Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Funeral pyre
Thailand mourns King Bhumibol, who reigned for 70 years
BANGKOK — On a broad parade ground not far from the Grand Palace, Thai masters are constructing a vision of heaven — an elegant, nine-spire funeral pyre for King Bhumibol Adulyadej that will send his soul into the afterlife later this year.
Built to represent Mount Meru, the center of the Hindu universe, it will embody the highest of Thai arts and architecture, with delicate towers adorned with images from mythology and from the life of the king, who died in October at the age of 88, after 70 years on the throne.
The cremation is planned for
Oct. 26, the second of five days of funeral ceremonies. It will be witnessed by 8,000 invited guests as well as millions of Thais around the nation.
The main cremation tower will be 165 feet tall, with a seven-tiered roof and spire, surrounded by eight smaller pavilions representing mountains that surround Mount Meru. Ponds at the pyre’s four corners represent the cosmic ocean, a motif in Thai mythology, that flows around it. There will be a small garden with a plot of rice and vegetation commemorating the king’s commitment to rural development.
The pyre’s iconography will portray some of the king’s accomplishments, including dams, wind farms, reservoirs and irrigation projects. It will have paintings of angels and mythical creatures, and hundreds of sculptures, including a statue of the king’s favorite dog, Tongdaeng.
The cremation itself will take place in a confined incinerator within the structure. Any remaining bones will be enshrined as royal relics at the Throne Hall of the palace, and the ashes will be kept separately at two temples, the government said. The pyre will later be dismantled, its wood sent to temples or other destinations around the country.
The body of King Bhumibol, or Rama IX, now lies in state at the palace, where hundreds of thousands of mourners have filed past to honor the monarch many revere as divine. Every day, thousands of Thais in solemn black make a stark contrast as they cross paths with large groups of brightly dressed tourists.
Over his long reign, the king came to embody the spirit and sense of nationhood of Thailand and his death has been a national trauma.
“The late king has never really left us,” said Sumet Tantivejkul, secretary-general of the Chaipattana Foundation, which oversees many of King Bhumibol’s development projects. “He taught us so many things during his 70-year reign. Let us follow in his footsteps.”
In this overwhelmingly Buddhist nation, beliefs about the monarchy are an amalgam of Buddhism and Hindu mythology. While the chanting of the monks at the funeral will be Buddhist, the cremation itself, with the pyre at its center, will be Hindu, said Tongthong Chandransu, a professor at Chulalongkorn University who is an expert on the monarchy.
“We believe that the king is a god from heaven,” he said. “He is totally a god, so when he passes away he has to get to heaven” to rejoin the main Hindu gods, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.
Although the new king, Maha Vajiralongkorn, formally ascended to the throne after the death of his father, his coronation as King Rama X won’t take place until after the cremation.
This will be the first cremation of a monarch in nearly 70 years, although pyres have been built for lesser royalty. The last king to be cremated was King Bhumibol’s older brother, Ananda, in 1950.
A black iron skeleton of the towers is rising now in the center of the parade ground, looking like a giant Erector Set, accompanied by the hollow banging of hammers on metal.
In nearby workshops, teams of artisans are preparing the wood structures that the beams will support as well as the paintings and statues that will adorn the pyre.
Breaking with precedent, King Bhumibol will be the first monarch to be placed in a coffin rather than a ceremonial urn for the cremation. The gray metal frame of a huge coffin stands in a workshop awaiting its elaborate decorations.
A royal funeral pyre exhibits the highest level of Thai temple architecture, essentially a huge ornamented sculpture with multiple tiered roofs diminishing in size as they ascend to a narrow spire.
It will be the second tallest in history, said Kokiart Thongphud, the architect who designed the buildings in one night of feverish work.
He had designed royal pyres for the king’s mother and sister, and he said he received the assignment within hours of King Bhumibol’s death.
“I learned of the king’s death at 3 p.m., and from 5 p.m. to 9 in the morning the ideas just flowed,” he said. “I only took one break, when my hand cramped up. After a nap everything flowed again.”
He presented the palace with five versions, he said, and it settled on one with nine towers, probably to reflect King Bhumibol’s position as the ninth monarch of the Chakri dynasty.
Following the king’s preference for lifelike depictions, the faces of angels will be more human and less stylized than in traditional arts, and the animals — cows, horses and elephants — will be more lifelike, along with Singha, a mythical lion figure, said Chainin Chaisiri, an architect in the Department of Fine Arts of the Ministry of Culture.
In addition to traditional gold, the structures will be decorated in colors associated with King Bhumibol: yellow, pink and green.
“It is a very, very rare chance to do this work — once in 70 years,” Chainin said, adding, “We idolize the king.”
The funeral will follow architectural and ceremonial precedents that have been modified over the years, largely to make them more accessible to the public. Among other things, the entire population is no longer required to shave their heads in mourning and professional weepers will no longer accompany the funeral procession.
A sense of urgency has surrounded the elaborate preparations, beginning with Kokiart’s long, fevered night of inspiration immediately after the king died.
“We cannot make a mistake or lose time,” said Kittipan Phansuwan, deputy director of the Department of Fine Arts. “If we are delayed by weather we’ll just have to work day and night to make our deadline.”
So far, the weather at the construction site has been particularly favorable, said Wichai Angchin, 43, an ironworker.
“Everywhere in the city it can be raining,” he said, “but it’s strange, it never rains here.”