Hot

Hot was a religious centre of the Lan Na world south of Chiang Mai. Its monasteries preserved an unusually rich form of Buddhist painting: the phra bot, a portable picture painted on cloth. At Wat Dok Ngoen, a large example depicted the Buddha descending from the heaven of the Thirty-three to Sankassa. Its style places it around the late fifteenth or sixteenth century.

The painter arranged heaven, the descending Buddha, the waiting city and the waters below in successive scenes. Gold highlighted the Buddha, while coloured pigments covered the cloth and Fak Kham inscriptions identified parts of the composition. Chinese and Sri Lankan floral influences appeared together. A related painting belonged to Wat Chedi Sung. Such works made Hot a home of sophisticated devotional art, linking local worship with imagery and artistic traditions circulating through the wider Buddhist world.