Wat Jedyod Royal Temple Wat Chet Yod Phra Aram Luang
Fifteenth-century royal temple styled after India's Mahabodhi shrine, its seven spires ringed by seventy carved celestial figures.
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About this audio guide
This guide to Wat Jedyod in Chiang Mai starts with the seventy stucco faces ringing its walls, said by local tradition to be the actual relatives of King Tilokarat, who built the temple in the 1450s after sending monks to study India's Mahabodhi shrine. It follows the king's ambition to plant a piece of that holy site in his own Lanna capital, and the bodhi tree he is said to have planted here himself. Two decades later this courtyard hosted the eighth World Buddhist Council, gathered under an old prophecy about Buddhism's fading. Listen for what the monks believed was at stake in rewriting the scriptures.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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