Angkor Wat commands but Sukhothai floats you through the heavens. Its central shrine, Wat Mahathat, isn’t big enough to dominate the perspective as you walk around the area. Thais created an anti-Angkor Wat after they liberated themselves from the Khmers.
More than 150 other shrines spread around the center, so as you walk around Wat Mahathat, the perspective expands through a world that seems ethereal.
The Buddha rules benevolently. He doesn’t force your gaze onto one building. He lets it meander through a world of delicate forms.
This is one of two mandapas with a standing Buddha; one is just north and the other was built just south of the central stupa. Pagan had already built square mandapas that housed statues, but Sukhothai made them narrower. The smiling oval face and sinuously curving body project a benevolent attitude. These soft forms complement the temples, and they’re common features of the Sukhothai Buddha.
The above complex, at the southern end of Wat Mahathat, is its second largest structure. An inscription says that it was built in 1384 by the teacher of King Mahathammaracha I (who reigned in the mid-14th century, after King Lo Thai, who reconstructed the central shrine) to house his relics. On the left, you can see remains of two narrow halls. The one on the far left might have been an outdoor pavilion, and the other was walled. Both provided a stately entrance to the stupa.
Here, we see the stupa from the inner hall. Its name is Ha Yot, which means five-spired stupa. The top collapsed and the spires are gone now, but the stupa is still well worth lingering over.
A Sukhothai-style Buddha is on its north, west, and south sides. His supernal grace is balanced by lots of lively creatures that line the bottom of the building.
Some are elegant and humanized.
There’s also this lion keeping the riffraff away.
Other creatures are fanciful. Elephants, dwarfs, and demons share real estate with them. All compose the realm of earthly existence in Buddhist cosmology. Though it’s the zone we’re all supposed to strive for liberation from, these figures were carved with a sense of fun which makes me want to hang around for a while. Very Thai–hope for a better rebirth, but have a good time along the way.
So though the Buddha and the king have prominent places at Wat Mahathat, they rule it softly. You can walk around them at your leisure. There are still more than 150 other buildings at this wat, and this is where the magic really happens.
They also make up a great perspective of the world, which is characteristically Thai, and a great contrast with Western ways of seeing, which artists in Florence, Italy were formalizing at the same time.
Many of the other shrines were probably built for royal ancestors. Khmers also venerated departed royal spirits, and honoring ancestors is common in folk religions all over Southeast Asia. In Sukhothai, Thais turned this custom into a landscape full of gentle forms that dance and flicker as you amble through it.
Some shrines are in the bell form which Thais adapted from Sri Lanka.
This one’s in a handsome octagonal form with fluted corners.
This thin pyramid is Mon-style. Mon-speaking people lived all over Thailand and in southern Burma, and they had a kingdom in northern Thailand called Haripunchai. The expanding Lan Na kingdom based in Chiang Mai took it over, but the gentle forms in Mon art were incorporated into Thai architecture and sculpture. The niches used to house Buddha statues.
The stupa on the left, with the top in the shape of a lotus bud, echoes the lotus bud-shaped spire in Wat Mahathat’s center, which is in the middle of the picture.
The above reconstruction shows that a procession around the stupa would have rewarded people with parallaxes of slowly moving forms which would have shone in the sunlight.
The above shot looks into the remains of the ordination hall (ubosot), which is a little north of the central shrine. Only monks were allowed in the ubosot, in contrast to the general assembly hall. Though this building was highly honored, its intimate scale added to Sukhothai’s gentle atmosphere.
The above photo is from the west. This area’s especially pretty in the late afternoon, when the setting sun gives the shrines softer colors.
A lot of Wat Mahathat was restored in the 1980s, and Thai art specialists aren’t sure about how authentic the work is. Were Thais idealizing their past?
Whether the modern work faithfully recreates Sukhothai during its heyday in the 14th century or not, I think it’s safe to think that old Sukhothai still had several characteristics that it still has:
1. A multiplicity of different forms that Thais adapted from several cultures.
2. Perspectives that gently meander rather than hem your gaze into one direction, like the nave of most Gothic cathedrals. Thai art doesn’t stress linear relationships as much as Western art does. It emphasizes inclusive blends of many forms which are in harmony–no wonder why some Westerners find Thai art addictive.
3. As you wander around, the different forms dance and shimmer as though the energies that generate life radiate from them, but in benevolent ways. The many ponds around Wat Mahathat add even more dimensions to the interplays. You can read more about Thai ways of perceiving here. You can also explore northern Thai variations.
If you linger around Wat Mahathat, you might start thinking it’s one of the most beautiful places people ever created. Thais still hold it as a model for their identities. I call this series of articles “Facts and Dreams about Ancient Sukhothai” but if Sukhothai is a dream, millions of Thais don’t want to wake up. Neither do I. We’ll see how it ripples around the city’s center in the next article.