Inconvenient Heritage by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2010-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Wat

The centerpiece of each village is its Buddhist temple, or wat, compound, which is primarily supported by the village members and is the religious, cultural, educational, and social center of each village (UNESCO 2004). Although the many wats (Figure 4.2) are a highly visible element of Luang Prabang, as are the saffron-robed monks who inhabit them, the central role of the buildings and the monks in the social and cultural life of the villages may not be readily apparent to tourists. Theravada Buddhism, key to the spiritual well-being of most Laotians and the dominant and official faith of Laos, provides an underpinning for Lao society that is deeply embedded in the physical landscape of Luang Prabang. The monks (the local Buddhist clergy for each village) are fixtures of the temple compounds, such as the one shown in Figure 4.4. Each wat complex contains a temple for lay worshippers, a sacred temple for monks, libraries, votive shrines, dormitories, guesthouses, and reception halls.

Figure 4.4 Typical wat complex plan and temple (plan drawn by authors, photo by authors). Historically, these complexes played a critical role in the village, providing a link between the spiritual and temporal worlds of the village. The monks who reside at these wats are a ubiquitous feature of contemporary Luang Prabang and continue to be the embodiment of Theravada Buddhism in the individual villages. The monks of each wat, collectively known as the Sangha, continue to be responsible in part for village education and form an important social and cultural support system for the village. In return, villagers, demonstrating humbleness and respect, provide for wat maintenance and support the wat and its monks with daily alms. In addition, most young men spend at least some time as a novice monk in their local wat. From their vantage point on the peninsula, the wats occupy a prominent symbolic and physical position within the blocks of the city that surround them. These blocks variously contain housing and commercial and institutional structures of different types and in a range of mixes dependent on their location in the city.

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