The relic temple at the heart of the old capital: a collapsed prang that once held a nested gold reliquary, and a sandstone Buddha head that the roots of a bodhi tree have closed around.
วัดมหาธาตุ · Wat Mahathat
| Official name | วัดมหาธาตุ — Wat Mahathat |
|---|---|
| Where | Pratu Chai, 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, p. 3679, 8 March B.E. 2478 The Fine Arts Department's Ayutthaya Historical Park pages cite a Royal Gazette announcement of 8 March B.E. 2478 registering sixty-nine sites inside the island as national ancient monuments, and the department's catalogue of its own gazette announcements carries the same citation. The Gazette itself was not opened: ratchakitcha.soc.go.th answered every request with a Cloudflare challenge or a 403 throughout this research, as it has in every previous run of this guide. A second, later act covers the whole island rather than the individual temple, and the two state bodies that describe it give different dates — ONEP says 17 August B.E. 2519, the Fine Arts Department's own park history says 27 July B.E. 2519, both for the same 1,810-rai archaeological zone. |
| World Heritage | Historic City of Ayutthaya (576) |
Pratu Chai, Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya, Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya
The exact location has not been confirmed yet.
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.
No inscription, no dated act and no excavation report found in this research fixes the year the temple was begun. Two years circulate in Thai state sources — B.E. 1917 and B.E. 1927 — and they are presented as two stages of one project rather than as rival claims, which is a reading, not a document. The honest position is that the reign is roughly established and the year is not.
Wat Mahathat stands at the foot of the Pa Than bridge, east of the royal palace, and its name states its purpose: a mahathat is the temple that holds the relic, and every Thai capital had one. That is why the name is a type rather than a name, why there are Wat Mahathats in Sukhothai, Phitsanulok, Phetchaburi, Nakhon Si Thammarat and Phichit, and why anything written about this one has to be checked twice before it is believed. The Fine Arts Department's own website has been found serving Sukhothai's Wat Mahathat under an Ayutthaya address, so the caution is not theoretical.
The temple's beginning is a chronicle matter. The Tourism Authority of Thailand says that some recensions of the Ayutthaya chronicle place the building in the reign of Borommarachathirat I, and that Ramesuan afterwards enshrined relics beneath the principal prang in B.E. 1927; the Fine Arts Department's park guide adds B.E. 1917 for the start of the work, abandoned when that king died. What can be dated instead is what came out of the ground. In B.E. 2499 the department excavated the prang and found a stone casket containing seven stupas one inside the other, in tin, silver, nak alloy, ebony, red sandalwood, garnet and gold, with relics and ornaments in the last of them. Those relics are now in the Chao Sam Phraya National Museum. That excavation is a document; the founding year is a story about one.
The prang itself has a long history of falling down. Part of the upper structure came down in the reign of King Song Tham. King Prasat Thong rebuilt it higher than it had been, and King Borommakot restored it again in the eighteenth century. A Sri Lankan embassy that visited in Borommakot's reign described the base ringed with reliefs of lion, bear, swan, peacock, kinnara, ox, wild dog, buffalo and dragon — the creatures of the Himmaphan forest around Mount Meru — and described the Sangharaja's residence on the west side of the compound as gilded and carved, hung with brocade, carpeted, and furnished with two thrones. In 1767 the city fell and the temple burned. It has been a ruin ever since, and the department's park guide states flatly that the great prang has now collapsed entirely.
The single most photographed object in Ayutthaya is here, and nobody official will say how it got there. A sandstone Buddha head sits at the foot of a tree in a small vihara whose walls the roots have swallowed. The provincial government's own page hedges it precisely — เข้าใจว่า, it is understood that the head fell to the foot of the tree at the fall of the city and the roots grew around it. No record confirms that, and the Fine Arts Department, which would normally cut such a tree back off a monument, says only that it has made an exception here.
The stump of the principal prang. The lower structure is laterite and the upper addition brick and mortar, which is the ordinary early-Ayutthaya sequence; the Tourism Authority records the collapse of the top, leaving the porch level, and the Fine Arts Department describes the prang today as wholly fallen. No official measurement of its original height was found anywhere in this research, which is why no figure appears on this page.
The sandstone Buddha head held in the roots of the tree, in a small vihara on the east side whose walls are entirely overgrown. It is a working shrine and people come to it to pay respects, not only to photograph it.
An octagonal chedi of four tiers with a small prang on top, which the Fine Arts Department describes as the only one of its form in Ayutthaya.
A medium-sized prang whose interior still carries a mural of the Ruean Kaeo episode from the life of the Buddha, and the open ground on the west side that the department identifies as the site of the Supreme Patriarch's residence.
The base of the principal image in the vihara, where looters dug two metres into the pedestal and the department then dug two metres further, finding five small earthenware vessels holding thin gold-sheet objects.
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. |
|---|---|
| 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 island, at the foot of the Pa Than bridge, east of Wat Phra Si Sanphet and directly opposite Wat Ratchaburana. 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.
Its age is not settled. The Tourism Authority of Thailand introduces the account with the words some chronicle recensions say, attributing the building to the reign of Borommarachathirat I and the enshrining of relics under the principal prang to King Ramesuan in B.E. 1927; the Fine Arts Department adds B.E. 1917 for the start of the work. No inscription or dated act found in this research fixes either year, so this page prints both and chooses neither.
No. Mahathat means the temple of the great relic, so nearly every old Thai capital has one, and there are well-known examples in Sukhothai, Phitsanulok, Phetchaburi, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Phichit and Bangkok as well as here. They are entirely different monuments with different histories. Anything you read about a Wat Mahathat needs the province attached before it means anything at all.
Nobody official will say for certain. The Ayutthaya provincial government's page uses the Thai hedge เข้าใจว่า — it is understood that — the sandstone head fell to the foot of the tree at the fall of the city in 1767 and the roots grew around it over the following two centuries. There is no archival or forensic account of the moment. The Fine Arts Department confirms only that it normally cuts such trees back off monuments and has deliberately made an exception here.
In B.E. 2499 the Fine Arts Department excavated the principal prang and found a stone reliquary casket holding seven stupas nested one inside another, made in turn of tin, silver, nak alloy, ebony, red sandalwood, garnet and gold, with relics and valuable ornaments in the innermost. The relics are now enshrined at the Chao Sam Phraya National Museum. This is a smaller find than the gold hoard from the crypt at Wat Ratchaburana across the road, and the two are frequently confused.
The Tourism Authority of Thailand says tickets are sold from 08:00 to 17:00 and the site stays open until 18:00, at 10 baht for Thai nationals and 80 baht for foreign visitors. The Fine Arts Department's own park services page gives a different foreigner rate — 50 baht for one site or 220 baht for a combined ticket covering six monuments. A ministerial regulation of 28 May B.E. 2568 revised the national schedule and we could not open it, so take both figures as indicative and expect the gate price to be the higher one.
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.