Wat Saphan Hin

The climb begins under trees, on a path paved with flat slabs of slate. Each stone is worn smooth by centuries of feet. Your own footsteps become the loudest sound around you. Above, on the crown of a low hill, a tall standing Buddha waits, one hand raised, as if greeting each person who makes the effort to come up.

Wat Saphan Hin lies among the hills west of the old city of Sukhothai. The name means Temple of the Stone Bridge. The bridge is really a long causeway of slate, laid down the face of the slope so that pilgrims could climb more easily to worship at the top. The paved path runs roughly three hundred meters from the foot of the hill to the summit.

The hill itself is not tall, only about two hundred meters, but the way up is steep in several places, and the old stones are uneven underfoot. Take it slowly and watch your step. The slate can turn slick after rain. Trees lean over the path and give shade for most of the climb, and the surrounding forest keeps the air cool even near midday.

At the summit stands Phra Attharot. This is a large standing Buddha image, about twelve meters tall, built up in brick and once covered smoothly in stucco. The right hand is lifted, the palm turned outward toward the visitor. This pose offers protection and calm, and in the old language of gestures it tells the watcher plainly not to be afraid.

The figure now stands against open sky. Behind and around it, only ruins remain of the hall that once sheltered the image from sun and rain. Rows of square brick column stumps rise from the ground, marking where wooden beams and a roof were held up long ago. Today the Buddha simply stands in the weather, facing east, looking out over the old city on the plain below.

From this height you can see far across the flat land. The green canopy of the historical park spreads out beneath you, and here and there the towers of distant temples push up through the trees. On a clear day the view runs all the way to the hazy line of further hills. Take a few minutes here to rest and breathe before you turn back. This is one of the highest and quietest points in all of Sukhothai.

The name Attharot points directly to the size of the image. In the old system of measure, the figure was meant to stand eighteen cubits tall, the traditional height for such great standing Buddhas. Builders across the Sukhothai kingdom repeated this same towering form in several temples, but very few of them chose to raise it alone on the top of a forested hill like this.

An old carved stone inscription, from the reign of King Ramkhamhaeng, describes the ruler riding out on holy days to worship at a hilltop shrine to the west of the city. Many scholars connect that passage with this very place. The link is widely accepted and likely true, though it is drawn from a single text written more than seven centuries ago.

Whether or not a king once climbed this exact path, the way itself was clearly built for devotion. Carrying heavy slabs of stone up a slope by hand is slow, hard labor. Someone wanted this image to stand high above the plain, in a place that could only be reached on foot, so that the climb itself became part of the prayer.

Wat Saphan Hin dates from the Sukhothai period, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Like the other temples of the kingdom, it was raised in brick and dressed in fine plaster. Centuries of sun, wind, and rain have stripped away most of that surface, leaving behind the strong, simple, weathered shape of the standing figure on its hill.

Few visitors take the time to make the climb, so the summit is often empty and still. The wind moves steadily through the trees and over the ruined walls. The Buddha keeps its right hand raised, palm out, as it has done for hundreds of years, looking out patiently over the fields, roads, and ruins of its old capital.

When you finally turn to start back down, pause once more on the slate path. Below you lies the wide green plain; behind you stands the calm, raised hand. Wat Saphan Hin gives back, in return for the effort of the climb, a rare measure of silence, distance, and a single steady gesture of peace.