Right at the intersection of broad Lane Xang Avenue and Setthathirath Road in the heart of Vientiane, directly across the street from the Presidential Palace and Haw Phra Kaew, stands an old monastery compound shaded by coconut palms, banana trees, and white frangipani. Passing through the gate and past the graceful raised scripture library (Ho Trai), visitors step into a quiet brick courtyard enclosed on all four sides by a covered colonnaded cloister. Looking up along the four interior walls of that cloister, thousands of small pointed-arch niches line the masonry from chest height right up to the eaves, each niche holding a pair of small seated meditating Buddhas, while along the base of the walls stand hundreds of larger bronze, wooden, and sandstone Buddha statues in unbroken rows.
This is Wat Si Saket (ວັດສີສະເກດ, officially named in Pali Wat Satasahassaram, meaning the Monastery of One Hundred Thousand), founded in 1818 by King Anouvong (Chao Anou, reigned 1805 to 1828). When virtually every royal palace and dozens of ancient temples across Vientiane were burned and leveled in 1827 to 1828, Wat Si Saket alone survived intact with its original early-19th-century timber frame, five-tiered tiled roof, and interior murals.
IThe Vow of King Anouvong and the Sanctuary of Six Thousand Buddhas
The formal inscription name of the monastery is Wat Satasahassaram (from Pali Sata-sahassa-arama, Monastery of a Hundred Thousand), commemorating the vow of King Anouvong, his royal court, and the populace to cast, carve, and dedicate tens of thousands of Buddha images and offerings upon the temple's completion in 1824. Its popular name Wat Si Saket derives from Sanskrit Śrī Śākya-keśa (Auspicious Hair Relic of Śākyamuni), while also echoing Wat Saket in Bangkok, where Prince Anouvong had lived for years as a political hostage in his youth before returning to ascend the throne of Vientiane.
Why does Wat Si Saket house 6,840 Buddha statues within a single precinct? The collection represents two historical layers brought together. The first layer consists of more than two thousand small Buddha images crafted of silver-glazed terracotta, lead-bronze alloy, and silver between 1818 and 1824 to fill the 3,420 wall niches (two statues per niche) of the cloister and ordination hall as a royal act of merit-making. The second layer comprises hundreds of larger bronze, sandstone, and hardwood Buddha statues dating from the 16th to the 19th centuries that originally belonged to other Vientiane monasteries destroyed in 1828, which Lao monks and early-20th-century French archaeologists gathered and placed under the shelter of the Wat Si Saket cloister.
In Lao Theravada Buddhist tradition, filling the surrounding walls of an ordination hall with thousands of identical small seated Buddhas visualizes the Buddhas of the Ten Directions and the Twin Miracle (Yamaka-pāṭihāriya) of Śākyamuni Buddha, when he multiplied his form into countless manifestations seated upon lotus thrones to teach the Dharma. As a pilgrim walks clockwise (padakkhina) around the covered cloister, surrounded on all four sides by thousands of serene meditative gazes, the mind naturally stills its distractions and returns to mindfulness.
According to Lao chronicles and architectural studies by Oriental Architecture, the reason Wat Si Saket survived the devastating sacking of Vientiane in 1827 to 1828 lies in its architectural design. Following the war between King Anouvong's Kingdom of Vientiane and Siam (under King Rama III), Siamese troops entered Vientiane and ordered the systematic destruction of its fortifications, palaces, and traditional Lan Xang temples. When the Siamese commanders saw Wat Si Saket, however, which had been completed just three years earlier with an encircling cloister (Kilm or Phra Rabieng) and arched windows closely resembling the Rattanakosin style of Bangkok temples, they spared the brand-new monastery and requisitioned its spacious courtyard as their military headquarters during the occupation. Thus the temple stood unharmed amid a ruined capital.
Beyond its Bangkok-inspired cloister, Wat Si Saket possesses a striking anomaly in Lao temple planning: it is the only major temple in Vientiane whose main gate and ordination hall axis face Southwest rather than East (toward the rising sun) or parallel to the Mekong River. Historians observe that when King Anouvong laid out the temple in 1818, orienting the facade toward the southwest (the direction of Bangkok) appeared on the diplomatic surface as a gesture of deference to avoid Siamese suspicion, yet in practice it meant that whenever the king and nobles of Vientiane entered the hall and prostrated before the main Buddha altar (facing Northeast toward the rear of the hall), they never had to bow their heads in the direction of Bangkok.
