In 40 holy places

Buddhist Temples of Thailand: A Visual Journey through Thailand’s 40 Most Historic Wats

By Joe Cummings

Photography by Dan White

Published by Marshall Cavendish Editions

Available at Asia Books

Reviewed by Manote Tripathi

The Nation

Headlines about monks gone astray have fed Thai Buddhists’ deepening cynicism about their temples’ loss of tranquillity and wisdom, so this comprehensive book by a foreigner is both timely and welcome.

“Buddhist Temples of Thailand”, with text in English by Joe Cummings, is reassurance that Buddhism continues to thrive here and there is plenty of wisdom to be found if you know where to look.

Cummings, well known for his work with Lonely Planet, has selected these 40 temples on artistic and spiritual merit and on their contributions to national integrity and tradition.

The country’s most “populous” monastery is the sometimes-controversial Wat Phra Dhammakaya in Pathum Thani, home to 3,000 monks, novices and laypersons.

It’s an endless source of fascination for visitors both Thai and foreign, especially with its photogenic stupa, the base of which covers a square kilometre, and the million Buddha images inside.

It suggests that the way forward is bigger and grander temples.

Our most venerated monastery is Wat Phra Singh in Chiang Mai, and that’s where our least visited temple is too, although Wat Ton Kwen is also considered the country’s most valuable Lanna structure, an inspiration to the soul as well as the designers of boutique hotels.

Cummings says Thailand’s most beautiful Buddha statue isn’t the famed Emerald Buddha in Bangkok, but the Phra Chinarat Buddha, with its flame-like halo, at Wat Phra Si Ratana Mahathat in Phitsanulok.

I agree with his choice, but having been ordained myself at a very basic temple, I’m alarmed to see so much wealth and power amassed at one of the temples he’s listed.

Cummings’ thorough research and lucid writing set out the historical and cultural context well. He’s an expert on Southeast Asian art history, and ably charts the temple’s evolution, architecture, decoration and public and religious service.

There are more than 40,000 wats across the kingdom, he reports, of which 34,000 are considered functioning monasteries, currently occupied by monks.

“Like your neighbourhood 7-Eleven, wats are not closed on weekends or full-moon days,” Cummings, a non-Buddhist, points out. He admires this ubiquity and access, something that other faiths’ places of worship don’t offer.

By way of explaining temple tradition, he explains the unvarying components of the architecture �" each one essential, from stupa and chedi to wihan and bot.

All are triangular, Cummings notes, evoking Mount Meru at the centre of Hindu cosmology and echoing the Buddha’s seated meditation pose.

It’s hard, he says, not to notice the temple’s “garish magnificence” �" all that wealth and power displayed ostentatiously. Their construction, he explains, is an act of financial sacrifice on the laity’s part.

Royal sponsorship has played a key role in generating public funds since the reign of India’s first Buddhist ruler, King Ashoke, two millennia ago. Seen as a collective effort to save mankind as much as one’s own soul, such merit-making can reach fever pitch, as it did in the glory days of Sukhothai and Ayutthaya.

The 200 photos in the book by Briton Dan White make it a visual feast. He toured the country by motorcycle, covering 12,000 kilometres.

But this is mostly Cummings’ story: He’s lived in Thailand, reflecting on Buddhist art and architecture, for more than 30 years. In fact he came here mainly because of the socially conscious writings of the late monk Buddhadasa Bhikku.

Without real affection for the monasteries and the monks and understanding of their complex symbolic worlds, he couldn’t possibly have written with such accuracy and passion.

This is the kind of book that will set you off on a temple trail, a journey that will most likely be rewarded with not just solace, but a fuller awareness of Buddhism as a cornerstone of official Thai thinking.