A Bunnag family temple on the Thonburi bank whose great white chedi gave up a sealed relic chamber in 2007 and won UNESCO's top Asia-Pacific conservation award in 2013.
วัดประยุรวงศาวาสวรวิหาร · Wat Prayurawongsawat Worawihan
| Official name | วัดประยุรวงศาวาสวรวิหาร — Wat Prayurawongsawat Worawihan |
|---|---|
| Where | Wat Kalayan, Thonburi, Bangkok |
| 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 The temple is treated as a registered national ancient monument and the Fine Arts Department gazetted its monument land boundary — about nine rai and seventy-seven square wah — on 14 February 2024 under section 7 of the Ancient Monuments Act of 2504. Both that notice and the original registration reached us only through a newspaper's report of the department's text, and the Royal Gazette site refused our requests, so no volume, part or page is claimed here. The original registration is very probably the omnibus notice of 22 November 1949 that carries the other major Bangkok temples, but probably is not a citation and we do not print one. |
Wat Kalayan, Thonburi, Bangkok
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.
The founder's own dates and the eight-year construction are government-sourced. What the sources do not give is any statement of a royal act of foundation, which is a different thing from a minister of the crown building a temple in the king's reign.
Wat Prayurawongsawat was built by the most powerful non-royal family in nineteenth-century Siam on ground that had been growing coffee. The government tourism record is precise about the beginning: Dit Bunnag, Somdet Chao Phraya Borom Maha Prayurawong, gave the land in 2371 of the Buddhist era, 1828; the work took eight years; the consecration fell on 13 January 2379. The great bell-shaped chedi at the centre of the compound was begun at the same time, left unfinished when he died, and completed in the following reign by his son Chuang Bunnag, who would himself become regent.
The chedi is 60.525 metres tall, 162 metres round and 50 metres across the base by the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre's figures, and its interior is unusual enough to be the reason for everything that followed. It has an accessible central core pillar, which the research centre and Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University both describe as the only surviving example of the construction type in the country. By the 2000s that pillar — twenty metres of it, 144 tonnes — was leaning, damage traced back in part to bombing in the Second World War.
The restoration ran from 2006 to 2010, and in the middle of it, on 5 and 7 November 2550, 2007, the sealed chamber inside the chedi was opened. What came out of it was not a symbolic deposit but a hoard: the museum record describes roughly 270 ancient Buddha images from the first vault and thousands of votive tablets and amulets from a second. Engineers from King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang straightened the leaning pillar with a patented steel-wrap and hydraulic-jack method rather than dismantling it.
In 2013 the project took the Award of Excellence, the top tier of the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation. UNESCO's own account of it praises a sophisticated understanding of a unique architectural typology from the early Rattanakosin era and the project's extensive social impact in the multicultural historic district of Kadeejeen — the Kudi Chin riverside quarter, where this temple, the Portuguese-descended Catholic community around Santa Cruz Church and a Muslim settlement have shared a riverbank since Taksin granted the land. The adjoining hall, built in 1885 as a study hall and serving from 1916 as what the museum record calls Thailand's first public library, was restored as part of the same work and reopened in 2008 as the museum where the chedi's contents are now shown.
The Phra Borommathat Maha Chedi: 60.525 metres tall, 162 metres in circumference, 50 metres across the base, bell-shaped on a circular platform with alternating arched doorways and pilasters, Ayutthaya chedi form carrying early-Rattanakosin western detailing. You can go inside it, which is the rare part.
The relic chamber and its contents, now shown in the museum: roughly 270 Buddha images from the first vault and thousands of votive tablets from the second, opened on 5 and 7 November 2007 after the chedi had been sealed for well over a century.
Khao Mo, the artificial hill in the pond, with its miniature structures — a nineteenth-century Thai garden conceit built at a scale that reads as landscape rather than ornament. No source we accept gives its construction date.
The museum building itself, raised in 1885 as a monks' study hall, in use from 1916 as a public library, and reopened as the Prayoon Bhandagara museum in 2008 by Princess Sirindhorn. It is open daily from 9 in the morning to 9 at night with no admission charge, per the museum's own record.
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 | Not established from an official source. |
|---|---|
| Admission | Not established from an official source. |
| Dress | Not established from an official source. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | Prachathipok Road, Wat Kalayan subdistrict, Thonburi, at the Thonburi foot of the Memorial Bridge and a short walk from Santa Cruz Church and the Kudi Chin lanes. The address is from the Tourism Authority's and the government tourism body's listings. |
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.
A sealed chamber, opened on 5 and 7 November 2550 in the Buddhist era, 2007, during the restoration that ran from 2006 to 2010. The museum record describes roughly 270 ancient Buddha images from the first vault and thousands of votive tablets and amulets from a second. They are now shown in the Prayoon Bhandagara museum in the restored study hall beside the chedi. Who deposited them, and when, is not something any source we could read establishes.
The Award of Excellence — the top tier — in the 2013 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation, for the restoration of the chedi and the adjoining hall. UNESCO's own account of the project cites a sophisticated understanding of a unique architectural typology from the early Rattanakosin era and the work's extensive social impact in the multicultural historic district of Kadeejeen. This is not World Heritage status, which is a different UNESCO programme; the temple is not on the World Heritage List or Thailand's tentative list.
It is 60.525 metres tall, 162 metres in circumference and 50 metres across the base by the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre's figures, and yes — the interior is accessible, which is the unusual thing about it. It has an accessible central core pillar that the research centre and Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University both describe as the only surviving example of that construction type in Thailand. The pillar, twenty metres and 144 tonnes, was leaning and was straightened during the restoration rather than replaced.
It is the riverside quarter on the Thonburi bank where, per the government tourism body's account, Taksin granted land to Thai, Chinese and Portuguese-descended residents, and where a Buddhist, Catholic and Muslim population has lived alongside each other since. Santa Cruz Church has stood there since the Thonburi period. UNESCO's citation for the chedi restoration names the district explicitly, which is the clearest statement we found that the temple is understood as part of that mixed quarter rather than apart from it.
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 Bangkok’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.