certainly existed at the time she was writing.
