Wat Pho is the royal monastery south of Bangkok's Grand Palace. Its inscriptions and restoration history explain why the whole compound matters, beyond the reclining Buddha.
The site began as Wat Phodharam, an older monastery from the Ayutthaya period. King Rama I restored it after establishing Bangkok. A second major restoration under King Rama III, from 1831 to 1841, expanded the grounds and added ceramic decoration, murals, stone sculpture and inlaid work.
During Rama III's restoration, scholars and craftsmen carved texts on history, religion, literature, medicine and traditional knowledge on stone plates around the temple. UNESCO registered the Wat Pho inscriptions in the Memory of the World programme in 2011; the archive records 1,431 inscriptions.