The Cham are the remnants of the Champa kingdom, which prevailed in what is now southern and central Vietnam and parts of southern Cambodia from the seventh through to the eighteenth centuries. They had used Sanskrit as their scholarly language and were initially Hindu, but Arab maritime trade from the tenth century onwards saw the spread of Islam into parts of the kingdom. The late fifteenth century saw much of Champa wiped out, as the Vietnamese moved south. Early in the seventeenth century, as the Ming Dynasty collapsed, thousands of Chinese refugees poured into the Cham region. Many Cham fled their homelands during this period, some to Cambodia, some to Siam, some to the Malay peninsula, and some to the Chinese island of Hainan. Although avowedly Muslim, the communities at Tonson and Kudi Khao have largely been absorbed into the Thai identity, and are no longer aware of their Cham ancestry. They study Arabic, in order to read the Koran, and they celebrate Muslim festivals such as Eid, but they speak Thai and regard themselves as Thai. Their children attend Thai schools, which in this district are either Buddhist or Catholic oriented and where provision is made for them as Muslims, but otherwise they follow the standard Thai curriculum. Aside from eschewing pork, their food is essentially Thai, the stalls and eating-houses around the mosques serving noodles, and beef, chicken and seafood. The casual visitor passing through these communities would probably not notice any difference to the traditional Thai Buddhist communities in the city, except for the sight of the occasional woman wearing a headscarf.
The Cham Muslims are Sunni, but as if to emphasise yet another level of tolerance in this most tolerant of societies, there is another Muslim community almost directly next door, this time formed of Shias, and with their own mosque, Kudi Charoen Phat. This can be found by following the footpath from Tonson Mosque past the big old bodhi tree and heading alongside the canal where within a couple of minutes it leads to Itsaraphap Road. The mosque is on the corner, and is in yet another distinctive architectural style, a Western panya building, a form that was a familiar sight alongside the canal during the reign of Rama V. A single-storey structure with a green tiled roof, it has no dome. Kudi Charoen Phat was founded by a group of Muslims who had played an active role in court life during the Ayutthaya era, and who had resettled here when Thonburi became the capital. A Muslim place of worship registering with the Ministry of Interior becomes known officially as a mosque, or masyid in Thai, and the fact that Kudi Charoen Phat retains the old word kudi in its name indicates that it is not registered as such, and is run quite independently under its own administrative council.
Around the bodhi tree that stands between the two Muslim communities are clustered the buildings of an Ayutthaya-era Buddhist temple, Wat Hong Rattanaram. Founded by a wealthy Chinese named Nai Hong, it was designated a royal monastery by King Taksin, being adjacent to the palace, and was a significant centre of religious education. Taksin had the temple area expanded greatly, and a large ordination hall was constructed in front of the old one, together with other structures, and consequently the compound today sprawls over an extensive area. More renovations took place in the time of Rama III. The grand ordination hall is built of brick and lime, and its two-tiered roof has gables decorated with the design known as hamsa, with two niches housing gilded stucco hamsa figures, facing each other, and the projected eaves supported by square columns and brackets with more hamsa figures. The door arch has elements of both Chinese and Western styles, and the door and window panels are finely decorated with stucco-moulded figures. Within the ordination hall there are tempera paintings in glass frames depicting the story of the Emerald Buddha, painted during the reigns of Rama III and Rama IV. The wiharn houses an ancient golden Buddha image that had previously been encased in lime, the image having been discovered when its casing was broken. It dates from the Sukhothai period, and an old U-Thong script can be seen etched along the base. The scripture hall is carved with a floral motif from the early Rattanakosin period and is used as monks’ living quarters, while the bell tower is pure white, built in brick and mortar, and is Chinese in style.
Tonson Mosque was founded by Cham Muslims and is the oldest mosque in Bangkok.
Occasionally, in this urban area, one stumbles across temples that could easily be in the middle of the countryside, such is their atmosphere of detachment from the outside world. Wat Ratchasittharam, on Itsaraphap Soi 23, is one. Standing by the side of a small canal, and with two chedis at the entrance, the temple is set amongst lovely old rain trees. During the final days of Ayutthaya, a forest monk known as the Venerable Suk Kaithuean (1733–1822) had played an important role in promulgating the meditation practices that had originated with the historical Buddha. A forest monk undertakes what the Thais call thudong, which is the ascetic practice of wandering the forests developing themselves spiritually by becoming one with nature. During the Thonburi era the Venerable Suk had settled at Wat Thahoi, on the outskirts of the now-ruined Ayutthaya, where his affinity towards wild creatures had them nesting in the temple grounds. Suk appears to have been a charismatic and possibly unpredictable man, the name Kaithuean being a nickname that translates as “wild chicken”, but his form of ancient meditation was important and authentic during this time of turmoil, and Rama I invited him to Bangkok where he was installed at Wat Phlab in 1782 as head of meditation instruction.
At the same time Wat Ratchasittharam was built adjacent to Wat Phlab and the two temples were merged. Rama II, when he was king, studied here, and Suk was appointed Supreme Patriarch in 1819. During the reign of Rama II his system of meditation was promoted as the main medium of instruction for the entire monastic community of Siam, and Suk was meditation instructor to the young princes Jessadabodindra and Mongkut, who became Rama III and Rama IV, respectively. His system of meditation, however, eventually fell into disuse. It did not die out completely, as he kept records in the form of samut khoi, the traditional Siamese folded manuscript books, and it is taught today at Wat Ratchasittharam as the Matchima meditation system, the home of this form of meditation being one of the very few places in Thailand to still teach it. Wat Ratchasittharam attracts devotees to this form of meditation, and also because of its very fine mural of the death of the Lord Buddha. The outside wall depicts the scene of the Royal Barge Procession. The temple is a second-tier royal temple. Inside the compound can be seen the teak building that was used as the residence for Rama II when he entered the monkhood.
Further along Itsaraphap Road the road lifts to pass over Klong Morn, the main canal that bisects Money Town between the Bangkok Yai and Noi canals, and as it does so an enormous temple building can be seen rising high above the bridge. This is the recently constructed dormitory building for Wat Chinoros, a temple that is built to a far more modest scale than its living accommodation and which dates back to 1836. The princely monk Krom Phra Poramanuchit Chinoros, who was one of Siam’s most famous poets, and who became Supreme Patriarch in 1851, built the temple. The ceiling of the ubosot is painted red and decorated with naga fret-work covered with gold leaf, and there are unusual murals here that depict in map form the temple, the canal, the river and the Grand Palace, although the paintings are in a sad state of deterioration. There are two other unusual aspects to Wat Chinoros. One is the curved shape of the ubosot, which gives an odd distorting effect, while the other is the heaped cannonballs that form the sema stones. Venerable Chinoros, who was a son of Rama I, was also known as Prince Wasukri. He had been ordained at Wat Pho and resided there for much of his life. He passed away in 1853 and his ashes are buried there at what is now known as Wasukri Residence.
One of the first acts King Taksin performed after driving out the Burmese in 1769 and establishing Thonburi as the capital was to form a commission that would work to ensure the purity of Buddhism continued, even though the temples and libraries of Ayutthaya had been burned and destroyed. A temple named Wat Bang Wa Yai that existed on the riverbank near to the king’s palace was given royal status and used by the king to host a congress of senior monks, the stipulation being that they must be learned both in the Dharma and in meditation. Taksin was conducting a military campaign in the south of Siam, where Nakhon Sri Thammarat, an ancient kingdom that had always had shaky allegiance to Siam, had made a bid for independence