Wat Phra That Nong Sam Muen

What the official record says

Where Wat Phra That Nong Sam Muen 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 two attributions are close in date and neither rests on a text. The stylistic reading is the stronger of them because it is argued from the building: the center's entry identifies an Ayutthaya element, a Lan Na element and a Lan Xang element in the fabric, which is why it can be placed in a period at all. The Setthathirath attribution is what a state office prints, not what an instrument proves, and it is given here as such.

The history of Wat Phra That Nong Sam Muen

Wat Phra That Nong Sam Muen stands at Mu 1, Ban Kaeng, in Phu Khiao district, about eighty kilometers from the provincial town. The Provincial Office of Buddhism records it as a monastery of the ordinary kind rather than a royal one, and gives the route in detail: Highway 201 north past Phu Khiao as far as Ban Nong Song Hong, then left onto Highway 2055 for nine kilometers to Ban Kaeng, then left again for about five kilometers. The name comes from the marsh that lies away to the north-west of the compound, not from the monastery.

The chedi is the reason to come, and it is a genuinely unusual object. The Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre's entry reads it as a redented plan rising through a circumambulation molding, two lion-footed bases and a lotus base with a single ridge molding, to a reliquary body decorated with the upper and lower sheath motifs of northern work and carrying Buddha images in niches. Above that a sloping roof, then a story that repeats the reliquary body in miniature, then a small prasat or arch-top over each of the four roof faces, and at the top a square bell form. The center's own summary is that this is a chedi in which several art traditions are combined, and it names them: the lion-footed base is Ayutthaya, the sloping roof and the repeated body and sheath decoration are Lan Na, and the miniature prasat and the squared bell are Lan Xang. The Provincial Office of Buddhism describes the same monument in plainer terms, with stairs on all four sides, niches holding images in the contemplating and the walking attitudes, and relics of the Buddha within.

Under and around the monastery is something older. The Provincial Office of Buddhism records that this was a large town of the Dvaravati period, roughly the 12th to 16th Buddhist centuries, and that the traces are still legible as a moat, an earthen rampart and a scatter of mounds. Objects found inside and outside the moat were brought into the monastery: a group of sandstone boundary stones, some of them inscribed in Pallava script in Sanskrit and dated by the office to the 12th to 14th Buddhist centuries, and two damaged pieces of sculpture, one of which resembles the head of a Buddha under a naga hood in the Khmer Bayon manner of the 18th Buddhist century. One of the boundary stones was taken away to serve as the district pillar of Phu Khiao, which is an unusually direct piece of reuse to be able to document.

The conservation record is the part that most sources get muddled, and it has two distinct campaigns. The Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre states that the monument was excavated and restored between B.E. 2531 and B.E. 2533. The Fine Arts Department's Regional Office 10 records a second and later restoration completed in B.E. 2558, and then an inspection on 12 February B.E. 2567 specifically to check whether the That was still settling out of true, which found that it was not. A monument with a documented lean, a documented repair and a documented follow-up inspection is a better-served monument than most in this province, and the reason it is the most complete one here.

What you actually see

The chedi itself: a redented brick and stucco form on a square base, with the two lion-footed bases and the lotus molding the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre describes, and stairs on all four sides.

The reliquary body with its upper and lower sheath decoration — a northern motif this far into the north-east — and the Buddha images set into its niches.

The stacked upper story that repeats the reliquary body in miniature, with a small prasat or arch-top over each of the four roof faces and a squared bell form at the summit: the Lan Xang half of the building.

The sandstone boundary stones kept at the monastery, brought in from the surrounding town site, some carrying Pallava-script inscriptions in Sanskrit.

The two damaged pieces of sculpture the Provincial Office of Buddhism records, one of them close to a Buddha head under a naga hood in the Khmer Bayon manner.

The moat and earthen rampart of the Dvaravati town, still readable in the ground around the compound, and the mounds inside it.

The marsh away to the north-west that the monument is named after, which is not in the compound and is easy to miss.

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 height. The Provincial Office of Buddhism gives the chedi as about 45 meters. No other state source read for this page states a height at all, and the department's own mapped boundary for the whole monument is under six rai, so the figure is printed here as the office's and not as settled.
• Who built it, and when. Neither the stylistic attribution nor the Setthathirath attribution rests on a document, and the registration instrument of 1936 does not date the monument.
• How the two restoration campaigns relate. The Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre dates the excavation and restoration to B.E. 2531 to 2533; the Fine Arts Department's regional office dates a restoration to B.E. 2558. Nothing read for this page explains whether the later work continued the earlier or repaired it.
• The annual water-pouring rite for the That is the subject of published academic work, but no state source read here gives its date, so it is not stated.
• The opening hours and whether any charge is made. Neither the Provincial Office of Buddhism nor the Tourism Authority publishes either.

Wat Phra That Nong Sam Muen: 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 Chaiyaphum’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.