A first-class royal monastery on Samlan Road holding the Wihan Lai Kham, whose gold-on-vermilion murals are among the best-preserved Lanna painting anywhere — and an image three cities each claim to hold.
วัดพระสิงห์วรมหาวิหาร · Wat Phra Singh Woramahawihan
| Official name | วัดพระสิงห์วรมหาวิหาร — Wat Phra Singh Woramahawihan |
|---|---|
| Where | Phra Sing, Mueang Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai |
| Royal temple class | First class royal temple, Woramahawihan (พระอารามหลวงชั้นเอก ชนิดวรมหาวิหาร) The ONEP cultural-environment register states that the temple was raised to a first-class royal monastery of the Woramahawihan type on 23 November B.E. 2483, and the Tourism Authority of Thailand's entry gives the same grade and type. That is two government sources agreeing, one of them with a date. The National Office of Buddhism register, which would be the primary authority, refused access throughout research. |
| Monastic order | Not recorded in any register we could read. |
| Ancient monument | Registered national ancient monument Royal Gazette vol. 52, part 0 ง, 8 March B.E. 2478 The Fine Arts Department's register service returns the status for site 0003579, held under the official name วัดพระสิงห์หลวง, as โบราณสถานขึ้นทะเบียนและกำหนดเขตที่ดินโบราณสถาน — registered, with the monument land boundary determined — and a boundary polygon for it does exist in the department's gazette-boundary layer. The gazette citation is quoted from the ONEP register and was not opened at the Gazette. Note also that this temple is absent from the Fine Arts Department regional office's published list of the fifteen Chiang Mai monuments first registered in B.E. 2478, which we could not reconcile with the ONEP citation of that same act. |
| Coordinates | 18.788818, 98.981695 Fine Arts Department national monument register, site 0003579 |
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 temple's own foundation is attested by nothing dated that we could read. What is dated is later and specific: a bell of B.E. 2172, an ordination hall of B.E. 2354, and a royal grade conferred in B.E. 2483. The 655-year figure the Tourism Authority quotes would put the founding around B.E. 1914, which is not the year the ONEP register gives, and neither source shows its working.
Wat Phra Singh is the temple where Lanna painting survives. Everything else about it is contested — the founding year, the ruler who founded it, the identity of its principal image — but the Wihan Lai Kham is simply there, and what is on its walls is the reason art historians come to Chiang Mai. The name means the hall of gold pattern, and the pattern is lai kham, gold laid over vermilion, on the columns of the nave, the square columns of the aisles and the wall behind the principal image, where a palace rises among dragons and hamsa.
The murals themselves are narrative and secular in feel. The north wall carries Sang Thong, the story of the prince born in a conch; the south wall carries Suwannahong, the tale of the golden swan. What makes them valuable is not only their quality but their incidental content: they are full of the clothes, houses, markets and manners of nineteenth-century Chiang Mai, painted by people who lived in it. The ONEP register notes that this cycle of Sang Thong is found in very few places.
The documentary history of the buildings runs through repair rather than foundation, and the Fine Arts Department's regional office has published the chronology as an example of a temple continuously conserved. The kanthakuti at the back of the Wihan Lai Kham was restored under Chao Luang Setthi Khamfan between B.E. 2364 and 2367. The front porch of the Wihan Luang was repaired and built under Chao Inthawichayanon between B.E. 2416 and 2419. The Wihan Luang itself was restored under Chao Luang Inthawarorot Suriyawong between B.E. 2444 and 2452. The ordination hall was worked on by Khruba Sriwichai, who cut back the purlin ends of the gable and closed them with stucco — the same instinct to renew rather than preserve that the department identifies across all his work.
