Known as the "holiest and first among chedis", Phra Pathom Chedi is the single most important attraction in this ancient enclave. At 118 m, (127 m including the terraces), it is the tallest Buddhist monument in the world, standing higher even than the famous Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, Burma.
The legend of the chedi is a tragic one: It's said that an astrologer told the ancient King Phya Kong that one day his son would kill him. The king sent his son to live in the forest, where a woman found him and raised him. As a young man, the son, called Phya Pan, entered the service of the King of Ratchaburi, who was a vassal of the king of the neighboring kingdom Nakhon Chaisi. Phya Pan's great wisdom and prudence brought him to the attention of the king, who adopted him. Phya Pan persuaded him to wage war against his feudal lord and, during the ensuing battle, killed his own father. After the victory he followed local custom by marrying the queen, his mother, but then learned the story of his origins. The dagoba he built as an act of atonement was the predecessor of the Phra Pathom Chedi and is today concealed within the larger structure. There is a figure in the wiharn on the north side of the precinct that is supposed to be King Phya Kong.
The great chedi stands on a circular terrace in the middle of a square park, surrounded by a latticework wall with the main entrance on the north side. The broad flight of steps leading up to the first terrace is edged by stone banisters richly decorated with ornamentation and seven-headed nagas. The bot, one of the buildings on the terrace, holds a very fine Buddha of clear quartzite, overlaid with lacquer and gold leaf. This Dvaravati-style figure shows the Buddha seated in the European pose, "the Buddha of the future". There are three replicas of this statue, all of which used to belong to Nakhon Pathom's Wat Na Phra Men, of which only a few bricks are left. One copy now stands in the Wat Phra Men in Ayutthaya and the other two are in the National Museum in Bangkok.
The four wiharns consist of an open lobby and an inner room. A bronze statue of a standing Buddha in the Sukhothai style, known as Phra Ruang Rojanarit, stands in the lobby of the northern wiharn and is a highly revered piece. An inscription on the wall of the wiharn says that the ashes of King Mongkut are interred in the plinth. The groups of figures on display in the wiharn depict the scene where two princesses show their reverence for the newborn Siddhartha (Buddha) as well as one of the most important scenes from the life of the Buddha - how after forty days of fasting the beasts of the jungle brought him food.