Wat Si Sunthon

Wat Sri Sunthon has a reclining Buddha on top of the temple building. The temple is named after one of the two sisters, known as the Heroines of Thalang - Thao Thep Kasattri and Thao Sri Sunthorn who rallied the people of Phuket to fend off invading Burmese in 1785. A reclining Buddha is an image that represents Buddha lying down and is a major iconographic theme in Buddhist art. Buddha is said to have known that his death was approaching while in this position, the Buddha asked his disciples to make a couch for him in a bush to make it easy for him to lie down. Although he had attained enlightenment and became the Buddha, as a human being, the Buddha had to leave his physical appearance. This moment is believed to have taken place in Kushinagara in India when he was eighty years old. Therefore this physical demise of the awakened world is termed as Mahaparinirvana, the state beyond Nirvana. The reclining Buddha statues are not supposed to induce the state of sadness to the followers but rather the reclining Buddha should be taken as an object of encouragement that all beings have the potential to be awakened or enlightened and release themselves from the suffering which is characterized by the cycle of rebirth. The serene and smiling expression of the Buddha in reclining Buddha statue portray the compassion and calmness that comes with the enlightenment.