IIOver Two Centuries from King Anouvong to Modern Conservation
Begun in the spring of 1818, Wat Si Saket marks the final flowering of the Kingdom of Vientiane prior to 1828 and later served as a focal point for the revival of Lao Buddhist heritage in the 20th century.
- 1818King Anouvong commissions Wat Si SaketIn March 1818 (Buddhist Era 2361), King Anouvong ordered the construction of the monastery adjacent to the Royal Palace of Vientiane, blending Rattanakosin layout with Lan Xang roof traditions.
- 1824Completion and nine-day dedication festivalAfter six years of construction, the Sim, four-sided cloister, Ho Trai library, and stupas were completed. King Anouvong held a nine-day dedication ceremony and named the temple Wat Satasahassaram.
- 1827 to 1828Spared during the destruction of VientianeSiamese forces leveled Vientiane following King Anouvong's campaign but preserved Wat Si Saket to serve as their command compound, saving the buildings from fire.
- 1893 to 1923Gathering of ancient Buddha statues from Vientiane ruinsAs Vientiane was rebuilt as the administrative capital of French Laos, monks and scholars of the École française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO) collected hundreds of damaged Buddha images from ruined temples across the city and sheltered them in the Wat Si Saket cloister.
- 1924 to 1930First major architectural restorationDirected by the EFEO with contributions from Vientiane residents, the five-tiered roof of the Sim, the cloister galleries, and the Ho Trai library were restored to their original 1818 appearance.
- 2013Conservation of the early-19th-century interior muralsInternational conservation specialists and the Lao Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism cleaned and stabilized the Jataka murals painted on the interior walls of the Sim.
On King Anouvong's founding stele. On the front veranda of the ordination hall at Wat Si Saket stands the original stone inscription carved in old Lao script by order of King Anouvong. It records the exact astrological hour of the groundbreaking (Thursday, the full-moon day of the fourth Lao lunar month in 1818) and itemizes the gold, silver, ivory, attendants, and exact numbers of Buddha images dedicated by the king. This stele is one of the rarest surviving primary historical documents from pre-1828 Vientiane, confirming that the thousands of small niche Buddhas were commissioned as part of the original 1818 to 1824 design.
IIIThe Five-Tiered Sim Roof, the Four-Sided Cloister, and the Ho Trai Library
The architectural compound of Wat Si Saket is divided into two distinct zones: the residential sangha quarter for the monks and the sacred sanctuary enclosed within a rectangular walled cloister. At the center of the courtyard stands the Ordination Hall (Sim) on a stone terrace, surrounded on all four sides by a peristyle colonnade of pillars crowned with stylized lotus capitals. Here the synthesis of two architectural idioms is unmistakable: while the thick whitewashed brick walls, arched windows, and surrounding cloister reflect early-19th-century Bangkok design, the sweeping five-tiered tiled roof crowned by a gilded Dok So Fa spire at mid-ridge and Naga finials at the eaves preserves the classic Lan Xang spirit of Laos.
Enclosing the courtyard is the Cloister Gallery (called Kilm in Lao, corresponding to the Phra Rabieng of Conception Stage Star (Tai) temples), forming a square measuring over fifty meters per side with arched entrance gates at the center of the east, west, south, and north walls. The entire inner brick wall of this four-sided gallery is pierced by thousands of small lotus-bud niches (each 15 to 20 cm tall) arranged like a honeycomb from waist level to the ceiling beams, creating an open-air gallery of Buddhist sculpture unmatched in Southeast Asia.
Museum inventories record over 2,052 small Buddha statues crafted of silver-glazed terracotta and bronze (dated 1818 to 1824) set in pairs inside the 3,420 wall niches of the cloister and Sim, accompanied by more than 300 large seated and standing Buddha statues (carved in sandstone, jackfruit wood, and bronze from the 16th to the 19th centuries) ranged along the brick podium below. A locked bay in the western gallery shelters hundreds of headless or fire-scarred wooden and stone Buddhas salvaged after the 1828 sacking.
Inside the Sim, the upper registers of all four walls are likewise honeycombed with over two thousand miniature Buddha niches. Below them, mineral-pigment murals depict the Vessantara Jataka (the penultimate life of the Buddha illustrating the perfection of generosity). Above, the wooden ceiling is divided into square coffers carved in relief with gilded lotus rosettes on a vermilion ground in 18th-century palace style. Before the main seated Śākyamuni Buddha stands a finely carved wooden candle screen.
