AYUTTHAYA HISTORICAL RESEARCH



RAMA III WATER GAUGE





Along the northern stretch of the old Lopburi River, now called Khlong Mueang or City Canal, just opposite the riverbank of Wat Kuti Thong stands the shrine of Jao Pho Lak Mueang (Reverend Father City Pillar), with a strange stone pillar next to it. Boats full of tourists pass by daily without giving it any attention. When I asked people nearby what this pillar and shrine are, I received different answers, ranging from an old city pillar to a water gauge. I contacted Professor Bidya Sriwattanasarn to obtain his expertise on the issue [1]

The Chinese shrine contains an altar with remnants of a wooden pole and a lotus-bud top-end on top. As the shrine states "Lak Mueang", I presume the wood was once part of the old city pillar of Ayutthaya. Professor Bidya Sriwattanasarn wrote to me that the Lak Mueang had to be made from sacred wood such as the Cassia tree (Cassia fistula). The Cassia fistula, known as the golden shower tree, is called Rachapruek (ราชพฤกษ์), Thailand's national tree its yellow flowers symbolise Thai royalty. [2]

On a mid-19th-century map, in the northeastern corner of the Grand Palace, near the premises of Wat Thammikarat, there is a square mark with a point at its centre, indicated as "San Lak Mueang" or "City Pillar Shrine". This city pillar shrine was thus situated only a few tens of metres from the site of the shrine near the canal today, which suggests that the remains of the old city pillar may have been safeguarded within the shrine of Jao Phor Lak Mueang, as its name indicates.




Below, I cite most of Quaritch Wales' book [3]:


The Lak Mueang Shrine, or the Shrine of the Pillar of the Lord of the Country (1), is a small brick building crowned by a Khmer prang. In the small, dark interior, a carved, gilded wooden pillar stands, draped in red cloth. This pillar is the home of the Guardian Spirit of the City, and around it are grouped phallic emblems, images of lesser phi, and paper votive offerings in piles. The person who was sacrificed to make the Chao Lak Mueang was buried underneath the post. (2)


The guardian spirits of the city are but a development of the same primitive belief as the San Phra Phum (3) and are the most tangible evidence of the survival of pure animism in Thailand today. People who are not in good health came to pay homage to the Chao Lak Mueang. It is also still the custom for a person desirous of obtaining a favour, such as a rise in salary, to make a mental promise beforehand to the effect that, should he obtain that which he desires, he will make an offering to the Chao Lak Mueang. This offering varies from some flowers or food placed in the shrine to a theatrical entertainment, and the promise is always kept.





(San Jao Pho Lak Mueang - View from Wat Kuti Thong Bridge - Picture taken November 2009 CE)



The Chao Lak Mueang still receives official sanction today. It used to be the custom, at least until 1910 CE, to issue periodical invitation cards by royal command, requesting the honour of the presence of Chao Ket at forthcoming religious ceremonies. Such cards were until that year stuck on the door of the shrine. In the oath of allegiance taken twice yearly by all officials, the Chao Lak Mueang was still invoked, and his vengeance called down on any traitor.


On 8 October 2011 CE, during the massive flood in Thailand, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration invoked spiritual help to save Bangkok from the deluge by organising a Lai Nam (water-dispelling) Brahmin ritual at the City Pillar. [4]


I cite Quaritch: “The Guardian Spirit of the City is as by no means forgotten, that he still retains a sociological value, and in case of national danger no doubt he would come in for a considerably greater share of attention, as he did in times past.”


The presumption that the wood within the shrine, being the remains of the old pillar, seems to vanish in the haze. One day, a man near the site told me that there had been only a small San Phra Phum before. After an old tree in its vicinity fell, wood was cut out to be set up in a newly built shrine. He added that the stone pole along the riverbank stood there before the shrine was built and dated from the Ayutthaya period. It is a long way to find the truth ...





