![]() ![]() Pieces of the actual plaster are also on public display. Īll the plaster was carefully removed and during the process, photos were taken and are now displayed in the Temple for visitors. Work was immediately stopped so that an evaluation could be made. ![]() At that moment, some of the plaster coating chipped off, allowing the gold surface underneath to be seen. It was moved to its new location on there are a variety of accounts of what exactly happened next, but it is clear that during the final attempt to lift the statue from its pedestal, the ropes broke and the statue fell hard on the ground. In 1954, a new Viharn building was built at the temple to house the statue. The true identity of this statue had been forgotten for almost 200 years. Since the temple didn't have a building big enough to house the statue, it was kept for 20 years under a simple tin roof. At the time, Wat Traimit was a pagoda of minor significance (like hundreds of other Buddhist temples that exist in Bangkok). When Wat Chotanaram, located near Chinatown on the site of modern-day Asiatique, fell into disrepair and was closed, the statue was moved to its present location at the nearby Wat Traimit in 1935. Īt the time of King Rama III (1824–1851), the statue, still covered with stucco, was installed as the principal Buddha image in the main temple building of Wat Chotanaram (Wat Phraya Krai) in Bangkok. In 1801, King Buddha Yodfa Chulaloke (Rama I) of Siam, after establishing Bangkok as a new capital city of the Kingdom, and after commissioning the construction of many temples in Bangkok, ordered that various old Buddha images should be brought to Bangkok from the ruined temples around the country. The statue remained among the ruins of Ayutthaya without attracting much attention. It is believed that this plastering-over took place before the destruction of Ayutthaya kingdom by Burmese invaders in 1767. The statue was covered with a thick layer of stucco, which was painted and inlaid with bits of coloured glass. Īt some point, the statue was completely plastered over to prevent it from being stolen. In lines 23–27 of the first stone slab of the stele, "a gold Buddha image" is mentioned as being located "in the middle of Sukhothai City," interpreted as being a reference to the Wat Traimit Golden Buddha. Some scholars believe the statue is mentioned in the somewhat controversial Ram Khamhaeng stele. Later, the statue was probably moved from Sukhothai to Ayutthaya, about 1403. Given that Sukothai art had Indian influences and metal figures of the Buddha made in India used to be taken to various countries mostly during the Pala period. The head of the statue is egg-shaped, which indicates its origin in the Sukhothai period. It is made in the Sukhothai Dynasty style of the 13th–14th centuries, though it could have been made after that time. The origins of this statue are uncertain. During relocation of the statue in 1955, the plaster was chipped off and the gold revealed. ![]() At one point in its history the statue was covered with a layer of stucco and coloured glass to conceal its true value, and it remained in this condition for almost 200 years, ending up as what was then a pagoda of minor significance. It is located in the temple of Wat Traimit, Bangkok, Thailand. The Golden Buddha, officially titled Phra Phuttha Maha Suwanna Patimakon ( Thai: พระพุทธมหาสุวรรณปฏิมากร Sanskrit: Buddhamahāsuvarṇapaṭimākara), commonly known in Thai as Phra Sukhothai Traimit ( Thai: พระสุโขทัยไตรมิตร), is a gold Maravijaya Attitude seated Buddharupa statue, with a weight of 5.5 tonnes (5,500 kilograms). ![]()
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