Phra Pathom Chedi is one of the oldest Buddhist sites in Southeast Asia. Historical records first mention it in 675 AD; archaeologists have uncovered Buddhist artifacts in the area from as early as the 4th century AD; some scholars believe that stone carvings found at the site date all the way back to the 3rd century BC; and even the name itself translates as something like “Holy Chedi of the Beginning” or “First Chedi”. Though the exact origins are foggy, it’s clear that a Buddhist community flourished here well before Buddhism came to dominate most of what’s now Thailand.
Foreshadowing the destruction of Ayutthaya’s temples some 800 years later, the original stupa was reduced to rubble during an 11th century Burmese invasion. It’s thought to have been a replica of the Sanchi stupa that dates from the reign of Emperor Asoka in 3rd century BC India. After the Burmese were repelled later in the 11th century, a Khmer-style prang was erected over what remained of the original.
It will take a while to kneel before every single Buddha.
Buddhism in Thailand may have began right here.
Another eight or so centuries later, the prang was re-discovered entangled in thick jungle by a monk-prince by the name of Mongkut. After ascending to the throne as King Rama IV in the mid 1800s, he ordered a new chedi to once again be built atop the old one. Considering the grand scale of the project, the devoutly Buddhist king — he had been a monk for 27 years prior — seems to have fully understood the site’s significance.
Completed in 1870 and covered by a shell of orange-gold ceramic tiles from China, the structure that you see today reaches a height of 127 metres from base to tip. The king ordered that a new village be formed to oversee upkeep of the chedi and create a revitalised Buddhist centre. It was in this way that the modern town and province of Nakhon Pathom came to be.