Wat Phra Si Sanphet, Ayutthaya
The royal temple of the Ayutthaya palace, and its three restored chedis.
Wat Phra Si Sanphet, Ayutthaya
Wat Phra Si Sanphet stood inside the royal palace grounds and was the holiest temple in the kingdom - the Ayutthaya equivalent of Wat Phra Kaew in Bangkok. No monks lived here; it was for royal ceremonies only.
Its three chedis, built from the late fifteenth century to hold the ashes of three kings, stand in a row on a single terrace and have been restored. They are the image most often used to represent Ayutthaya as a whole. The temple once also held a sixteen-metre standing Buddha covered in gold, which was destroyed in 1767.
The site is next to the palace ruins in the centre of the island, and is usually combined with Wat Mahathat and Wat Ratchaburana in a single walk.
- Wat Chaiwatthanaram, Ayutthaya — The riverside temple of 1630, built to a Khmer plan and the most complete ruin in Ayutthaya.
- Wat Lokayasutharam, Ayutthaya — The great reclining Buddha of Ayutthaya, lying in the open on the west side of the island.
- Wat Mahathat, Ayutthaya — The temple of the Buddha head held in the roots of a banyan tree - the single most photographed image in Ayutthaya.
- Wat Ratchaburana, Ayutthaya — A 1424 temple with a climbable prang and a crypt holding some of Thailand's oldest surviving murals.
- Ayutthaya Historical Park — The UNESCO World Heritage remains of Thailand's second capital, on an island between three rivers.
- Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon, Ayutthaya — A working monastery outside the old city, with a great chedi and a courtyard of saffron-robed Buddhas.