Then there is the image. Three Phra Phuttha Sihing are venerated in Thailand — one here, one in the Phutthaisawan Hall in Bangkok, one in Nakhon Si Thammarat — and each is held by its own city to be the one carried from Lanka. The ONEP register takes the Bangkok side outright, tracing the image from Nakhon Si Thammarat to Sukhothai, Ayutthaya, Kamphaeng Phet, Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai, back to Ayutthaya for 105 years, north again after the fall of the capital, and finally to Bangkok in B.E. 2338, and it says in as many words that the image at Wat Phra Singh is a copy. That is one government database's position on a question that art historians have not closed. What is not in doubt is that an image called Phra Singh was here and was being venerated in B.E. 2172, because a bell was cast to be rung for it and the bell says so.
The Wihan Lai Kham: a small hall behind the Wihan Luang, Lanna in every proportion, with a pair of stucco naga on the front stair and a pair of lions beside them. Inside, gold-on-vermilion lai kham runs over round nave columns and square aisle columns; the wall behind the principal image shows a prasat flanked by dragons and hamsa; the north wall carries the Sang Thong cycle and the south wall Suwannahong. The Phra Singh image sits in front of them.
The Ho Trai, the scripture library, is half masonry and half timber, its outer walls set with stucco devata standing and flying with hands joined — work the ONEP register attributes to craftsmen of Phra Mueang Kaeo's period. Around B.E. 2476 Chao Kaeo Nawarat rebuilt the base, moulded with recessed panels and lotus mouldings, and set Himmaphan creatures into it. Some of the hamsa that ornamented its roof ridge are now in a national museum collection rather than on the building.
In front of the ordination hall stands the inscription ChM. 12, a red sandstone slab 53 by 89 cm carrying twenty-four lines in Fak Kham script on two faces. It is the temple's oldest readable statement about itself, and it names the ancient work it was imitating rather than the work it was recording.
To the right of the vihara hangs the bell of B.E. 2172: green bronze, 286 cm around the rim, 127 cm high, with a single line of Tham Lanna script running the whole way round. It is the earliest dated evidence that the Phra Singh image was here.
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 | Daily 06:00–18:00, per the Tourism Authority of Thailand's Thai-language listing. |
|---|---|
| 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 | Samlan Road, in the south-west quarter of the old city inside the moat, about a kilometre from Tha Phae Gate. The Tourism Authority lists parking and toilets on site and gives temple telephone numbers of 08 1883 8752, 08 7175 5739 and 08 5037 8376. |
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.
That is exactly the argument. Three images called Phra Phuttha Sihing are venerated in Thailand — this one, one in the Phutthaisawan Hall at the former Front Palace in Bangkok, and one in Nakhon Si Thammarat — and each city holds its own to be the image brought from Lanka. The ONEP cultural-environment register states outright that the Bangkok image is the original and the one here is a copy, but it cites no study for that. Nothing this research could reach settles it, so the page reports the dispute instead of picking a side.
Two story cycles painted on the side walls. The north wall carries Sang Thong, the tale of the prince born inside a conch shell, and the south wall carries Suwannahong, the story of the golden swan. Behind the principal image the wall shows a palace surrounded by dragons and hamsa, and gold-on-vermilion lai kham pattern runs over the columns. Their art-historical value lies partly in their quality and partly in the accidental record they keep of dress, buildings and daily life in nineteenth-century Chiang Mai.
The bronze bell hanging to the right of the vihara. Its rim carries one line of Tham Lanna script dated CS 991, which is B.E. 2172, recording that a senior monastic figure presided over the casting so that it could be struck in worship of the Phra Singh image. The bell measures 286 cm around and 127 cm high. It matters beyond itself, because it is the earliest dated proof that an image of that name was already at this temple and already the object of veneration there.
The Tourism Authority of Thailand records it as the temple of those born in the Year of the Dragon under the northern Thai custom that assigns each birth-year animal a relic sanctuary to visit once in a lifetime. The neighbouring assignment most visitors will also encounter is Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, on the mountain above the city, which is the temple of those born in the Year of the Goat. The full set spans the whole of the old Lanna region and several of its temples now lie outside Thailand.
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 Chiang Mai’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.