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Thailand: the Symbolic Center of the Theravada Buddhist World

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Thailand: the Symbolic Center of the Theravada Buddhist World CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by ScholarSpace at University of Hawai'i at Manoa Melody Rod-Ari Thailand: The Symbolic Center of the Theravada Buddhist World MELODY ROD-ARI University of California at Los Angeles AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Melody Rod-Ari is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Art History at the University of California at Los Angeles specializing in Thai Buddhist art. Rod-Ari’s dissertation examines the art and architecture of the Temple of the Emerald Buddha in Bangkok, Thailand. Introduction Mapping the History, Significance and The Temple of the Emerald Buddha in Bangkok is Movements of the Emerald Buddha considered the most sacred temple in Thailand. The The importance of the Emerald Buddha image as a temple’s sanctity is derived from its enshrinement of religious and political palladia is derived, in part, from the Emerald Buddha, the nation’s religious and descriptions of it in chronicles.1 These chronicles political palladium, for which the temple is named. include the Ratanabimbavamsa, Jinakalamali, and Chronicles explain that the Emerald Buddha was Amarakatabuddharupanidana.2 It is important to fashioned from the Chakkavatti’s (Universal World note that these chronicles all have their origins in Ruler) wish granting jewel, so that the image came to modern-day Thailand and Laos. While these chronicles embody potent symbols of Buddhism and kingship and later commentaries would like the reader to believe through its form and medium. Its enshrinement in that the Emerald Buddha has importance throughout Bangkok symbolically marks the Temple of the the Theravada Buddhist world, it is only in Thailand Emerald Buddha as a Buddhist center, and its keeper, and Laos that the icon has had any real religious and the King of Thailand, as the ultimate religious and political impact. 3 political leader. Overall, the chronicles vary slightly on details of the Prior to its enshrinement at the Temple of the Emerald Buddha’s travels, but they unanimously agree Emerald Buddha in 1784, the Emerald Buddha was on matters of the icon’s genesis.4 The chronicles described in chronicles as having traveled to important explain that the crafting of the icon was intended to Buddhist centers throughout South and Southeast preserve the teachings of the Buddha after his Asia. This paper focuses on the sacred geography that parinibbana (final nirvana). With the help of the god the Emerald Buddha has created through its Indra and the celestial architect and craftsman movements, arguing that this geography, along with Vishnukamma, a jewel belonging to the Universal the royal patronage of the temple where it is enshrined, World Ruler was secured by the monk Nagasena in 44 is an important religious and political tool for the self- BCE.5 On this same date, Vishnukamma carved the promotion of Thai Kings and the promotion of jewel into the likeness of the Buddha in the Deva Thailand as the sacred center of modern-day Theravada heaven (heaven of celestial beings), and proceeded to Buddhism. descend to the ancient Buddhist capital of Pataliputra, Volume 9, Spring 2009! 55 Thailand: The Symbolic Center of the Theravada Buddhist World India, where the king prepared offerings to the image leading him to murder his son’s playmate, and thus in the monastery of Asoka.6 It is here that the provoking the gods to send a deluge wiping out the chronicles begin to diverge on matters of the Emerald kingdom and its inhabitants.14 As a result, a monk Buddha’s movements through important South and removed the image from Angkor and the king of Southeast Asian cities. Generally, the chronicles agree Ayutthaya claimed the image for himself. In an excerpt that the image remained in India for over three taken from the Amarakatabuddharupanidana, the hundred years until a civil war broke out in Pataliputra, author15 makes it clear that King Senaraja’s faith was and it was decided that the icon would be safer in Sri lost but that the king of Ayutthaya, who had greater Lanka. The image was sent to Anuradhapura in 257 CE merit, became the new and rightful keeper of the and housed in the royal temple of an unnamed king.7 Emerald Buddha. After two hundred years in Sri Lanka, the image began Then a venerable priest took away the Emerald its journey to Pagan, Burma in order to be protected by Buddha in a junk and with the guardians of the King Anawartha (r. 1044-1077)8 but, through a series statue went to the North. They arrived at a village of mishaps, landed in Angkor, Cambodia.9 After its in which place the image was deposited. At that arrival in Angkor, dates become vague and inconsistent time a king, Addidkaraja as he was called, who was among the different