Wat Pho is one of Bangkok’s oldest and largest Buddhist temple complexes. It stands immediately south of the Grand Palace in the historic centre of Rattanakosin Island. Its official name is Wat Phra Chetuphon Wimon Mangkhalaram Rajwaramahawihan, although most visitors know it simply as Wat Pho or, more commonly, the Temple of the Reclining Buddha. When I photographed it in 2018, however, I encountered a world far larger than a single famous image of the Buddha: worship, education, medicine, art and everyday monastic life all coexist within the same complex.

The origins of the site predate Bangkok’s establishment as the new capital of Siam in 1782. An older temple already stood here before King Rama I, founder of the Chakri dynasty, rebuilt and enlarged it. He ordered Buddha images from abandoned temples in different parts of the country to be brought to Bangkok, and many were installed at Wat Pho. Part of Rama I’s ashes are also preserved beneath the principal Buddha image, linking the temple closely with the new royal capital and the dynasty itself.

The great renovation undertaken by King Rama III in the nineteenth century was even more decisive in creating the character of the complex we see today. Under his patronage, Wat Pho was conceived not only as a temple but also as a place where knowledge could be made publicly accessible. Information concerning religion, history, literature, language, medicine, anatomy and traditional therapies was inscribed on stone tablets and illustrated on walls, columns and pavilions.

For this reason Wat Pho is often described as Thailand’s first centre of public education, or even, in a traditional sense, its first university. The hundreds of stone inscriptions and illustrations are not merely religious documents; they preserve a record of the intellectual world of nineteenth-century Siam. A significant group of these inscriptions has been recognized by UNESCO’s Memory of the World programme.

Traditional Thai medicine and massage are among the most visible living continuations of this educational heritage. Anatomical diagrams show energy lines and therapeutic points on the human body, while figures demonstrate different bodily positions. Wat Pho remains an important centre for teaching traditional Thai medicine and massage, so knowledge once carved into stone continues as a practiced and transmitted tradition.

The most famous work in the complex is, of course, the Reclining Buddha. Approximately 46 metres long and 15 metres high, the immense figure does not represent ordinary sleep but the Buddha’s passage into Parinirvana at the end of his life. Its gilded body nearly fills the long, narrow hall. Because of its scale, it is difficult to see the figure as a whole; as visitors move alongside it, the face, body and feet are perceived almost as separate visual experiences.

The soles of the feet are works of art in themselves. Mother-of-pearl inlay forms 108 auspicious signs connected with Buddhist cosmology. Flowers, sacred animals, ceremonial objects and cosmological symbols create an intricate field of small images, forming a striking contrast with the monumental scale of the Buddha. For me this was also one of Wat Pho’s most compelling photographic qualities: an almost architectural figure on one side, and extremely fine details that demand close attention on the other.

Yet Wat Pho is much more than the Reclining Buddha. The complex covers roughly 80,000 square metres and is divided into two principal areas. The northern section contains the sacred buildings accessible to visitors, including the main ordination hall, viharns and stupas, while the southern section includes monastic residences and educational buildings. Hundreds of Buddha images of different sizes are distributed throughout the complex, many brought from other parts of the country during the reign of Rama I.

The chedis are among the elements that most strongly define the silhouette of Wat Pho. Four large royal chedis are covered with coloured ceramic and porcelain fragments arranged into floral and geometric patterns. In sunlight these small pieces create surfaces that seem constantly to change. Numerous smaller chedis surrounding the major stupas establish an almost continuous architectural rhythm across the complex.

Another detail that surprised me was the presence of large Chinese stone figures at gateways and in the courtyards. Warriors, scholars and sometimes figures representing Europeans carry traces of the intense maritime trade between China and Siam. Heavy stone used as ballast on returning trading ships was later reused in temple decoration, turning these sculptures into quiet witnesses to Bangkok’s commercial history as well.

While photographing Wat Pho, I increasingly felt that the complex had no single centre. Leaving the golden Reclining Buddha and entering the courtyards, I encountered colourful chedis, stone figures, roofs, monastic spaces and smaller architectural details. Worship continued in one place; a few steps away, traditional medical knowledge was carved into stone; elsewhere, the history of trade with China appeared in sculpture.

For me, this is the true richness of Wat Pho. It is not simply a historic temple containing an enormous Buddha. It brings together royal history, Buddhist faith, traditional medicine, education, trade with China and the everyday life of Bangkok within the same walls. In my photographs I tried to record not a single monument, but the world created by all these layers existing side by side.