Wat Phra Mahathat

About

Wat Phra Mahathat Woramahawihan stands as the chief Buddhist sanctuary of Nakhon Si Thammarat Province in southern Thailand. Its bell-shaped Phra Borommathat Chedi is among the most revered reliquaries of the Theravada world and is widely believed to hold a tooth of Gautama Buddha.

Legend recounts that Prince Thanakuman and Princess Hem Chala brought the relic to Hat Sai Kaew and raised a small pagoda over it in 291 CE. When King Sri Dhammasokaraja later established the city of Nakhon Si Thammarat, he built a larger Mahayana-style temple at the same site, in keeping with the Srivijaya kingdom. After epidemic and war emptied the town, the king raised an even greater stupa in Sri Lankan style with the participation of the people.

The chedi's lineage, drawn from Sinhalese Buddhist art, reflects the traditional belief in Ashoka's transmission of the stupa form from India to Sri Lanka — a lineage made explicit in the city's founding ruler taking the name Sri Dhammasokaraja, meaning 'the great Ashoka'.

The principal stupa rises within a rectangular complex of over five hectares, divided between the Buddha-avasa (the sacred zone) and the Sangha-avasa (the monks' quarters). Atop the chedi stands a ten-metre spire of fifty-two rings, gilded with around six hundred kilograms of gold leaf. Between the central stupa and the cloister stand 158 minor chedis holding the ashes of devout Buddhists across the centuries.

History

Tradition places the founding stupa in 291 CE, raised by Prince Thanakuman and Princess Hem Chala to enshrine a tooth-relic of the Buddha. The greater Sri Lankan-style stupa is dated to the early thirteenth century, when King Sri Dhammasokaraja rebuilt the city of Nakhon Si Thammarat with public participation following devastating epidemics and warfare.

The stupa's establishment helped position Nakhon Si Thammarat as a major centre of Theravada Buddhism; inscriptions from the Sukhothai kingdom recall the city's role in transmitting Theravada teachings into the wider Thai world. The temple received royal patronage throughout the Ayutthaya period, and the precinct has been restored repeatedly — in 1612, 1647, 1732, 1769, 1895, 1914, 1972, 1987, 1994, and 2009. The site was added to a tentative UNESCO World Heritage list in 2012.

Significance

Believed to enshrine a tooth of the Buddha, Wat Phra Mahathat is among the most sacred Theravada pilgrimage destinations in southern Thailand. Its annual Hae Pha Khuen That festival — in which a long cloth is processed up the chedi — remains a touchstone of southern Thai devotional life.