A Royal Temple Finished Under a Republic

The purpose-built Haw Pha Bang stands in the northeast corner of the Royal Palace grounds, begun in 1963 under the last kings as a fitting shrine for the national image. The 1975 revolution, which abolished the monarchy and turned the palace into a museum, left the temple a bare shell for decades; only from the 1990s, as the government softened its stance toward Buddhism and Luang Prabang was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage town in 1995, did work resume, and the gilded, multi-tiered haw was completed in 2006. Its steep roofs, gilt stucco and naga-flanked stairways make it a showpiece of Lao temple architecture, if a modern one. The Phra Bang is now enshrined inside, and each Lao New Year in April it is brought out and ceremonially bathed in scented water, a rite in which the well-being of image and nation are renewed together, watched by crowds who regard the little Buddha as the guardian of the country.