A visit to Ayutthaya…

Have you ever heard of this place? Don’t confuse with Ayodhya,India. Ayutthaya known as Ayudhya is situated in Thailand (80-90kms south of Bangkok), almost an hour journey from Bangkok by taxi. After visiting Bangkok, we thought of visiting some other places. We have to come back on same day as we have to catch the flight on next day morning, so we took a taxi and went to visit old capital of Bangkok.

Ayutthaya kingdom(2nd Siamese capital) was founded after Sukhothai kingdom, and was capital of Thailand for many years. It used to be one of the richest cities in Asia by the 1600s, The Ayudhya kingdom lasted from 1350 to 1767, when the city was conquered and destroyed by the invading Burmese. The Burmese were the great rivals of the Thais of Ayudhya and sacked the city also a first time about 200 years earlier. Today you can see the ruins of the temples, palaces etc. Remains of temples called chedis are main attraction in this city. You can see many Buddha’s statues which were beheaded by Burmese and some are destroyed by others (by thieves/smugglers as local guides say).

We watched Buddhist monks lifestyle there and celebration of a festival called songkran(Thai traditional new year,13th Apr) while we were there. Thais value the religion by means of merits acquisition, offerings alms to monks, Dhamma(‘Dharma’) Practice, listening to sermon and monks-bathing during this time.While visiting one of the ruins, we saw people dancing around the ruined Buddha temple along with monks. People were carrying gifts/offerings for monks. In the afternoon, after performing a bathing rite for Buddha images and the monks, the celebrants both young and old, joyfully splash water on each other. Besides the throwing of water, people celebrating Songkran also go to a wat (Buddhist monastery) to pray and give food to monks.

Luckily we were there at afternoon and was very hot at that time, but these things were worth watching, it’s more joyful to watch similar rituals in other country as yours:) In the same ruin, we saw one small shed like temple, where baby Buddha was placed with so many gifts (toys etc.) along with a bicycle !!! Have you ever seen offerings to God like this ?

The term Songkran comes from Sanskrit "Sankranta" and means "a move or change" - in this case the move of the sun into the Aries zodiac. Originally this happened at the vernal equinox, but, as the Thai astrology did not observe precession, the date moved from March to April. There is a similar named Indian Festival called as Sankrant or Makar Sankranti, celebrated on 14 January every year. Songkran as such has similarity to Indian festival of Holi.

We saw one tree which has head of Buddha embedded called Buddhi tree. We saw statue of Buddha in all mudras(posture) made of bronze, stone etc. In one of the ruins we saw a large reclining Buddha made of stone, which is openly situated near road.

While coming back to Bangkok, we visited Bang-pa-in summer palace.


The place is worth visiting, if you like historical places.There are so many ruin spots, we visited few of them.I have added as many links to photos which i took there as i can, I will add those to my photoblog shortly.