Wat Lahm Chang (วัดล่ามช้าง)

Thai. ‘Temple of the Thetered Elephants’. Name of a Lan Na-style Buddhist temple in Chiang Mai, located within the walls of the old city. It is a royal temple that dates from 1296 AD and was founded during the time that King Mengrai (fig.) came to built the city. During the construction of the city, the King temporarily resided at what is now the site of Wat Chiang Man (fig.), earlier referred to as Wiang Lek (เวียงเล็ก) or Wiang Chiang Man (เวียงเชียงมั่น). To its east was at that time a wooded area with a large swamp which became the feeding grounds of the elephants that were used as the royal vehicles of the Three Kings of the Lan Na Empire (fig.), i.e. King Ngam Muang of Phayao, King Mengrai of Chiang Mai, and King Ramkamhaeng of Sukhothai, and their courtiers, and thus the area where the elephants were held and fed obtained the name Wiang Chiang Chang (เวียงเชียงช้าง), i.e. the ‘Walled City of Elephants’. Hence, when the temple was built in this vicinity, it was consequently named Wat Lahm Chang and it today has a statue of an elephant chained in on a platform as a symbol of the temple and the history this place. The present-day brick and mortar wihaan is a new building with a gable that is adorned with golden floral patterns. According to Lan Na tradition, there is a protruding porch and staircase on the side of the wihaan, that is used for monks to enter and leave. Behind the wihaan is the principal phra chedi. It is a compact round pagoda decorated at the base with statues of elephants in the four cardinal directions. Around the round base supporting the bell-shaped pinnacle of the chedi are gilded stucco decorations of thepanom (fig.). The gilded bell-shaped part, all the way up to the pinnacle, is adorned with glass, whilst the base of the dome is decorated with gilded lotus petals. Adjacent to it are the remains of an ancient pagoda in brick with a rectangular base and arches on all four sides, but the top of it lays in ruins. Poochaniyawathu, i.e. ‘sacred objects’, in the wihaan include the Muk Dokmai (มุกดอกไม้) Buddha image that was made from between 1,500-2,000 kilograms of various dried flowers, i.e. dokmai, that were collected from holy places both in Thailand and from around the world, and mixed with lime and glutinous rice to create this Chiang Saen-style statue, with a height of 90 centimeters, in order to celebrate Chiang Mai's 720th anniversary in 2016. Also transliterated Wat Lam Chang. See also EXPLORER'S MAP and WATCH VIDEO. 回