Wat Traimit

About

Wat Traimit Witthayaram Worawihan rises in the Samphanthawong district of Bangkok, deep within the city's vibrant Chinatown. The temple likely dates to the early Rattanakosin period and was previously called Wat Sam Chin Tai — the 'south temple of the three Chinese' — after the friends remembered in oral tradition as its founders. It received its present name in 1940 and became a royal temple of the second class in 1956.

The wat is universally associated with the Phra Phuttha Maha Suwanna Patimakon, the Golden Buddha. The statue had been brought to Wat Traimit in 1935 from the abandoned Wat Phraya Krai, covered in plaster. In 1955, during a ceremony to move the image, it was accidentally dropped. The plaster cracked, and beneath shone solid gold — a Sukhothai-style image of striking refinement, concealed for centuries.

The statue received its formal name in 1992 and is now housed within the Phra Maha Mondop, a four-storey marble-clad pavilion opened to the public in 2010. Designed by Arvuth Ngoenchuklin, the Mondop's top floor is a shrine hall where the image rests beneath a gilded multi-tiered roof. The lower floors function as museums — one tells the story of the statue's casting and rediscovery, while another houses the Yaowarat Chinatown Heritage Center.

The monks' residences were built in 1937, and the ubosot was raised in 1947 to designs by Luang Wisansinlapakam — both received the ASA Architectural Conservation Award in 2011.

History

The temple was probably founded around the reign of King Rama III (1824–1851) by three Chinese friends, hence its early name Wat Sam Chin. The complex was largely rebuilt during the 1930s and 1940s, and on 3 February 1940 it received the name Wat Traimit Witthayaram — 'temple of the three friends'. In 1956 it was elevated to royal temple of the second class.

The most famous chapter came in 1955, when the plaster covering on a Buddha image from the abandoned Wat Phraya Krai cracked open and revealed a solid-gold statue. The image was formally named Phra Phuttha Maha Suwanna Patimakon in 1992. The dedicated Mondop housing it was completed in 2007 and inaugurated on 14 February 2010, as part of a state-and-community initiative also marking King Bhumibol Adulyadej's eightieth birthday year.