The Blog of Michael Desrosiers: Wat Songtham: Mon Style (3 Wats part I)

Sunday, March 28, 2021

Wat Songtham: Mon Style (3 Wats part I)

Last weekend, I attended a walking tour called "Three Wats, Three Architectural Styles". Now that I'm studying at the National Museum, I've taken a new interest in Thai and Southeast Asian art history. The tour was a fascinating look at three historic temples with three very different cultural designs, respectively Mon, Ayutthaya, and Chinese style temples. Over the next few days, I'll be releasing a miniseries of three posts, each one highlighting one of these beautiful and fascinatingly unique temples.

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Wat Songtham: A Temple in the Mon Style with Burmese elements

The first temple we visited was Wat Songtham Worawihan, a Mon-style temple in Bangkok's Phra Pradaeng District.

The Mon people are a Southeast Asian ethnic group residing mostly in Myanmar and parts of Thailand. As a matter of fact, the first great empire in what we now think of as Thailand was Dvaravati, a Mon empire that flourished between the 8th and 11th centuries. Dvaravati was one of the very first Theravada Buddhist states, and the Mon people are responsible for bringing Buddhism to Thailand!

standing Buddha in Phra Pradaeng looking out over the river

Long ago, the Mon people were some of the earliest people to settle in Southeast Asia, having fled from Southern China to escape the Mongols. Though there is no current Mon state, Mon culture has a ton of influence on the culture of Southeast Asia, specifically that of Myanmar and Thailand, and both Yangon and Bangkok were originally founded by Mon rulers.

the Mon-style pagoda at Wat Songtham

Both King Taksin (who founded the short-lived Thonburi Dynasty after the fall of Ayutthaya) and King Rama I (who founded the current Chakri Dynasty and established the current Rattanakosin Kingdom) had Mon blood.

the pagoda is encircled in Buddha statues

Phra Pradaeng, located on the southwestern banks of the Choaphraya river and just a short bus ride from Bangkok's center, is one of the several Mon-majority districts in Thailand. The Thai-Mon people have almost fully integrated into Thai culture over the centuries, but there are still a few uniquely Mon points of interest to be found. Wat Songtham is one of the most remarkable.

the Buddha in the position of dispelling fear

Wat Songtham is a third-grade royal temple, built during the reign of King Rama III (early-19th century). The three-tiered chedi is built in a distinctly Mon style, looking very much like the type of pagoda that I have seen on my travels in neighboring Myanmar.

many elements that I recognized from my trips to Myanmar

When I went to Myanmar for the first time, I visited a golden pagoda called Sule Paya, a 2000 year-old temple around which the city of Yangon (or Rangoon) is built. At the pagoda, you could send a little prayer written on a slip of paper up to the top spire of the pagoda via a pulley and cable system.

Mon culture has had a huge influence on Thailand and Myanmar

I saw something similar on Ko Kret (also a Mon area) a few months ago.

beautiful sunny day - the first blue sky for months!

Besides the main chedi itself, the temple's spirit house looked very different from those that you usually see throughout Bangkok.

the Mon-style spirit house at the temple

The statues inside one of the chapels were also unique. I'm not sure about the Hindu deity, but the Buddha statue (left) looked very Burmese, and quite different from the types of Buddha statues that are commonly found here in Thailand.