EX-THAI KING’S REMAINS LAID TO REST
5-day elaborate funeral comes to an end as bones and ashes are interred
BANGKOK longest reigning monarch when he died last year at age 88.
The US$90 million (RM378 million) royal funeral drew mourners clad in black from across the country to the capital, where King Bhumibol was cremated on Thursday in a gold crematorium outside the Grand Palace.
More than 19 million Thais — more than a quarter of the 69 million population — participated in ceremonies by presenting sandalwood flowers to be burned at temples and crematorium replicas across the country.
Yesterday, the late king’s bones were moved to the Chakri Throne Hall, where royal relics are kept within the Grand Palace in a ceremony that involved senior monks from temples nationwide. His son, new King Maha Vajiralongkorn, led the religious rite.
Later, Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana led the final royal procession on horseback to the Wat Rajabopidh and Wat Bovoranives temples, where her grandfather ’s ashes were placed in keeping with a ceremony steeped in religious symbolism and tradition.
Mourners, some in tears, were gathered outside the temples.
“I will always have him stored in my heart. Whether as pictures, however old and torn, the memory of him will always be kept in my heart,” said Chalermporm Prabutr, 72.
Wat Rajabopidh was built by the late king’s grandfather, King Chulalongkorn, and houses the remains of other royals, including the late king’s father, Prince Mahidol, and the princess mother, Srinagarindra.
Some of the late king’s ashes were also be laid at Wat Bovoranives, the temple where he entered the monkhood in 1956 after his grandmother’s death, a custom for Buddhist males after the death of a relative.
Wat Bovoranives is also the centre of the more austere strain of Thai Buddhism founded by the late king’s great grandfather, King Mongkut. Reuters