Wat Chiang Man
Located within the walls of the old
city, near the Chang Puak gate, Chiang Man is the oldest
temple in Chiang Mai. It was supposedly built by the
founder of the city 700 years ago, King Mengrai. Its
a small temple, and not on the main tourist trail, but
it was important for quite some time.
Several small buildings dot the temple compound, and
behind the main ubosot is a chedi. The base of the chedi
is lined with elephants crafted out of plaster. All
the other buildings are finely decorated in the Northern
style, with red lacquer, gold leaf and many-colored
mirrors. Of special interest is the roof and stairs
of the Wiharn which houses the sacred Buddha images.
The stair banisters are colorful naga dragons typical
of the North. The roof gable-ends also forms beautiful
nagas using colored glass and mirror tiles.
There are two images housed in the wiharn to the right
of the main ubosot. The wiharn itself appears to have
been constructed around a sort of traditional Northern-style
prang which houses the images. One image is a marble
bas-relief Buddha supposed to have come from Sri Lanka
2,000 years ago. The second image is a crystal Buddha
from Lopburi, and is thought to be about 1,800 years
old.
While looking at the images, you might try to figure
out the system of pipes, a pump and a basin at the back
of the alter. It looks like the glass case for the images
can be filled with water, or perhaps they just give
them a shower once in a while?
The windows of the main ubosot are also worth a close
look. The frames are tiled with colored mirrors while
the shutters for the windows sport gold leaf stencil
patterns on both sides of the red lacquer panels.
There was a bit of construction going on around the
wiharn to the left of the main sala, so there may be
some changes since these pictures were taken in October
of 2002.
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