if you would like to read Searching for the Emerald Buddha in chronological order please go back to Chapter one
In all the years that the Emerald Buddha meandered throughout Asia, first as sheer potentiality and then as a manifest wisdom being, there had never been a unified Thai state. The Mon kingdoms of Chiang Rai and Lamphan as well as their powerful neighbor Chiang Mai rose and fell. Likewise Sukhothai and Ayutthaya. All of them eventually were ground beneath the feet of superior armies – the Burmese or the Khmer.
As Ayutthaya fell in 1767 a young Mon nobleman named Thongduang managed to escape the flames of the burning city. He joined the Thai forces of King Thaksin and fought beside him. The in 1778 he led King Thaksin’s forces into Vientiane and sacked the city. He brought both the Emerald Buddha and the Prang to King Taksin’s capital Thomburi, on the West Bank of the Chao Praya River. Several years later when King Taksin was deposed by a rebel group Thongdunag seized control, calling himself King Rama I. He swiftly moved the Emerald Buddha across the river to his new capital, Rattanakosin, the “Keeping Place of the Emerald Buddha.” Today we simply call it Bangkok.
I wasn’t really exited about seeing the Emerald Buddha in Bangkok. I’m not in favor of the royal family and I didn’t like they way they took control of Thai Buddhism at the turn of the twentieth century. But here we were in Bangkok on the way to the beach, so why not?
I rode a couple of stops down the Chao Praya on the Chao Praya Express Boat, the cool river air like a miracle on a hot day. Unfortunately, the scene outside the Wat Phra Kaew – the Temple of the Emerald Buddha – was total chaos. The Wat Phra Kaew is perhaps Thailand’s most visited tourist attractions, so giant tourist buses jostled for position while belching fumes into the overheated air. I followed the crowd through the payment kiosk and then onto the temple grounds. I don’t know what I expected but it wasn’t this! There were so many tourists taking selfies that I didn’t even know where to start. So I immediately ducked into the Ramekien gallery (29 on the excellent little Wikipedia map).
If nothing else, King Rama I had a plan. He positioned himself as the Avatar of Rama, the great hero of the Hindu Ramayana epic, while enthroning the Emerald Buddha as the Palladian of the nascent Thai state. Rama I himself had rewritten the Ramayana into something that glorified his person into the epitome of virtue and martial prowess. I had heard all of this before. But one has only to look at the murals before realizing they’re stunning!
Initially the Ramekien gallery had been painted by Rama I’s artisans. The version I was looking at had been repainted in Rama III’s time. In several places I could see gallery artisans touching up panels damaged by leaking water or age.
Against my better judgement I began to warm to Rama I’s project. The 178 scenes in this cloister began to seduce me with their beauty!
Any thinking buddhist realizes that he or she has been reborn innumerable times and that it is non-virtue that ties us to this endless round of birth and death. One’s life in effect becomes a cosmological battle, much like the scenes on the gallery walls. This isn’t a battle of good against evil as in Christian mythology. Instead, this a struggle to subdue one’s own anger, attachment and ignorance as one struggles through countless lifetimes. Undoubtedly this was Rama I’s intention. Fortified by this realization my heart began to soften towards the Emerald Buddha’s sojourn in Bangkok. I resolved to go and pay my respects.
For a western tourist, Wat Phra Kaew must seem like some sort of bizarre Thai Disneyland. Demons, battling monkeys, Nagas, Garudas and Kinnaras lear down from battlements or stand in serene equipoise. I walked past the giant Yakshas guarding the gate (and the bevy of selfie- takers clustered around it, and walked past the Phra Shri Rattana Chedi, covered in gold mosaic tiles. (Please see 11 on the map).
Sadly, the Phra Mondap was entirely covered in scaffolding and tarping. Below it and partially obscured was a scale model of Angkor Wat. I was heartbroken. I couldn’t get close enough to shoot photographs of this magnificent tiny structure.
Numerous authorities have suggested that Rama IV built this model to show the Thai people what Angkor Wat looked like. But this is undoubtedly bogus. The Hindu and Buddhist concept of the earth was of a vast sphere girdled by a world ocean. From that rose a ring of mountains, the four continents and finally Mt Meru, the abode of the gods. I remember when I first saw Angkor Wat; it was so early in the morning that the sky was still a dark bruise. Before me was an immense lake, that’s all I could imagine, darkly reflecting the sky. ‘What’s that?’ I stupidly asked my guide. He said, ‘The moat’. I burst into tears! It was so big! The moat symbolizes the world ocean. Farther along the wall represents the ring of mountains, and then finally before the pilgrim, which is what I was, rises the four towers or Prangs of Angkor Wat, symbolizing the four continents. Between the four towers is the central Prang, Mt. Meru, with Vishnu in the celestial palace at its peak. What European cathedral can boast that it is the cosmos rendered into stone? That is what the Khmer did, in one of the most breath-taking structures in the world.
Similarly, Rama IV’s model is a mandala of the world, the ‘container and contents’, and is offered to the Emerald Buddha. In a mandala offering one visualizes giving everything away… all the beauty one has experienced, one’s lover, even one’s own negativities to the wisdom being. I started to walk faster. I wanted to make my own offerings to the Emerald Buddha.
On the way I passed the amazing sights of the Wat Phra Kaew:
Although I was in a hurry I still managed to peak around the rear of the Ubosot. There were less crowds and excellent views of the various ancillary structures.
But really, I was in too much of a rush to look closely. I hurried back to the north side of the Ubosot to confront the fifty yard long shoe rack beside a wall of Garuda’s on the lower tier of the temple.
The crowds were the thickest here, with hordes of sinister-looking military guards clustered around the entrance to the shrine. The numerous signs stating NO PHOTOGRAPHS INSIDE SHRINE indicated there would be no exceptions. Yet despite the heavy handedness of the administration the beauty and playfulness of the glass and tile work outside the entrance, and on the Ubosot as a whole, was excellent!
I ran up the steps and into the shrine.
Inside it was like a blur. Without a camera all I have left of what I saw is a memory. (There aren’t even any postcards!). I remember seeing stars on the ceiling and two exquisite large standing Buddhas in front of the Emerald Buddha and mural covering the back wall behind him. But that’s all I remember.
I sat on the floor in the back, and then as people came and went I was able to scoot my way forward until eventually I was near the front.
I prayed to the Emerald Buddha and asked Him to bless me. Then slowly, very slowly, I emptied my mind of the detritus of thought. I stopped grasping and gave everything away, heart and soul. Joyfully.
This then was the blessing of the Emerald Buddha! I sat at ease, my mind clear like a limpid pool of water. Some time passed.
Then I was tapped on the shoulder. It was one of the guards. More tourists were crowding in and they needed my space. Would I please move along? I smiled at him, said “Sure, why not!” and walked out into the hot and humid day.
Many thanks to Wikipedia for the use of their beautiful little map of Wat Phra Kaew and to the royalgrandpalace.th/en/discover/architecture for the use of their Angkor Wat photograph