(The stone pillar near the shrine - Picture taken March 2012 CE)



The stone pillar near the shrine sparked my interest. I initially identified it as the water gauge Rama III erected during the 1831 CE floods in Ayutthaya, after reading Steve Van Beek's book "Chao Phya, River in Transition". Apparently, this gauge stood on the Chao Phraya River. What was this strange stone pillar, then? [5]


The pillar is Chinese-style and sculpted with what appear to be a dragon and figures of deities (?). On top of the pillar stands a square stone, with a motif carved on each side. I found a picture in a book of a similar pillar on the left bank of Khlong Mueang, standing on the temple grounds. Professor Sriwattanasarn believed that the pillar was an old lighting post made from ballast stones, with sculptures related to Chinese sky-earth mythology.


I consulted a specialised Thai dictionary and found the following description (literally translated from Thai): Sao Tai (เสาไต้) - A pillar for attaching a torch to provide bright light along a walkway or in a general area outside. The structure is mainly a sculptured stone pole, formerly a ballast stone (4) from a junk from China. [6]





Knowing I had to look into Chinese mythology, I tried to find the story behind the sculpture. What I write below is purely tentative and may be far from the truth, but anyone with the exact knowledge is always welcome to contact me and set it right.


Here it goes: The stone pillar is probably related to the Chinese myth of the creation of the sky and the earth, with their respective pillars. The pillars of the sky are massive pillars that support the sky, keeping it from collapsing or swinging toward the earth and separating it from the earth. Their number varies across stories, from four to five, eight, or even twelve. The pillars of the earth, which functioned to protect the earth from collapse or swinging, sometimes appeared alongside the sky pillars in some myths. [7]





(Nüwa was mending the sky. Initially drawn in the 17th century by Xiao Yuncong - Yang Lihui, Rethinking on the Source Area of the Cult of Nüwa, Beijing Shifan Daxue Chubanshe, 1999)



Nüwa is a mythical figure representing the creation of life and female fertility, in contrast to the male symbol of Fu Xi, known for repairing one of the pillars between the sky and the earth. The myth of the goddess Nüwa in the Huainanzi (a 2nd-century BCE Chinese philosophical classic from the Han dynasty) states that:


"In remote antiquity, the four poles supporting the sky collapsed, and the land of the nine divisions of ancient China broke up. The sky could not completely cover the earth, and the earth could not totally carry the world. Fires raged fiercely and did not go out. Floodwater ran everywhere and did not subside. The fierce beasts devoured kind people, and violent birds seized the old and the weak. Nüwa then melted stones of five different colors to patch the sky, cut the legs off of a huge tortoise and set them up to support the four extremities of the sky, slaughtered the Black Dragon to save the people, and collected ashes of reeds to stop the flood. After that, the sky got renewed, the four sky pillars were set up again, the flood was stopped, and the nine divisions became peaceful." [8]


The image of Nüwa depicts a snake with a human face. On some carved stone sculptures from the Han Dynasty, Nüwa has two legs attached to her snake body, resembling a dragon. The sculpture on the stone pillar might thus represent the goddess Nüwa. The goddess is worshipped on the 7th day of the Chinese New Year (Renri or Human Day), the day she created mankind. [9]


The stone pillar probably once stood on the premises of a monastery. Though it was once worshipped, it is today merely a decorative element of the Jao Phra Lak Mueang shrine and is not directly related to it.





(The stone pillar near the shrine - Picture taken March 2012 CE)



I found additional information on the Facebook page of Ayutthaya Historical Park, where the archaeologist Ms Chayada Suwaratchupan notes that the Fine Arts Department registered this pillar as an ancient monument in 1943 CE under the name: "Stone Water Level Marker from the Reign of King Rama III, Amphoe Krung Kao, Tha Wasukri Subdistrict, Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya Province." This information is from the register of ancient monuments in the Fine Arts Department Region 1.


