The Golden Mount Stupa, Bangkok, Thailand

The Golden Mount Stupa, Bangkok, Thailand The Golden Mount Stupa or Phra Chedi Phukhao Thong or Borom Banphot. The name Borom Banphot was given by King Rama IV of Bangkok to replace its original name of Phra Chedi Phukhao Thong. This religious monument is in the form of a golden stupa built on the top of a man-made hill seventy-six meters high and is located at Wat Saket. The Golden Mount Stupa as built in the reign of King Rama III and was completed in the reign of King Rama IV. When it was first created, the base structure of the Golden mount was in indented angles, a popular form of Buddhist architecture during the Ayutthaya period, each side being 100 meters in length and 18 meters in height. The foundation was laid by digging deep into the ground (it was muddy soil along the canal). Rows of packed logs in the served as a foundation base as in piling. The outer surface was of brick, while the center were heaped earth and blocks of laterite. During the construction, however, the base could not withstand the heavy weight of the soil and laterite. As a result, the upper part of the stupa subsided beyond repair and the work was left unfinished. King Rama IV of Bangkok, his successor, carried on the works, to be in charge of completing the Golden Mount project abandoned from the reign of King Rama III. He had the main Phra Prang reworked into ad artificial mount. Reached by two stairways winding round the slopes of the mount, with a stairway on one section. In May 1865, King Rama IV commissioned a bell shaped stupa on the top. He laid the foundation stone and held festivities to mark the occasion, including an all females dance troupe. The new Golden Mount was renamed Borom Banphot. In the reign of King Rama V, the Golden Mount’s second restoration work completed. Upon completion on January 4, 1877, the king attended a ceremony of enshrining a portion of the Buddha’s relics, formerly kept in the Grand palace, into the Golden Mount Stupa at the top of the mount for the first time and the second time, the Viceroy of India presented to the King, the Buddha relics which were given to this temple and placed in the stupa. The Golden Mount Stupa is regarded as the highest point in Bangkok and it is nine meters higher than the Prang of the Temple of Dawn, which is sixty-seven meters high. At the present king, King Ram IX or King Bhumibol attended a ceremony of depositing the Buddha‘s relics at the Golden Mount Stupa for the third time on January 22, 1954.