Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Suk was meditation instructor to the young princes Jessadabodindra and Mongkut, who
became Rama
III
and Rama
IV
, respectively. His system of meditation, however, eventually
fell into disuse. It did not die out completely, as he kept records in the form of
samutkhoi
,
the traditional Siamese folded manuscript topics, and it is taught today at Wat Ratchasit-
tharam as the Matchima meditation system, the home of this form of meditation being
one of the very few places in Thailand to still teach it. Wat Ratchasittharam attracts de-
votees to this form of meditation, and also because of its very fine mural of the death of
the Lord Buddha. The outside wall depicts the scene of the Royal Barge Procession. The
temple is a second-tier royal temple. Inside the compound can be seen the teak building
that was used as the residence for Rama
II
when he entered the monkhood.
Further along Itsaraphap Road the road lifts to pass over Klong Morn, the main canal
that bisects Money Town between the Bangkok Yai and Noi canals, and as it does so an
enormous temple building can be seen rising high above the bridge. This is the recently
constructed dormitory building for Wat Chinoros, a temple that is built to a far more
modest scale than its living accommodation and which dates back to 1836. The princely
monk Krom Phra Poramanuchit Chinoros, who was one of Siam's most famous poets,
and who became Supreme Patriarch in 1851, built the temple. The ceiling of the
ubosot
is
painted red and decorated with
naga
fret-work covered with gold leaf, and there are un-
usual murals here that depict in map form the temple, the canal, the river and the Grand
Palace, although the paintings are in a sad state of deterioration. There are two other un-
usual aspects to Wat Chinoros. One is the curved shape of the
ubosot
, which gives an odd
distorting effect, while the other is the heaped cannonballs that form the
sema
stones.
Venerable Chinoros, who was a son of Rama
I
, was also known as Prince Wasukri. He had
been ordained at Wat Pho and resided there for much of his life. He passed away in 1853
and his ashes are buried there at what is now known as Wasukri Residence.
One of the first acts King Taksin performed after driving out the Burmese in 1769 and
establishing Thonburi as the capital was to form a commission that would work to ensure
the purity of Buddhism continued, even though the temples and libraries of Ayutthaya
had been burned and destroyed. A temple named Wat Bang Wa Yai that existed on the
riverbank near to the king's palace was given royal status and used by the king to host
a congress of senior monks, the stipulation being that they must be learned both in the
Dharma and in meditation. Taksin was conducting a military campaign in the south of
Siam, where Nakhon Sri Thammarat, an ancient kingdom that had always had shaky alle-
giance to Siam, had made a bid for independence following the fall of Ayutthaya. Tham-
marat, on the east coast of the Malay peninsula, had for centuries been an important trad-