Among the rarest sculptures preserved in the sanctuary is a 13th-century sandstone Buddha seated in meditation beneath the seven-headed hood of the Naga king Mucalinda in late Angkorian Khmer style, alongside life-sized 16th-to-18th-century Lao bronze standing Buddhas with elongated earlobes and flame finials.
Standing to the right of the outer entrance before the cloister gate, the Ho Trai library (built in 1818) is elevated on a high masonry base to protect palm-leaf manuscripts from dampness and insects. Its multi-tiered telescopic roof shows Mandalay (Burmese) influence, and inside stands an ornate black-and-gold lacquered scripture cabinet (Hup Taem).
Along the western exterior wall of the cloister stand rows of reliquary stupas (That) containing the ashes of 19th- and 20th-century Vientiane nobles and senior monks, alongside a two-story wooden drum tower.
| Feature | Specifications and details | Date and origin |
|---|---|---|
| Total Buddha statues | 6,840 large and small statues in terracotta, silver, bronze, sandstone, and wood | 16th to 19th centuries (niche statues cast 1818 to 1824) |
| Ordination Hall (Sim) | 5-tiered Lao tiled roof, carved lotus ceiling, Jataka murals, and over 2,000 wall niches | Built 1818 to 1824 under King Anouvong |
| Cloister Gallery (Kilm) | Four-sided covered gallery with 3,420 paired niches and over 300 large statues on the podium | Built 1818 to 1824, restored 1924 to 1930 |
| Tripitaka Library (Ho Trai) | Raised brick-and-timber scripture repository with Burmese-style tiered roof | Built 1818 |
IVThe Lie of the Land
Like other Theravada monasteries in Laos, Wat Si Saket was laid out according to Buddhist cosmology (where the central Sim represents Mount Meru and the four enclosing cloister walls represent the Cakravāla mountain ring) combined with traditional Lan Xang astrological timing. However, King Anouvong's deliberate rotation of the temple axis away from the standard orientation of Vientiane temples offers a compelling case when examined through the library's comparative framework of traditional landform geomancy.
Examining the site at coordinates 17.9631 degrees north, 102.6114 degrees east, Wat Si Saket sits on high, stable alluvial ground about 400 meters north of the great bend of the Mekong River in central Vientiane. Along this reach, the Mekong flows down from the northwest and curves gently toward the southeast, embracing the inner city of Vientiane within the concave inner bank of the river bend (the auspicious jade-belt water configuration where sediment builds up and vital energy gathers). The monastery stands immediately north of the former Royal Palace of the Vientiane kings (now the Presidential Palace) and just northwest of Haw Phra Kaew, forming the historic triangle of royal and spiritual authority at the heart of the capital.
In terms of structural axis, whereas Haw Phra Kaew and virtually all riverside temples in Vientiane face Southeast or Northeast parallel to the Mekong and toward the rising sun, the ordination hall and square cloister of Wat Si Saket are aligned to sit Northeast and face Southwest (looking toward the Mekong riverbank and the direction of Bangkok). In architectural landform terms, enclosing the central ordination hall within a continuous four-sided covered cloister (four-sided fortress wall) pierced only by four narrow gates turns the inner courtyard into a self-contained bright hall (Bright Hall (Ming Tang)): strong winds sweeping off the Mekong are buffered by the outer gallery walls, allowing only gentle air currents to pass through the four gates and settle around the Sim at the center. This four-sided enclosure both shields thousands of antique statues from driving monsoon rain and preserves a deep stillness right beside the busiest avenue intersection in modern Vientiane.
VCandlelight Processions, Boun Pi Mai Water Blessings, and Monastic Rites
Unlike Haw Phra Kaew across the street, which today functions solely as a museum, Wat Si Saket is both a museum of sacred sculpture and an active monastery where resident monks study and chant daily. On full-moon and new-moon holy days according to the Lao lunar calendar (Van Sin), Vientiane residents dressed in traditional silk sinh skirts and shoulder sashes (pha biang) bring trays of lotus buds, beeswax candles, and sticky rice to make merit. The table below outlines the principal annual observances at the temple.
