Anyone who visits Vientiane, the capital city of Laos, cannot miss the awe-inspiring golden building, the Pha That Luang. Here’s all you need to know about this fascinating Buddhist stupa.
Pha That Luang – which literally means ‘great golden stupa’ – is said to have undergone many transformations over the years. Known as a Buddhist stupa nowadays – a hemispherical structure used as a place of meditation – Pha That Luang actually started life in the 1st century as a Hindu temple. In later years Buddhist missionaries and monks from India visited the stupa – the monks were said to have brought a breastbone of Lord Buddha as a relic. In the 13th century, the stupa was rebuilt as a Khmer temple, but it later fell into disrepair. Then in the 1500s, King Setthathirat relocated the capital city from Luang Prabang to Vientiane. As part of the relocation, the rebuilding of Pha That Luang was ordered, and this time it was surrounded by 30 smaller stupas too.
This attractive golden Pha That Luang, located about 4km northeast of the city centre, is the most important national monument in Laos – a symbol of Buddhist religion and Lao sovereignty. Legend has it that Ashokan missionaries from India erected a stupa here to enclose a piece of Buddha’s breastbone as early as the 3rd century BC. A high-walled cloister with tiny windows surrounds the 45m-high stupa. The cloister measures 85m on each side and contains various Buddha images, including a serene statue of Jayavarman VII, the great Angkor-era king who converted the state religion of the Khmer empire to Buddhism.
