Wat Benchamabophit

About

Wat Benchamabophit Dusitvanaram stands in the Dusit quarter of Bangkok, its alabaster walls and tiered Thai roofs catching the morning light along a quiet canal. The wat is widely known as the Marble Temple, a tribute to the imported Carrara stone that clads its principal hall.

Commissioned in 1899 by King Chulalongkorn after the founding of his nearby palace, the complex was designed by his half-brother Prince Naris and represents a thoughtful meeting of indigenous and European sensibilities. Italian marble pillars, a paved courtyard, and a pair of singha lions at the entrance of the ubosot soften into traditional Thai elements within, gilded lacquer beams overhead and shallow wall niches painted with the country's revered stupas.

The ordination hall takes a cruciform plan, its tiered roofs and gilded pediments faithful to Siamese convention while Khmer-style cloisters, blind windows, and sema boundary stones frame the precinct. Stained glass set above the windows admits coloured light that softens the marble interior, a gentle Western echo within an unmistakably Thai sanctuary.

Enshrined within is Phra Buddhajinaraja, a Sukhothai-style image cast in 1920 as a copy of the famed original at Wat Phra Si Rattana Mahathat in Phitsanulok. Beneath the throne rest the ashes of King Chulalongkorn himself. A circuit of fifty-two Buddha images, each rendered in a different mudra, lines the surrounding gallery.

History

King Chulalongkorn commissioned the Temple around 1899 to 1900, after building his nearby Dusit Palace, and entrusted its design to his half-brother Prince Naris. Its principal Buddha image, Phra Buddhajinaraja, was cast at Phitsanulok from decommissioned brass cannons and consecrated on 13 December 1901, a Sukhothai-style copy of the revered Phra Buddha Chinnarat that Chulalongkorn had long admired. The king died in 1910 before construction was finished, and his ashes were laid to rest beneath the image's pedestal at his own wish.

Significance

Each morning between six and half past seven, monks line up along Nakhon Pathom Road to receive alms of rice, curry, and lotus buds from the devotees who gather there, and candlelit processions circle the ordination hall on the holy nights of Magha Puja and Visakha Puja. Fifty-two Buddha images, each in a different mudra, line the surrounding gallery, and the Temple's marble facade appears on the reverse of the Thai five-baht coin.

Architecture

Traditional Thai Temple form built in Carrara marble, with Khmer-influenced cloisters and Western stained glass