Wat Aranyik

About

Wat Aranyik stands within the city of Phitsanulok in northern Thailand and is a longstanding centre of Theravada Buddhist worship and monastic life. The name Aranyik is drawn from the Pali word aranya, meaning forest, and identifies the Temple with the ancient lineage of the aranya-vasi, the forest-dwelling monks devoted to meditation apart from the busy life of town monasteries.

The forest tradition has shaped Thai Buddhism for many centuries, distinguishing those monks who pursue intensive contemplative practice in solitude from the gamavasi, the village or town monks who maintain ritual and pastoral duties in inhabited places. Wat Aranyik preserves the memory and the spirit of that contemplative path within an urban setting today.

Phitsanulok is one of the historic capitals that preceded modern Thailand, having served as a royal seat during the Sukhothai and early Ayutthaya periods, and is renowned for the great Phra Buddha Chinnarat image enshrined at the nearby Wat Phra Si Rattana Mahathat. Wat Aranyik takes its place within this sacred landscape.

The Temple sustains the rhythms of Theravada practice, including the daily chanting of the Pali liturgy, the morning alms round of the monastic community, the observance of the rains retreat or vassa during the monsoon, and the laity's participation in dana on wan phra observance days. The festivals of Visakha Bucha, Asalha Bucha, Magha Bucha and the Kathina robe-offering ceremony mark the great occasions of the Buddhist year.

History

Local tradition and the Temple's own municipal records place its founding within the Sukhothai period, with some accounts holding it contemporary with the casting of the revered Phra Buddha Chinnarat image that still presides over Phitsanulok. What survives today is a bell-shaped chedi in the Lanka style, its brick base once ringed by some sixty carved elephants, standing within the low earthen walls of a moated compound about a kilometre outside the old city.

Significance

The Temple preserves, within a modern provincial city, the memory of the aranyavasi, the forest-dwelling monks who set themselves apart from the ritual and pastoral duties of town monasteries. Fragments of Sukhothai-era stone pillars and Buddha images in the Chiang Saen, Sukhothai, and Ayutthaya styles still lie among its ruins, and a small seated Buddha image receives offerings at the chedi's base today.

Architecture

Sukhothai-period Lanka-influenced bell-shaped chedi on an elephant-buttressed base