| Date | Calendar system | Festival name | Observances at Wat Si Saket |
|---|---|---|---|
| April 14 to 16 annually | Southeast Asian solar calendar (fifth Lao month) | Lao New Year and Bathing of the Buddhas (Boun Pi Mai) | Over the three days of New Year, thousands of Vientiane families visit the Wat Si Saket cloister holding silver bowls of water scented with frangipani petals and turmeric to pour gently over the bronze and stone Buddha statues along the galleries, praying for health and good fortune. |
| Full moon of the 3rd, 6th, and 11th Lao lunar months | Theravada Buddhist lunar calendar | Candlelight Procession (Vien Thien) on Makha Bousa, Visakha Bousa, and Ok Phansa | In the evening on major Buddhist holy days, monks lead lay devotees holding lit candles, incense sticks, and lotus flowers in three clockwise circumambulations around the Sim inside the illuminated cloister of six thousand Buddhas. |
| 9th Lao lunar month (August or September) | Lao lunar calendar | Ancestral Merit-Making Festival (Boun Khao Padap Din and Boun Khao Salak) | Devotees gather at dawn to place banana-leaf packets of sticky rice and sweetmeats along the cloister terrace for deceased ancestors and present alms baskets to the monks by lot. |
| Daily from 6:00 to 7:00 AM | Daily monastic schedule | Morning Alms Offering (Tak Bat) | Local residents sit on mats spread along the temple walkway to place balls of warm sticky rice into the alms bowls of the Wat Si Saket monks. |
Another memorable historical ritual tied to Wat Si Saket is the Oath of Allegiance Water Ceremony (Thue Nam Phiphat Satya): during the Kingdom of Vientiane and continuing under the French protectorate, twice a year noblemen and high officials gathered inside the ordination hall of Wat Si Saket, where monks chanted paritta blessings over water in which royal weapons had been dipped, and officials drank the consecrated water to swear loyalty in the presence of the 6,840 Buddha images.
VILocation And How To Get There
- Address
- Góc đại lộ Lan Xang (Ave Lane Xang) và đường Setthathirath, quận Chanthabouly, thủ đô Vientiane
- Getting there
- The temple stands right at the corner of Lane Xang Avenue and Setthathirath Road in central Vientiane, directly opposite Haw Phra Kaew and the Presidential Palace. From the Morning Market (Talat Sao) or the Mekong riverfront park, it is a 5- to 8-minute walk.
- Coordinates
- 17.9631, 102.6114
To protect the fragile early-19th-century mineral murals and maintain reverence inside the sanctuary, Wat Si Saket permits visitors to take photographs in the courtyard and along the four cloister galleries, but strictly prohibits photography inside the main ordination hall (Sim). Please wear clothing that covers shoulders and knees, remove shoes before stepping onto the cloister gallery or entering the Sim, and refrain from touching the terracotta and wooden statues inside the wall niches.
Nearby places in the library
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?Quick Questions
When was Wat Si Saket built, and which king founded it?
Wat Si Saket was begun in 1818 and completed in 1824 under King Anouvong (Chao Anou, reigned 1805 to 1828), the last monarch of the Kingdom of Vientiane. Its formal name recorded on the founding stele is Wat Satasahassaram (Monastery of One Hundred Thousand).
Why was Wat Si Saket the only temple in Vientiane spared from destruction in 1828?
During the conflict of 1827 to 1828, Siamese forces burned and leveled nearly all palaces and monasteries in Vientiane. Wat Si Saket was spared because it had been completed just a few years earlier with a four-sided cloister and arched windows in the Rattanakosin style familiar to Bangkok temples, leading the Siamese commanders to use the compound as their headquarters.
What types of statues make up the 6,840 Buddha images at Wat Si Saket?
The 6,840 Buddha images comprise two main groups: more than 2,000 small terracotta, silver-glazed, and bronze Buddhas cast between 1818 and 1824 and placed in pairs inside thousands of small niches along the cloister and Sim walls, combined with over 300 larger bronze, sandstone, and wooden Buddha statues from the 16th to 19th centuries salvaged from ruined Vientiane temples.
Why does the ordination hall of Wat Si Saket face Southwest unlike other temples in Vientiane?
While most ancient Vientiane temples face East toward the rising sun or parallel to the Mekong River, King Anouvong aligned Wat Si Saket to face Southwest (toward Bangkok). Historians note that this orientation avoided raising Siamese suspicion externally while ensuring that when Vientiane royalty and officials entered the hall to bow before the Buddha altar (facing Northeast), they never bowed toward Bangkok.
What rules should visitors keep in mind when entering the main ordination hall?
Because the interior walls of the ordination hall (Sim) preserve delicate early-19th-century Jataka murals alongside over two thousand small niche statues, photography is strictly prohibited inside the Sim to prevent flash damage. Visitors may freely photograph the exterior courtyard, the Ho Trai library, and the four cloister galleries.