Chest with scenes of the Buddha enthroned in Indra's Heaven, Phra Malai and Indra at the Chulamani Stupa, and guardians

The front of this chest shows the scene of the Buddha in Indra's Heaven preaching to his long-deceased mother. The Heaven of Indra—also known as the Heaven of the Thirty-three Gods because Indra rules there as king of the other thirty-two gods—is situated at the summit of the legendary Mount Meru, the central mountain of the Theravada Buddhist cosmos. Here, Indra kneels to the Buddha's left in an attitude of respectful attention. Indra's royal regalia—a parasol, a fan, a fly whisk, and so on—flank the Buddha, emphasizing the Buddha's king-like glory. Behind Indra kneels the Buddha's mother. On the opposite side kneel two other figures, a mythical bird and a serpent-being recognizable by the snake body that coils below his waist. Both listen reverently.

On the back of this chest, the setting is still Indra's Heaven, but for an entirely different story—a scene, frequent in Thai art of the 1800s, of the monk Phra Malai paying homage to the Buddha's relics. When the young Prince Siddhartha (the Buddha-to-be), after leaving his father's palace, cut off his long hair to mark his renunciation of his aristocratic status, Indra retrieved the hair and enshrined it in the Chulamani stupa, a monument in his capital. This stupa occupies the central position in this scene. To one side of the stupa we see Phra Malai with his frequent attributes, the ecclesiastical fan and monk's bowl (on a stand, with a length of cloth tied around it).