Architecture

THE BUILDERS of Bangkok wanted to make it as much like Ayudhyā as possible. Ayudhyā was an island, so a canal was dug to complete the watery circuit around the new site. An immense amount of building had to be done, but there was no need to introduce new architectural forms, as monasteries and palaces reproduced the remembered glories of the past.

After a time, however, Chinese architecture became popular in Bangkok. A little later, imitations of European buildings began to appear, or rather imitations of the neo-classic colonial buildings of places like Singapore, sometimes modified into an easy-going chinoiserie. The intrusion was at first pleasant enough, and even the late Victorian domestic achitecture in Bangkok is comfortable and picturesque. In the 20th century, however, the intrusion of western and Chinese styles, hideously transformed, has gotten out of control. Fortunately there are still plenty of old houses left in the less fashionable sections: their teak paneling and up-leaping bargeboards are a joy to look at.

Monasteries. The Siamese monumental style, as manifested in the first hundred years of the Bangkok period, is a marvel of grace and fantasy. Architectural forms grow more exuberant without in the least losing their elegant coherency. Often, to catch the light and enchant the eye, surfaces of wall and stupa are faced with porcelain tiles or inlaid with bits of chinaware in floral patterns. The prāṅg, taller and lighter than ever, is still held aloft by the mythical inhabitants of Mount Meru’s slopes. The most usual type of stupa, as in the latter days of Ayudhyā, is the curvilinear obelisk with recessed angles.

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The bell-shaped stupas are strong and solid in design: one of the most impressive monuments in the world is Braḥ Paṭhama, over 375 feet in height, its surface covered with brilliantly-glazed orange-yellow tile. Completed in the early years of the present century, it “encases” an older monument, which is itself probably composed of several successive encasements, the innermost core dating from the Dvāravatī period or even earlier.

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The assembly-hall and ordination-hall carry on the traditions of Ayudhyā and Sukhodaya. The characteristic type, built of brick coated with white stucco, is a long nave with side-aisles, with or without a peristyle, and surmounted by a flight of overlapping roofs tiled in patterns of dazzling color. Stylized nāgas of carved and gilded wood writhe down the gable-eaves, brandishing their combined tails at the top and rearing their cobra-heads at the lower corners. Usually the gable-end contains a composition in carved wood representing Šiva mounted on a bull, Vishṇu on a garuda, or some other heritage of Angkorian Hinduism placed at the service of the Buddha. Doors and windows are surmounted by miniature mountain-systems with nāgas and flames, the lesser peaks of Mount Meru charged with fiery energy. The portals and window-shutters are wood, carved, lacquered in black and gold, or painted, or inlaid with mother-of-pearl, depicting guardian divinities or scenes of enchanted forests or still-lifes of fruit and flowers. Stairway-balustrades take the form of nāgas, the rainbows that are the ladders to heaven. The entrance is usually at the east end of the nave. Inside, the main Buddha image stands or sits near the west end, facing the entrance, and sometimes the interior walls are covered with painted scenes.

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Monastery libraries are like miniature assembly-halls, often built on stilts in a pond so as to prevent termites from getting in.

As to the maṇḍapa, one of the finest examples is the shelter over the Buddha’s Footprint at Srapuri. The square building has a peristyle of porcelain-faced columns supporting the roof, which is a pyramid with false-dormers and nāgas on its seven tiers.

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Shrines sometimes take the form of a prāsāda or palace, of cruciform plan, with a prāṅg placed on top at the intersection of the roofs. The presence of palace architecture in a monastery is not incongruous: it commemorates the ancient custom of Buddhist monarchs who converted their own residences to monasteries and presented them to religion. A beautiful combination of such distinctive forms can be seen in the silhouette of the Chapel Royal (vulgarly called the Temple of the Emerald Buddha).

The Jetavanārāma in Bangkok (Wat Pó, the Bo-Tree Monastery) was begun by King Rāma I (1782-1806) and greatly enlarged by King Rāma III (1824-1851). The latter wished it to be an encyclopedia of all the traditional knowledge and science, secular as well as religious; he caused long inscriptions to be made for those who could read, and paintings for those who could not, dealing with the life of the Buddha and his disciples, astronomy and astrology, geography and the races of men, mythology, poetry and medicine. The main quadrangle, with its soaring ordination-hall, is enclosed in a majestic gallery which intersects a chapel at each of the cardinal points; and outside it, radiating like the segments of a maṇḍala, lesser galleries enclose small garden-courtyards that invite meditation. Around and about stand tall glistening stupas and miniature mountains of tree-clad rocks. In the western precinct there are more stupas and miniature mountains, a pond, a library, pavilions and school-rooms, and the hall of the immense reclining Buddha. This figure, larger than an American railroad car, is a deeply moving work, though one can hardly judge it as sculpture: the hall, though vast, is too small for the beholder to stand far enough away to see the image as a whole. The footsoles, inlaid with the 108 auspicious signs in mother-of-pearl, are like huge tablets bearing a message of good omen.

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Monasteries of the most spectacular beauty are too numerous to list, much less to illustrate; but I cannot refrain from mentioning a few of my favorites: Rājapratishṭa, Rājapabita, Sudarśana, and Pavaranivesa, all in Bangkok; and Chlöm Braḥ Kirti, on the right bank of the river a few miles upstream, in the rustic shade of ancient trees.

Palace architecture. The Grand Palace at Bangkok, containing buildings of every period from the foundation of the city to modern times, is a happy blend of European and Siamese forms. A no less happy blend of European and Chinese forms can be seen in King Mongkut’s palace at Bejrapurī, built in the 1860’s. As to the Siamese style proper, fine examples are fortunately numerous. One, built in the late 18th century, is the Buddhaiśvarya Building in the old palace of the Wang Nâ Prince, now the National Museum. Another, built at the beginning of the present century, is a delightful water-pavilion.

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The Golden Meru. Architecturally rendered, the artificial mountain is an inexhaustible theme, applicable to stupas, to the designs of palace and monastery buildings, to door and window trim, to elephant-howdahs and barge pavilions. One of its most splendid manifestations, the funeral pyre of royalty, popularly called the Golden Meru, is beautifully depicted on a panel in the Lacquer Pavilion at Suan Pakkad Palace.

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Sculpture

THE BANGKOK SCULPTORS excelled in miniature figures. They put plenty of vigor into the Brahmanical gods riding their chosen animals, and into the animals themselves; they put pathos into the episodes from the Buddha’s life; and they put a real sense of terror into their evocations of hell. They were admirable carvers of bas-relief as well: their scenes from epic poetry are composed with brio, and executed with assurance.

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They were less successful in making images of the Buddha. One of the most curious series was cast in the reign of King Rāma III, in an attempt to standardize the iconography. It includes a number of new postures invented ad hoc to represent specific episodes, and attaches specific meanings to the old ones. Most of the new postures were quickly forgotten, though one survived to the reign of King Rāma V. Nor have the rules about the old postures been very strictly observed. Especially in painting, the iconography does not need to be stereotyped so long as the meaning is clear.^*

In the early days of Bangkok the need to restore the glories of the past, which gave such an impetus to architecture, had the opposite effect on image-making. The most pressing need was to “take pity on the old images of the Lord that lay neglected among the ruins, exposed to sun and rain.” In the popular mind they were living beings: it would have been both unkind and wasteful not to rescue them and put them back in working order so as to fulfill their protective function. At the command of King Rāma I, more than 1200 bronze Buddha images, of life size or larger, were gathered up at Ayudhyā, Sukhodaya and elsewhere, brought to Bangkok, and installed in monasteries. For some time, therefore, the supply of large Buddha images was sufficient, and there was little or no demand for new ones. When the demand at length revived, it was too late: competence could be regained, but not inspiration.

As to the old images that King Rāma I assembled, those that were not required as cult images in monasteries were set up in the Jetavanārāma, ranged symmetrically in the different cloisters. For some reason they were all encased in a thick coating of plaster before being gilded, and thus converted in appearance into spiritless and absolutely uniform copies of one another. A few years ago the monastery authorities began removing the plaster encasement, and revealed a number of sublime masterpieces of richly-patinated bronze. Piety quickly hid them again, though not so completely, by giving them a coat of lacquer and gold leaf, so that the dazzled eye cannot appreciate their sculptural quality. Yet this must have been their original appearance: according to the old belief, the Buddha’s skin was the color of gold, and the rays of his fiery energy were so intense that his true form could only be seen by means of prolonged meditation.