A very large modern monastery in the hills behind Jomtien, founded from a 1976 land donation by the Supreme Patriarch who gave it his own former title as its name, and built as a vipassana meditation centre under royal patronage.
วัดญาณสังวรารามวรมหาวิหาร · Wat Yansangwararam Woramahawihan
| Official name | วัดญาณสังวรารามวรมหาวิหาร — Wat Yansangwararam Woramahawihan |
|---|---|
| Where | Huai Yai, Bang Lamung, Chonburi |
| Royal temple class | Not established from an official register. |
| Monastic order | Not recorded in any register we could read. |
| Ancient monument | Not established. |
Huai Yai, Bang Lamung, Chonburi
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 absence of an ancient record is the point rather than a gap. A reader arriving from Pattaya should understand that the scale of this place is modern, deliberate and documented, and not mistake size for antiquity.
Wat Yansangwararam stands in Tambon Huai Yai, in Bang Lamung district, in the hills a short drive inland from Jomtien and the southern end of the Pattaya conurbation. For a great many readers of this guide it will be the nearest thing on this page, and it is also the only entry here whose entire history happened within living memory.
The Chonburi provincial office of the National Office of Buddhism records the beginning precisely. In B.E. 2519 — 1976 — Dr Khachon and Khunying Nithiwadi Ontrakan donated land, which that office gives as about 100 rai, 1 ngan and 92 square wa. The monastery has grown from that to 366 rai, 2 ngan and 11 square wa, which is a very large compound by any Thai standard and is why the place reads to a first-time visitor as a landscape of separate buildings rather than as a single temple.
It was established by Somdet Phra Sangkharatchao Krom Luang Vajirananasangvara, the late Supreme Patriarch, and the name is his. He called it after his own earlier ecclesiastical title, Somdet Phra Yanasangwon, which is an unusual and rather direct piece of naming and the reason the romanisation of the temple varies so widely in English. The purpose recorded for it is specific: a สำนักปฏิบัติธรรม of the vipassana meditation line — a practice centre rather than a parish temple — and it was built also as a tribute to the Thai monarchy. It stands under royal patronage.
That documented modernity is worth holding onto, because the compound does not look modern in the way a reader might expect. Its scale, its hillside setting and its deliberate architectural range — including structures modelled on monuments from elsewhere in the Buddhist world — invite the assumption of age, and the assumption is simply wrong. Nothing here is ancient, and the register says so clearly enough that this page can be confident about it in a way it cannot be about any other entry in this province.
The scale of the compound itself: 366 rai, 2 ngan and 11 square wa on the provincial office own figure, laid out across hillside rather than enclosed in a single wall, which is why it is driven rather than walked.
The meditation function the monastery was founded for — it was established as a สำนักปฏิบัติธรรม of the vipassana line rather than as a parish temple, and lay practice facilities are part of the plan rather than an addition to it.
The setting in the hills of Tambon Huai Yai behind Jomtien, which is the reason the compound is quiet despite sitting within half an hour of one of the busiest tourist coasts in Thailand.
The naming itself, carried on every sign: the monastery bears the former ecclesiastical title of the Supreme Patriarch who founded it, which is why it is spelled so many different ways in English.
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 | An active monastery and a working meditation centre rather than an attraction: shoulders and knees covered, shoes off in the halls, and quiet where practice is in progress. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | Tambon Huai Yai, Bang Lamung district, in the hills inland from Jomtien at the southern end of the Pattaya conurbation. |
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.
It is modern and precisely dated. The first land was donated in B.E. 2519, which is 1976, by Dr Khachon and Khunying Nithiwadi Ontrakan. Nothing about the monastery is ancient, whatever its scale suggests.
Somdet Phra Sangkharatchao Krom Luang Vajirananasangvara, the late Supreme Patriarch, established it and named it after his own former ecclesiastical title, Somdet Phra Yanasangwon. That direct naming is also why English spellings of the temple vary so much.
This page does not say, and the omission is deliberate. The name ends in วรมหาวิหาร, which is an official sub-rank, but no source consulted states the class that accompanies it, and inferring a grade from a name is exactly how a third-class monastery elsewhere in this guide was once wrongly promoted to first class.
366 rai, 2 ngan and 11 square wa, on the figure published by the Chonburi provincial office of the National Office of Buddhism. That is very large by Thai standards and is why the compound is laid out across hillside rather than within a single enclosure.
It was founded as a meditation practice centre of the vipassana line and remains one. Visitors are a normal part of its life, but the compound is not arranged as an attraction and parts of it may be in retreat use.
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 Chonburi’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.