The most complete surviving temple of the late Ayutthaya period: a central prang ringed by eight prang-topped meru on the west bank of the Chao Phraya, restored twice in living memory and flooded once.
วัดไชยวัฒนาราม · Wat Chaiwatthanaram
| Official name | วัดไชยวัฒนาราม — Wat Chaiwatthanaram |
|---|---|
| Where | Ban Pom, Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya, Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya |
| Royal temple class | Not established from an official register. |
| Monastic order | Not recorded in any register we could read. |
| Ancient monument | Carried in the national monument register; gazette announcement unread Royal Gazette vol. 52, part 75, pp. 3679–3717, B.E. 2478 The Tourism Authority of Thailand states that the temple was announced as a national ancient monument in B.E. 2478, and the Fine Arts Department's Third Regional Office gives the fuller citation quoted here. The Gazette itself was not opened — every request to ratchakitcha.soc.go.th was refused. The day is disputed even among the sources that quote it: the department's regional office says 8 March B.E. 2478 and a Silpakorn University thesis citing the same volume and part says 3 March, so no day is stated on this page. |
| Coordinates | 14.343064, 100.541809 ONEP cultural-environment register, site 3326 |
Thai temple histories mix two different kinds of statement, and this guide keeps them apart. What a register, a gazette entry, an inscription or a dated royal act shows is one thing. What the chronicles and the temple itself hold is another, and it is worth telling as what it is.
The year and the king are agreed across four state sources, which is more agreement than most Ayutthaya foundations get, but agreement between bodies that copy one another is not the same as a document, and none was produced. The temple's later use is better recorded than its founding: the Tourism Authority states that Prince Thammathibet, the poet known as Chao Fa Kung, and Princess Sangwan were buried here after being flogged to death in the reign of King Borommakot.
Wat Chaiwatthanaram stands on the west bank of the Chao Phraya, outside the island, and it is the one Ayutthaya monument that still reads as a whole composition rather than as a field of stumps. Four Thai state bodies agree that King Prasat Thong had it built in B.E. 2173, the first year of a reign the Tourism Authority dates to B.E. 2173–2198, and the Fine Arts Department describes it as a memorial to the king's mother and to his own reign. None of them produces a document for the year. What the plan itself says is clearer than any of them: a great prang on a square base with a prang at each corner, ringed by eight more topped structures, is a model of Mount Meru surrounded by the mountains of the world — and it is a deliberate revival of the early-Ayutthaya habit of putting a prang at the centre of a temple, the arrangement at Wat Mahathat and Wat Ratchaburana two centuries before.
It is also a burial ground. The Tourism Authority records that Prince Thammathibet, the finest poet of the late Ayutthaya court and known as Chao Fa Kung, and Princess Sangwan were interred here after being flogged to death on royal order in the reign of King Borommakot. The Fine Arts Department adds a third, Princess Nim, and marks the whole claim with เชื่อว่า — it is believed — because the three chedis in a line that are supposed to hold them carry no inscription.
After 1767 the temple was abandoned and quarried. Brick was carried off and Buddha heads were taken from the gallery, which is why the seated images along the cloister are so often headless. The Fine Arts Department began a major restoration in the B.E. 2530 budget year, spending about 12.9 million baht and finishing in 1992 to coincide with the Queen's sixtieth birthday. Nineteen years later the river came over it: the 2011 floods put the site under water, and UNESCO's own state-of-conservation reporting notes the conservation project undertaken afterwards with the World Monuments Fund and the United States. The Fund's published account of its work says the flooding damaged the temple's fragile stucco above all.
One thing this page does not say is that Wat Chaiwatthanaram is a World Heritage Site. The inscribed property is 289 hectares and both ONEP and the Fine Arts Department describe it as lying on the island; ONEP's list of the monuments inside it names eight, and this temple, which is not on the island, is not among them. Neither body states in so many words that it is outside, and neither states that it is inside. Until one of them does, the field on this page stays empty. That is a smaller claim than the signboards make, and it is the one the record supports.
