Wat Sri Suphan
Wat Sri Suphan
Wat Sri Puphan is commonly known as “The Silver Temple” because of it’s beautiful hand crafted silver detail.
The Wat was originally built in the early 1500’s and served as the main temple for a local silversmithing village in Chiang Mai.
Over the years, as parts of the temple showed ware, repairs were made with local silver. It wasn’t until 2008 that the process of completely covering the temple in silver began. Except for the sema stones, today very little remains of the original temple. While some work still continues, the ubosot (ordination hall) is basically completed.
The wiharn (prayer hall) is much larger and is also completed. The inside walls are covered with silver panels mostly showing scenes from the Buddha’s lives. You will also find a large elegant Buddha image on the alter.
Some notes:
- Due to old Buddhist rules. women are not allowed in the ubosot.
- The Wat also includes a silversmithing school where you may have a chance to see some of the students creating silver pieces.
- Around Chiang Mai, there are a few temples that offer what is called “monk chats” where you can have a chance to interact with English speaking monk(s). My opinion: the Silver Temple offers the best opportunity to participate in one of these monk chats. On my last visit, the monk chat was being offered Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday starting at 5:30 PM and lasting 1½ hours followed by a 2 hour introduction to meditation. Technically, the monk chat is free, however there is what seems to be a mandatory temple donation, but its not that much!
The Silver Temple is located at 100 Wua Lai Road next to the Wua Lai Saturday night walking street market.