[42] This is one of the Buddhist customs adopted by the Catholics for the purpose of securing the daughters of rich natives as servants of the Church.
[43] One of the names of the mother of the Buddha.
STRAY LEAVES FROM THE ROYAL SCHOOL-ROOM TABLE.
The three temples around which the city of the Nang Harm had taken root and gradually grown to its present dimensions were especially remarkable. The one in which I taught, Watt Khoon Chom Manda Thai,—Temple of the Mothers of the Free,—was formerly dedicated to the mother of the Buddha, as its ancient name Manda Maia Goudamana clearly shows; and the other was dedicated to the "Buddha Thapinya," Buddha the Omniscient, and the third and most beautiful to the "Buddha Annando,"[44] Buddha the Infinite,—all names from the Pali. The general effect of each of these buildings is that of some great church in the southern part of Europe. The basement story is a square mass of about two hundred feet on each side, with double rows of windows flanked by pilasters and crowned with a curious flamboyant spiral canopy, in what may be called the French-Gothic style. These pilasters and this canopy are the two most marked and universal features in the Buddhist architecture; at the middle of each side of the basement rises a lofty porch or ante-hall, terminating in an immense gabled façade, pilastered and canopied like the windows. These halls or vestibules convert the temple into a vast Greek cross. Over the basement rise a number of diminishing terraces with small pagodas at the angles, the whole culminating in a pyramidal steeple like the Hindoo shivala; and lastly the steeple itself is crowned with a chayatree, or tapering umbrella of gilt iron-work, rising to nearly two hundred feet from the ground.
The interior consists of two great concentric corridors with large recesses for the images. Most of the images are standing figures; the Buddha alone is either seated or reclining, in various attitudes of benediction, or preaching on elevated lotus-shaped pedestals. The vaulted cells in which the Buddha is seated reach up to the second and sometimes to the third terrace, and from a small window in the roof there streams a flood of sunlight downwards on the head and shoulders of the colossus, with wonderful effect.
There is great uncertainty about the dates and builders of these three temples, and I know nothing more interesting and beautiful than the legend which is attached to the spot on which they stand. In the Siamese annals, however, it is stated that these temples have stood here for nearly twelve hundred years, embedded in what was once a sacred grove of olive, palm, and boh trees, before Bangkok was ever settled, and in the palmy days of the ancient and beautiful city of Ayodhya or Ayudia; that they then attracted pilgrims from all parts of the world, particularly women, who came to perform vows or to offer votive sacrifices at their shrines.
It was P'hra P'huthi Chow L'huang, a usurper, who, in order to establish more securely his throne, selected the vicinity of these triad temples as the seat of government, removed his palace from the west to the east bank of the Mèinam, founded a city, surrounded it with triple walls, and called it the abode of the beautiful and invincible archangel.