The navel, and the pillar that was hereWat Inthakhin Sadue Muang
วัดอินทขีลสะดือเมือง
The navel, and the pillar that was here
No one buried. What is kept here is the city's own life.
Stefan Fussan · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Commons
- Where
- Inthawarorot Road, behind the Three Kings square · 18.78953, 98.98702 from OpenStreetMap
- Open
- Daylight
- Cost
- Free
- Who is dead
- No one buried. What is kept here is the city's own life.
- On
- On foot
Sadue means navel. The wat stands on the point the city was measured from, and it held the Inthakhin — the city pillar — until the pillar was moved out in the nineteenth century.
The Inthakhin came from Indra, in the telling, handed to the Lawa who were here before the city was, with two kumphan sent down to guard it. The terms were that the people would keep making the offering. They stopped; the guardians left; the pillar went with them, and what followed is what the chronicle spends the next chapter on.
It was a ruin for a long stretch and is a working wat again. The Fine Arts Department still carries it under its older name, Wat Sadue Muang. One of the three candidate spots for Mangrai's death is here, in the ruins near the Tilokarat hall.
Indra sent the pillar down with two kumphan to guard it, on terms: keep up the offering and the guard stays. The Lawa kept it, then a generation did not, and the guardians walked off and took the pillar with them. What is told here is not a haunting but an eviction — the thing that watched the city left because it stopped being fed, and the eight days of flowers every May are the arrears.
The kind of dead this kind of place holds, in northern reckoning
Where this is arguedWhen the pillar moved, and whether it was ever on this exact footing, are both argued.
Making merit here
Sweep. The terrace takes leaf fall from the big trees and the brooms are against the wall. In late May, when the bowls are out across the city, flowers go in them here too — this is the ground the pillar came off.
- Sweeping กวาดลานวัด — Pick up a broom that is already leaning there and sweep. Nothing.
- Sai khan dok — flowers in the bowl ใส่ขันดอก — Drop flowers into each of the bowls set out around the pillar. 20–50 ฿ a bunch.
- Pouring the water กรวดน้ำ — Pour a thin stream of water while the chanting runs, and say who it is for. Nothing.
Panuwat Tansui · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Commons
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