I am, however, not entirely convinced that the stone pillar carved with cosmological motifs, a Chinese sculptural object, served as a river gauge. Chinese pillars usually appear near bridgeheads, temple entrances, and shrines to provide both illumination and metaphysical protection. The pillar here stands at a bridgehead leading to Wat Kuti Thong (entrance). The classification reflects what officials in 1943 CE believed, not necessarily what the pillar actually was. Early Fine Arts Department registrations often relied on local oral tradition, assumptions, or convenient labels, especially for isolated objects whose original context was lost. A water gauge would be placed on a major riverbank at a stable, official monitoring point where officials could observe it. The bridgehead at Wat Kuti Thong does not meet these criteria.


But I have to admit that it is odd that there is only one such pillar in Ayutthaya. Van Beek, in his book "Chao Phya, River in Transition", may not have been correct in placing the Rama III river gauge on the Chao Phraya River, as the river bed in 1853 CE still lay within the present Bang Ban Canal, which lies 7 km in a straight line from Ayutthaya. The Lopburi River still ran through the present City Canal, or Khlong Mueang, at that time. Given this hydrological configuration, a water‑level marker at the current pillar's location would have been ill‑situated for official measurement.





(Picture retrieved from the Facebook page of the Ayutthaya Historical Park – 18 February 2024)



Footnotes:


(1) Traditionally, a city pillar is the same height as the city's founder. Its diameter is about 5, 7 or 9 times the size of his fist. The pillar is located either in the centre of the city, in the principal temple, near the main water reservoir or in the vicinity of the ruler's palace. In Ayutthaya, this was seemingly the case.

(2) Foundation sacrifices - The spirit of the Lak Mueang was created by sacrificing a suitable individual and burying him beneath the wooden post. The spirit was called Chao Ket. See Van Vliet's Siam - Chris Baker, Dhiravat Na Pombejra, Alfons Van Der Kraan & David K. Wyatt (2005) and Annales de l'Association de la Propagation de la Foi (Society for the Propagation of the Faith) - Bruguiere (1828) on this issue.

(3) On the verandah of every Siamese house, or in a shady corner of the garden, a small wooden "doll's house" on a pole, called San Phra Phum, or "Shrine of the Sacred Grove", is set up, corresponding to the Burmese Nat Sin. This is the shrine of the Chao Thi (Spirit of the Place), and before it, the people of the house offer incense sticks, flowers, and rice, especially when any domestic crisis, such as the birth of a child, is pending. Similar San Phra Phum can be seen in every street, every field, and even in the sacred precincts of the monasteries. (Wales, 1931)

(4) Stones were used to keep the ship's centre of gravity low, avoiding capsizing in heavy seas, generally at 25 to 30 per cent of the ship's deadweight tonnage. The stones kept the ship deep enough in the water to ensure efficient rudder operation and to prevent the bow from emerging from the water. There were two types of ballast: permanent and disposable. The permanent ballast stones, or eventually sand, remained in the ship's hold, while the disposable ballast was loaded or unloaded as the ship's cargo changed. If a vessel travelled without cargo or had discharged cargo in a port, ballast was taken into the cargo holds and adequately secured to achieve the required safe operating conditions. If cargo was taken in, the stones were discarded. The Chinese junk crews carved ballast stones as a pastime during their long sea passages, and they probably earned extra income by selling their creations.


References:


[1] Mail from Professor Bidya Sriwattanasarn on 21 March 2012 CE.

[2] Derived from Wikipedia on 23 March 2012 CE.

[3] Quaritch Wales, H.G. (1931). Siamese State Ceremonies. Their history and function. London: Bernard Quaritch, Ltd. pp. 302-3.

[4] Bangkok Post - 8 October 2011. City Hall to ask Water Goddess for mercy.

[5] Van Beek, Steve (1995). The Chao Phya River in Transition. Oxford University Press.

[6] Kalayamitr, Choti (2548). Dictionary of Architecture and Related Arts. p. 502.

[7] Lihui Yang, Deming An, Jessica Anderson Turner (2008). Handbook of Chinese Mythology - Oxford University Press. p. 181.

[8] Ibid. p. 11.

[9] Lianshan Chen. Chinese Myths and Legends. p 10.



Selected PICTURES



Pictures taken September 2009 CE



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(Alexis de Tocqueville)





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