The central prang on a square base with a prang at each corner of it, and eight meru ranged around the gallery — four at the cardinal points and four between — each carrying a prang top. The Anthropology Centre calls the arrangement unique in Ayutthaya-period Buddhist architecture. No official source consulted gives a height for any of them.
The gallery around the prang group, its walls built of brick and plaster with a balustrade in the kudan pattern, holding seated stucco Buddha images in the maravijaya posture. The Anthropology Centre counts twelve images within the meru; the figure of 120 that circulates widely appears in no state source we could reach.
The ubosot at the front of the compound, with the ruined principal image inside it — a sandstone Buddha in the maravijaya posture, dressed in the regalia of a universal monarch — and boundary stones of a green-toned stone carved with prachamyam medallions and scrolling stems.
Two redented chedis in front of the ubosot, which the Tourism Authority measures at twelve metres wide at the base and twelve metres high, in the style it says began to spread from Prasat Thong's reign.
The river itself, immediately behind. The temple faces it, was reached from it, and was inundated by it in 2011.
This is a working place of worship for millions of people rather than an attraction, and it is treated as one at the gate. Where a figure below is blank, no source we are prepared to cite states it.
| Hours | Tickets are sold 08:00–17:00 and the site stays open until 18:00, per the Tourism Authority of Thailand's Thai-language listing. Evening lighting has been run here as a seasonal campaign by the Fine Arts Department with different hours each time, and is not part of the standing schedule. |
|---|---|
| Admission | Thai nationals: 10 baht. Foreign visitors: 80 baht. |
| Dress | Not established from an official source. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | On the west bank of the Chao Phraya outside the island, in Ban Pom subdistrict at Mu 9. The Ayutthaya Historical Park office answers on 0 3524 2286. |
Every temple reference repeats claims nobody has checked. These are the ones we went looking for and could not stand up, listed so you know exactly where this page stops.
Nobody official says so, and this page does not claim it. The inscribed property is 289 hectares, and both ONEP and the Fine Arts Department describe it as lying on the island city. ONEP's list of the monuments inside the property names eight of them and this temple, which stands on the west bank of the river outside the island, is not one. UNESCO's own listing does not name it either. Neither body says outright that it is excluded, so the honest answer is that its status is unstated, not that it is inscribed.
The Tourism Authority of Thailand records that Prince Thammathibet, the late-Ayutthaya poet known as Chao Fa Kung, and Princess Sangwan were interred here after being flogged to death on royal order in the reign of King Borommakot. The Fine Arts Department adds Princess Nim and attaches three chedis in a line to the three of them, marking the identification with the Thai word for belief rather than stating it as fact, because the chedis carry no inscription.
Because it has been restored twice within living memory and because it burned less thoroughly in 1767. The Fine Arts Department began a major restoration in the B.E. 2530 budget year at a cost of about 12.9 million baht, finishing in 1992. After the 2011 floods put the site under water, further conservation was carried out with the World Monuments Fund and the United States, concentrating on the stucco, which is what the flooding damaged most.
Sometimes, but not as a standing arrangement. The Fine Arts Department has repeatedly run evening opening at this temple as a time-limited campaign, with different hours each season, and has announced them individually. The Tourism Authority's standing listing gives daytime hours only — tickets to 17:00, gates to 18:00 — so check the department's current announcements before planning an evening visit rather than assuming the lights are on.
Before you go, read the guide to Buddhism and temple etiquette in Thailand — dress, footwear, where photography is not welcome and how to behave around monks. The rest of Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya’s temples are covered here too.
Every temple here sits in a place worth reading about on its own terms. The nationwide temple guide covers the other provinces to the same documentary standard as this page, and says on each one what the record establishes and what it does not.
If you are thinking about more than a visit: work out which Thai visa route fits your situation, and see what is available to rent and buy in residences across Thailand.
Every fact on this page is drawn from the sources above. Where they disagree, this page says so rather than choosing silently. Registrations, fees, hours and access change; confirm anything you are relying on with the authority concerned. BAANLYY LLC is a Nevada company and a listing portal, does not represent any temple, and offers no legal or religious advice.