texts. The situation in classical Cambodia was somewhat
similar; in form, Buddhist sanctuaries were indistinguishable
from Hindu ones until the construction at Angkor of the
Bayon (c. 1200), which has giant faces on its towers. Scholars
still debate the original meaning of these faces, but tradition-
al Cambodian thought connects them with the Brahma ̄ gods
of the higher levels of the Buddhist cosmos.
In Pagan, Burma (eleventh to thirteenth centuries and
later), many of the temples have configurations similar to the
one seen at the Nagayon. The much larger Ananda (c. 1100)
takes the form of four Nagayon-like temples back-to-back,
emanating from a solid brick core. Sculptures depicting the
life of the Buddha are placed in niches in interior corridors,
where the play of light has a role somewhat like that found
at the Nagayon. The exterior is encircled by glazed terra-
cotta panels at ground level depicting the army of the devil
and worshiping gods in a giant reenactment of the events of
the night of the Buddha’s enlightenment; on the tiered roof,
hundreds of panels illustrate the Buddha’s previous lives. At
Pagan subsequently, the interest in interior light disappeared,
and the massive two-storied temple developed. There were
also brick monastic dwellings in the city, arranged as cells
around a court (as in northern India), as well as giant stupas
functioning as focal points for worship. The most important
great stupa surviving today in Burma is the Shwedagon in
Rangoon, which houses the Buddha’s hair relic.
The brick-and-stucco temple traditions of Pagan did
not last into modern times. Instead, the characteristic Bur-
mese monastic building, a long rectangular structure raised
on stilts, has its roots in the indigenous wooden architecture
of Southeast Asia. It has an exterior platform and three main
sections, each surmounted with pyramidal roofs: the sanctu-
ary, which is a room beneath a tiered spire (pyathat; Skt.,
pra ̄sa ̄da); a multipurpose room, or reception hall; and a store-
room. The east-west orientation is the opposite of older (and
elsewhere, standard) practice; the sanctuary is at the eastern
end, and the Buddha image faces west. In the multipurpose
room (20 by 15 meters in some cases), which has a dais of
its own for Buddha images, monks gather for chanting in the
morning, instruction is given to novices, the public may at-
tend twice-monthly holy day services, and monks and nov-
ices sleep on bedrolls stored away during the day. The upo-
satha hall, which generally has a masonry foundation, is
called a thein (s ̄ıma ̄). Since most monasteries lack a thein,
monks attend a neighboring establishment for services twice
a month.
As a rectilinear masonry image hall spacious enough for
congregational worship, the bo ̄t (uposatha hall) at Wat Phra
Chettuphon has many antecedents, not only in Thailand but
also in Cambodia and Vietnam. What was new at the time
of construction was the designation of the principal hall as
the bo ̄t. In earlier practice, the bo ̄t was a secondary structure
of more modest dimensions, primarily for the use of monks
(and traditionally, in northern Thailand, access was denied
to women). Over the past two hundred years, the Wat Phra
Chettuphon pattern has become standard. In the older pat-
tern, the main hall (wiha ̄n) is the place where the twice
monthly holy day services are held; at these, monks chant,
lay people may take a vow to follow the behavioral precepts,
and a sermon is given. (Ordinarily, older women form the
major portion of the audience at these services.) Public ser-
vices can also be held, however, in a sa ̄la ̄, sometimes a wood-
en building on stilts, sometimes an open-air pavilion.
An early rectilinear hall from the seventh to ninth centu-
ry was excavated in central Thailand at U Thong. A simple
brick platform, 28 by 5 meters, it evidently had a wooden
superstructure. A much more elaborate prototype for the in-
dependent but aligned structures of later times can be seen
at the Buddhist temple site of Dong-duong in Vietnam
(c. 900), where an image hall (37 by 15 meters) lies directly
in front of other buildings further west, including a sanctu-
ary. The early Sukhothai wiha ̄n (north-central Thailand) had
dimensions more square; the wiha ̄n at Wat Saphan Hin (late
thirteenth century) measures 25 by 20 meters, was hardly
raised off the ground, and housed a giant stucco standing
Buddha. By the early fifteenth century this type of wiha ̄n had
been replaced by a more longitudinal one with high plinth.
In central and north-central Thailand, the principal wiha ̄n
tended to be aligned with a stupa or, frequently, with a tower
called a pra ̄ng, an adaptation of the Cambodian sanctuary
tower (but having no enterable sanctuary).BIBLIOGRAPHY
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sana thai l ̄em 1 phu ̄m lang, edited by Khu ̨ krit Pra ̄mo ̄t,
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Dumarçay, Jacques. The Temples of Java. Translated and edited
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Duroiselle, Chas, ed. Epigraphia Birmanica, Being Lithic and
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gon Pagoda, Pagan) appears on pages 90–129.
Fraser-Lu, Sylvia. Splendour in Wood: The Buddhist Monasteries of
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Kinney, Ann R. Worshiping Siva and Buddha: The Temple Art of
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ages. Bangkok, 1979.TEMPLE: BUDDHIST TEMPLE COMPOUNDS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA 9055