Chaiya

Chaiya is an old settlement on the eastern side of the Malay Peninsula, where Buddhist monuments testify to long connections across the maritime world. Its celebrated Phra Borommathat is a brick stupa in a style associated with Srivijaya. Other temples and images of bodhisattvas show the importance of Mahayana Buddhism in the region before Theravada traditions became established. The town continued to be inhabited after the great age of Srivijaya. From the fifteenth century Chaiya was a southern town within the political world of Ayutthaya, linked to other centres along the peninsula. Its ancient stupa remained a revered shrine, preserving a visible connection with the earlier Buddhist culture of the coastal settlements.