The Inner Moat - 22 Walks in Bangkok - page 78

Rama VI , had stayed at Saranrom for a while and the pavilion where he liked to hear milit-
ary bands playing is preserved in the park. In the reign of Rama VII , after the 1932 revolu-
tion, the reception rooms in the park were used as a gathering place for young intellec-
tuals, and the king also used the grounds for the training of the royal guard. Towards the
southern end of the park is a white marble monument, a memorial to Queen Sunantha,
the first consort of Rama V , who had drowned with their two-year-old daughter, Princess
Kannabhorn, while on a visit to the summer palace at Bang Pa-In in 1880. The royal boat
had capsized, and despite help being available, by Siamese tradition no one was allowed,
on pain of death, to touch a queen except for the king; not even to save a life. Rama V
was grief-stricken. The queen had been only 19 years old, and she was pregnant with their
second child, who it transpired would have been a male heir. Saranrom had been her fa-
vourite garden and the king had her ashes and those of the young princess buried in this
monument. There is another monument at Bang Pa-In, and a third in the form of a granite
pyramid placed next to a waterfall at Chanthaburi province, another favourite place of the
young queen.
In the northern corner of Saranrom Park is the small temple of Wat Ratchapradit,
standing on about three-quarters of an acre of land that was a coffee plantation before
Rama IV used his own funds to build the temple in 1864. An immediately striking feature
is the grey marble tiles that clad the chedi and the ubosot and its rounded columns. As the
tiles are in both light and dark tones, the effect is slightly chequered. There is also a dis-
tinct Khmer influence, with two large prangs carrying faces that are in the Angkor style.
Inside the ubosot the Buddha image is set against a blue mosaic of mirrors, and the ceiling
is finished in red and gold with crystal stars. French standing lamps, English street lamps,
and a German clock that is still solemnly ticking are amongst the items in this small com-
pound, some of which were gifts to the king, whose seal appears in gilded lacquer on the
pediment of the wiharn . Wat Ratchapradit was built as the first temple dedicated to the
reforming Thammayut sect, the monks being distinguished by their brown robes, rather
than the traditional saffron. Rama IV , before he became king and when he was a monk
at Wat Ratchatiwat, had founded this sect to restore purity to the interpretation of the
Pali Canon. He had subsequently become abbot of Wat Bowon Niwet, in the northern
part of Rattanakosin Island, where he continued to promote his reforms. Wat Ratchapra-
dit was the first temple built from new that was dedicated to Thammayut, which following
the Sangha Act of 1902 is recognised as the second of Thailand's Theravada denomina-
tions. Rama IV died shortly after the temple was completed. Inside the wiharn a mural
depicts him visiting Wakor district in Prachuap Khiri Khan province in 1868 to observe