The day had come for my presentation to the supreme king. After much
preliminary talk between the Kralahome and myself, through the medium of
the interpreter, it had been arranged that my straightforward friend,
Captain B----, should conduct us to the royal palace, and procure the
interview. Our cheerful escort arrived duly, and we proceeded up the
river,--my boy maintaining an ominous silence all the while, except
once, when he shyly confessed he was afraid to go.
At the landing we found a large party of priests, some bathing, some
wringing their yellow garments; graceful girls balancing on their heads
vessels of water; others, less pleasing, carrying bundles of grass, or
baskets of fruit and nuts; noblemen in gilded sedans, borne on men's
shoulders, hurrying toward the palace; in the distance a troop of
horsemen, with long glittering spears.
Passing the covered gangway at the landing, we came upon a clean brick
road, bounded by two high walls, the one on the left enclosing the abode
of royalty, the other the temple Watt Poh, where reposes in gigantic
state the wondrous Sleeping Idol. Imagine a reclining figure one hundred
and fifty feet long and forty feet high, entirely overlaid with plate
gold; the soles of its monstrous feet covered with bass-reliefs inlaid
with mother-of-pearl and chased with gold; each separate design
distinctly representing one of the many transmigrations of Buddha
whereby he obtained Niphan. On the nails are graven his divine
attributes, ten in number:
1. Arahang,--Immaculate, Pure, Chaste.
2. Samma Sam-Putho,--Cognizant of the laws of Nature, Infallible,
Unchangeable, True.
3. Vicharanah Sampanoh,--Endowed with all Knowledge, all Science.
4. Lukha-tho,--Excellence, Perfection.
5. Lôk-havi-tho,--Cognizant of the mystery of Creation.
6. Annutharo,--Inconceivably Pure, without Sin.
7. Purisah tham-mah Sarathi,--Unconquerable, Invincible, before whom the
angels bow.
8. Sassahdah,--Father of Beatitude, Teacher of the ways to bliss.
9. Poodh-tho,--Endowed with boundless Compassion, Pitiful, Tender, Loving,
Merciful, Benevolent.
10. Pâk-havah,--Glorious, endowed with inconceivable Merit, Adorable.
Leaving this temple, we approached a low circular fort near the palace,
--a miniature model of a great citadel, with bastions, battlements, and
towers, showing confusedly over a crenellated wall. Entering by a curious
wooden gate, bossed with great flat-headed nails, we reached by a stony
pathway the stables (or, more correctly, the palace) of the White
Elephant, where the huge creature--indebted for its "whiteness" to
tradition rather than to nature--is housed royally. Passing these, we
next came to the famous Watt P'hra Këau, or temple of the Emerald Idol.
An inner wall separates this temple from the military depot attached to
the palace; but it is connected by a secret passage with the most
private apartments of his Majesty's harem, which, enclosed on all sides,
is accessible only to women. The temple itself is unquestionably one of
the most remarkable and beautiful structures of its class in the Orient;
the lofty octagonal pillars, the quaint Gothic doors and windows, the
tapering and gilded roofs, are carved in an infinite variety of emblems,
the lotos and the palm predominating. The adornment of the exterior is
only equalled in its profusion by the pictorial and hieroglyphic
embellishment within. The ceiling is covered with mythological figures
and symbols. Most conspicuous among the latter are the luminous circles,
resembling the mystic orb of the Hindoos, and representing the seven
constellations known to the ancients; these revolve round a central sun
in the form of a lotos, called by the Siamese _Dok Âthit_ (sun-flower),
because it expands its leaves to the rising sun and contracts them as he
sets. On the cornices are displayed the twelve signs of the zodiac.
The altar is a wonder of dimensions and splendor,--a pyramid one hundred
feet high, terminating in a fine spire of gold, and surrounded on every
side by idols, all curious and precious, from the bijou image in
sapphire to the colossal statue in plate gold. A series of trophies
these, gathered from the triumphs of Buddhism over the proudest forms of
worship in the old pagan world. In the pillars that surround the temple,
and the spires that taper far aloft, may be traced types and emblems
borrowed from the Temple of the Sun at Baalbec, the proud fane of Diana
at Ephesus, the shrines of the Delian Apollo; but the Brahminical
symbols and interpretations prevail. Strange that it should be so, with
a sect that suffered by the slayings and the outcastings of a ruthless
persecution, at the hands of their Brahmin fathers, for the cause of
restoring the culture of that simple and pure philosophy which nourished
before pantheism!
The floor is paved with diamonds of polished brass, which reflect the
light of tall tapers that have burned on for more than a hundred years,
so closely is the sacred fire watched. The floods of light and depths of
shadow about the altar are extreme, and the effect overwhelming.
The Emerald Idol is about twelve inches high and eight in width. Into
the virgin gold of which its hair and collar are composed must have been
stirred, while the metal was yet molten, crystals, topazes, sapphires,
rubies, onyxes, amethysts, and diamonds,--the stones crude, or rudely
cut, and blended in such proportions as might enhance to the utmost
imaginable limit the beauty and the cost of the adored effigy. The
combination is as harmonious as it is splendid. No wonder it is commonly
believed that Buddha himself alighted on the spot in the form of a great
emerald, and by a flash of lightning conjured the glittering edifice and
altar in an instant from the earth, to house and throne him there!
On either side of the eastern entrance--called _Patoo Ngam_, "The
Beautiful Gate"--stands a modern statue; one of Saint Peter, with
flowing mantle and sandalled feet, in an attitude of sorrow, as when "he
turned away his face and wept"; the other of Ceres, scattering flowers.
The western entrance, which admits only ladies, is styled _Patoo
Thavâdah_, "The Angels' Gate," and is guarded by genii of ferocious
aspect.
At a later period, visiting this temple in company with the king and his
family, I called his Majesty's attention to the statue at the Beautiful
Gate, as that of a Christian saint with whose story he was not
unfamiliar. Turning quickly to his children, and addressing them gently,
he bade them salute it reverently. "It is Mam's P'hra," [Footnote:
Saint, or Lord.] he said; whereupon the tribe of little ones folded
their hands devoutly, and made obeisance before the effigy of Saint
Peter. As often as my thought reverts to this inspiring shrine, reposing
in its lonely loveliness amid the shadows and the silence of its
consecrated groves, I cannot find it in my heart to condemn, however
illusive the object, but rather I rejoice to admire and applaud, the
bent of that devotion which could erect so proud and beautiful a fane in
the midst of moral surroundings so ignoble and unlovely,--a spiritual
remembrance perhaps older and truer than paganism, ennobling the pagan
mind with the idea of an architectural Sabbath, so to speak, such as a
heathen may purely enjoy and a Christian may not wisely despise.
[Illustration: THE BEAUTIFUL GATE OF THE TEMPLE.]