Results of Archaeoastronomical Research at Sri Lanka’s Ancient Buddhist Monuments
Buddhist monuments in Sri Lanka were the prototypes of many ancient monuments in Thailand. Archaeoastronomical research in Thailand has shown that Thai religious monuments were aligned with a number of auspicious stars prescribed by Vastu Shastra principles. Thai archaeoastronomy researchers, having found archaeoastronomical significance in Indonesia’s Borobudur and Prambanan complexes, went to Sri Lanka to confirm whether the prototypes would be similarly aligned. The team went to the ancient cities of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa and found that many ancient Buddhist monuments there were also aligned with the stars. This talk describes the results from the expedition.
About the speaker
Visanu Euarchukiati is an astronomy enthusiast and a science historian. He is an active member of The Siam Society and the Chairperson of the Siamese Heritage Trust Committee. He graduated with a BSc (Eng) in Computing Science from Imperial College London and an MS in Computer Science from Florida Institute of Technology and has worked in several organisations. As an editor and author for the National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand (NARIT), he produced a series of 9 Thai books on the history of astronomy. His two papers on the observations of the total solar eclipse of 6 April 1875 in Siam were recently published in Exploring the History of Southeast Asian Astronomy by Springer in 2021. He appears in NARIT’s video documentary commemorating the 1875 eclipse, recently published online on 4 April 2025. Visanu joined archaeoastronomy activities as an advisor for text, photography and video for NARIT’s History and Heritage of Astronomy Group.
When
Thursday, 21 May 2026 at 19:00
Where
Admission
Members and Students (to undergraduate level) — Free of charge
Non-Members — THB 300
For more information, please contact
Tel: 02 661 6470-3 ext 201
or e-mail: lectures@thesiamsociety.org
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