Wat Mahathat, or Temple of the Great Relic, was our second stop in Ayutthaya. It was the center of Buddhism in Ayutthaya and housed many Buddha relics. The site is best known for its stone Buddha head entwined in the roots of a banyan tree. No one knows for sure how the head ended up there. It could have happened during the Burmese invasion or possibly in more recent history by a looter. There were several statues here that were missing their heads and we saw many more throughout our travels in Thailand. So if you ever see a Buddha head in a museum, there’s a chance that we may have seen its body.
