Wat Phothirangsi

What the official record says

Where Wat Phothirangsi (Wat Mueang Kai) is

When was it founded — and what actually establishes that?

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 department gives the painting an attribution rather than a date — village painters of the fifth reign, judged from the architecture and the dress in the scenes. That is a stylistic reading by the registering authority and it is written here as one.

The history of Wat Phothirangsi (Wat Mueang Kai)

Chachoengsao's eastern districts took in Lao families from Vientiane, and this monastery is what one of those communities built and what they called it. The Fine Arts Department's history is short and specific: Wat Phothirangsi, known locally as Wat Mueang Kai, at Ban Mueang Kai in Phanom Sarakham, from the late Ayutthaya to the Rattanakosin period, built by Lao people who moved here from Vientiane about two hundred years ago and named after their monastery at home so that they would not forget where they came from. The principal image, Luang Pho Daeng, is held to be over two hundred years old.

The ordination hall was put up in the Vientiane manner, and the register is careful to add what two restorations have done to it: a number of its features have changed. That is the department recording its own trade's effect on the building, which is not a line you find often in a heritage register, and it is a fair warning to anyone arriving expecting a pure Lao building.

The paintings are the reason to come. The department attributes them to village painters working in the fifth reign, judging from the architecture and the costume shown in the scenes rather than from any date on the wall. Above the windows and doors, on all four sides, sit rows of the Buddhas of the past, each enthroned in a kirtimukha arch with his two chief disciples beside him. Between the doors and windows run scenes from the life of the Buddha, the Vessantara Jataka, and ordinary village life.

Two of the walls are gone. In the first restoration the painting behind the principal image was plastered over completely to strengthen the building, and the register says so in those words; the band below the window line was plastered over at the same time. What is left is three sides. The paintings have since been conserved twice, in B.E. 2531 and in B.E. 2557, and the department records the overall condition as sound. Three walls of fifth-reign village painting in an eastern province, and a written record of exactly how the fourth was lost, is a better thing to have than a vague claim of a complete scheme.

What you actually see

The ordination hall itself, built in the Vientiane manner by Lao settlers, with the register noting that two rounds of restoration have changed a number of its features.

Rows of the Buddhas of the past above the windows and doors on all four sides, each seated in a kirtimukha arch with two chief disciples flanking him.

Between the doors and windows: scenes from the life of the Buddha, the Vessantara Jataka, and village life — three walls of it, attributed by the Fine Arts Department to fifth-reign village painters.

The blank wall behind the principal image, where the painting was plastered over in the first restoration to strengthen the building, and the plastered band below the window line.

Luang Pho Daeng, the principal image, which the department's history records as the monastery's own and over two hundred years old.

Visiting: hours, admission, dress and photography

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.

What we could not establish

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.

• The names of the painters, and any inscription that would date the scheme rather than leave it to a stylistic reading.
• Whether anything survives under the plaster behind the principal image, and whether the first restoration recorded what it covered before covering it.
• When the first restoration was carried out. The register names two conservation campaigns on the paintings, in B.E. 2531 and B.E. 2557, but does not date the structural repair that lost the two walls.
• The exact year the Lao community arrived. About two hundred years ago is the department's own phrasing and the only figure it gives.
• The sect, the opening hours and the admission position. No state source read in this run states any of the three.

Wat Phothirangsi (Wat Mueang Kai): common questions

Where to go from here

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 Chachoengsao’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.