Two Jade Footprints at the Nun's Chapel

A small chapel sits off in a corner of the Wat Plub temple grounds in Thonburi.

The chapel was built using funds raised by a famous Buddhist nun named Issarawadi Paramitra who has been a nun for more than 50 years. She also helped to design the chapel, and you can often find her cleaning and taking care of it when visiting the temple.

Outside of the temple is a unique statue carved from Indian jade depicting four figures - a monk, a nun, and two laymen (the woman who donated significant funds to build the chapel thanks to her very successful roasted chicken business), and a man (who helped carve the statues at the chapel). The four figures are pushing the Dharma wheel, one of the oldest symbols of Buddhism, which represents the teachings of the Buddha.

The wheel itself represents meditative concentration and mindfulness and the unbroken cycle of birth and rebirth, while its eight spokes represent the Eightfold Path, the core teachings which Buddhists are meant to follow and use in their everyday lives:

• Right View or Right Understanding: Insight into the true nature of reality
• Right Intention: The unselfish desire to reach enlightenment
• Right Speech: Using speech compassionately
• Right Action: Using ethical conduct to manifest compassion
• Right Livelihood: Making a living through ethical and non-harmful means
• Right Effort: Cultivating wholesome qualities and rejecting unwholesome qualities
• Right Mindfulness: Whole body-and-mind awareness
• Right Concentration: Meditation or some other dedicated, concentrated practice

Inside the chapel are a pair of Buddha footprints. Buddha footprints, or Buddhapada, are a common motif representing the teachings of the Buddha symbolically through the steps that he took during his life. You can find them at many temples throughout Thailand and the Theravada Buddhist world.

What is less common is to see a pair of Buddha footprints. In fact, I think this may be the first time I've ever seen two footprints like this side by side!

They, too, are carved from Indian jade, and are modeled from a design from Old Sukhothai.

The main Buddhist statue inside the chapel was carved over the course of a full year in Chiang Rai in the north of Thailand and is made in the Indian style. The statue is meant to resemble an important Buddha image from Bodh Gaya, a village in northeastern India where Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment whilst sitting beneath the sacred Bodhi Tree and which is now the most important Buddhist pilgrimage site in the world.