Wat Mahathat, Ayutthaya

Why go

Wat Mahathat is a ruined temple of the old capital on the city island, beside Wat Ratchaburana. The province's tourism page says there is no clear evidence of when it was built, but that chronicles suggest the reign of King Borommarachathirat I, around 1374; it adds that the temple enshrined relics of the Buddha, was the residence of the patriarch of the Kham Wasi sect, and that all its buildings are now ruins. The same page describes a Buddha head encircled by the roots of a tree. The Fine Arts Department's park page names Wat Mahathat among the island monuments excavated and restored under the government programme of 1956, and the province's page says treasures found in that work are shown at Chao Sam Phraya National Museum. Wikidata lists it as part of Ayutthaya Historical Park. This record is the Ayutthaya temple, not Wat Mahathat in Bangkok or in Sukhothai.