chronicles and are not mentioned reigning over Sri Ayutthaya, went to Indapatha Nagara. Having got the Emerald Buddha in his again until the image’s discovery in Chiang Rai in 1434. possession, he brought it to Sri Ayutthaya. The During this four-century lapse in dating, the Emerald inhabitants of this town, like their king, were Buddha traveled to the Siamese cities of Ayutthaya and harboring an extreme faith and they made Kampaeng Phet prior to its discovery in Chiang Rai. preparations for offerings of all sorts.16 The chronicles go on to further explain that the image These events described in the chronicles impart remained in Chiang Rai until 1468, when King Tilok (r. importance to the Emerald Buddha through its ability 1442-1487) of Chiang Mai begged for the image to be to validate a particular king by its willingness or 10 sent and enshrined in his city. The Emerald Buddha unwillingness to be enshrined in a kingdom at a certain remained in Chiang Mai for eighty-four years, before it place and time. Agency is divided between the Emerald was moved to Luang Prabang and later to Vientiane in Buddha and the king who possess the image. If a king 11 1570. The Emerald Buddha remained in Vientiane is able to prove his great merit and religiosity, the until 1778, when it was transported to the new Siamese Emerald Buddha avails itself to the king in order for capital, Thonburi, in 1782 and later to Bangkok in 1784, him to spread the dhamma (Buddha’s teachings), and 12 where it currently resides. Descriptions of the protect his position and kingdom. Consequently, the Emerald Buddha’s enshrinement in these cities not Emerald Buddha image has become a political and only trace its movements through space and time, but religious palladium sought out by kings to legitimate also map a sacred geography that is created through the themselves and their rule. image’s travels. With the absence of pre-modern accounts and The Emerald Buddha’s movements to and from descriptions of Thai history,17 it is tempting to rely on these specific cities were the direct result of political the Emerald Buddha chronicles as historical and religious instability. When a decline in practice documents; however, the events described in the and/or faith of a particular king and his kingdom was chronicles are not completely supported and reveal a noticeable, the image was transported, either willingly body of literature that goes from a mythical to a more or by force, to a new city. Here, the chronicles imply an historical narrative. For example, the Emerald intimate connection between Buddhist religiosity and Buddha’s travels to India, Sri Lanka, Burma and political stability. A king was able to maintain political Cambodia cannot be substantiated by the stability through his active worship and sponsorship of archaeological record or by inscriptional evidence.18 the Buddhist faith. In instances where he falters, Indeed, descriptions of the Emerald Buddha’s origins political havoc ensues and the image is removed. In an and travels dating prior to the fifteenth century and e x a m p l e d e s c r i b e d i n t h e outside of modern-day Thailand and Laos are not 13 Amarakatabuddharupanidana, King Senaraja of historical, and should be read as an effort to ascribe Angkor was unable to suppress his desires and fury, religious and political meaning to the Emerald Buddha. 56! EXPLORATIONS a graduate student journal of southeast asian studies Melody Rod-Ari Inclusion of Pataliputra, Anuradhapura, Pagan, and The Emerald Buddha in Bangkok Angkor help to create a sacred geography for the image Prior to its enshrinement in Bangkok, the Emerald because they were important religious and political Buddha was placed in Wat Phra Kaeow (Temple of the centers. This sacred geography is meant to impart Emerald Buddha) in Vientiane, Laos.20 In 1778 a symbolic meaning to the image so that whomever general by the name of Thong Duong, who later became the keeper of the image was able to legitimate became the first king of the Chakri dynasty, captured themselves through its history and their possession of the Emerald Buddha from Vientiane and brought it to it. The Emerald Buddha’s current enshrinement in the King Taksin (r.1767-1782) of Thonburi. The Thonburi Temple of the Emerald Buddha implies the religious period began and ended with King Taksin who was fortitude of the temple’s keeper, the King of Thailand, forcefully removed, in part, for his unorthodox and the importance of Bangkok as a religious center as interpretation of Buddhist kingship and perceived it has become a part of the Emerald Buddha’s sacred decline of religious merit. In following with geography. descriptions in the chronicles, Taksin’s lack of merit The importance of Bangkok as a religious center is resulted in the loss of his political office and the implied by the chronicles, as it is the current home of removal of the Emerald Buddha from Thonburi.
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