We came here earlier before our tour of the Grand Palace a few days after we arrived in Thailand on January 3, 2007. Unfortunately, our camera didn't recharge the night before so we had to get back to the hotel and re-charge it for about an hour. Later, when the traffic going to this Golden Buddha became unbearable, we just decided to cancel our second trip there. Our limousine driver was happy he didn't have to go there twice! (Ah, well~we rented a limousine at the hotel which BTW was costly- we should have rented out elsewhere and not in the hotel. We lost our common sense due to jetlag. Mamamia!)
NOTE: The photograph here was downloaded from the on-line information site of the tourism authority of Thailand.
~~~~~~~~~~
At one end of Chinatown, in the otherwise unremarkable temple of Wat Traimit, is hidden the world's largest solid gold Buddha image. Weighing in at five and a half tons, the 15-foot tall seated image is worth in the neighborhood of US$14 Million. That's some neighborhood!
The Golden Buddha was cast sometime in the 13th century and is an excellent example of the gracious Sukhothai style that is still very much in favor to this day. At some point, it was covered in plaster, most likely in an attempt to hide the valuable icon from thieves or looters.
The disguise was so good that everyone apparently forgot about what was hidden beneath. King Rama III had the statue moved to Bangkok and installed in a temple near where the Oriental Hotel is today. That temple fell into disuse and was completely abandoned around 1931.
The true nature of the Golden Buddha wasn't discovered until it was moved to its present location at Wat Traimit in 1955. When the image was being prepared for its move, some of the plaster was chipped off, revealing the gold underneath. Bits of the plaster can be seen in a case to the left of the statue.
The statue sits in a plain building just barely big enough to hold it within the temple compound. On the terrace outside of the room housing the Golden Buddha are some interesting fortune-telling machines. You drop a coin in the slot and a sequence of lights indicating numbers flash around in a circle, wheel of fortune style, eventually stopping on a number. You can retrieve your fortune from the marked boxes below the machine. The fortune slips are in English as well as Thai and Chinese.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comment: