The Aranyik monastery whose square mondop carries a Buddha in each of the four postures on its four faces, of which the standing image survives best.
วัดพระสี่อิริยาบถ · Wat Phra Si Iriyabot
By the BAANLYY Editorial Team · Last checked 1 November 2026
| Official name | วัดพระสี่อิริยาบถ — Wat Phra Si Iriyabot |
|---|---|
| Where | Nong Pling, Mueang Kamphaeng Phet, Kamphaeng Phet |
| Royal temple class | Not established from an official register. |
| Monastic order | Not recorded in any register we could read. |
| Ancient monument | Registered national ancient monument Royal Gazette vol. 52, part 75, 8 March B.E. 2478 — the first national list of ancient monuments, in which the Fine Arts Department's own history names this monastery as one of eight in Kamphaeng Phet; boundaries subsequently determined by Royal Gazette vol. 85, part 41, 7 May B.E. 2511 One of only two monuments in this batch that the department's own park history names in the first national list, and the register agrees: its status code here is 1, registered, where three of its neighbors carry the insufficient-data flag. The department states that the 2478 registration declared no clear boundaries, which is what the 2511 instrument then did. Neither gazette was opened at source — ratchakitcha.soc.go.th refused this run as it has refused every previous one. The register spells the monastery วัดพระสี่อริยาบถ, without the sara i, so searching it under the correct spelling finds nothing. |
| World Heritage | Historic Town of Sukhothai and Associated Historic Towns (574) |
| Coordinates | 16.501257, 99.514480 Fine Arts Department register, Kamphaeng Phet park map service, monument 0003926 (ARCH_ID KPP064); the register's own subdistrict polygon layer returns Sa Kaeo (620119) for this point, where the SAC record and the department's text say Nong Pling — both readings are printed and neither is adopted |
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.
There is no dated inscription at the monument itself. The date rests on a comparison of style with Wat Chetuphon at Sukhothai, and the silver-leaf inscription dates an event in the city rather than the building of this monastery.
Wat Phra Si Iriyabot is the reason the Aranyik zone is worth the walk. Its principal monument is not a chedi at all but a large mondop standing inside a low surrounding wall, built with a square core rising to carry the roof and a porch projecting on each of the four sides. In each porch stood a stucco Buddha image, and each image is in a different posture: the walking image faces east, the reclining north, the seated south, and the standing west. The west face is the one that still reads as a figure. The others have gone down to fragments and silhouette, which is its own kind of information about what six centuries of weather does to stucco over a laterite core.
Phakphadi Yukhongdi surveyed and drew the monastery for Silpakorn University in B.E. 2522 and argued that the form came from Pala-period Indian art by way of Mon and Lankan culture before it reached Sukhothai, where the same four-posture mondop was built at Wat Chetuphon outside the city to the south. She dated this one on that comparison to about the reign of Maha Thammaracha Lithai. It is worth being clear that this is a stylistic argument: there is no dated inscription on the building, and the department publishes none.
The monastery was registered early. The Fine Arts Department's history names it among the eight monuments in Kamphaeng Phet taken into the first national list of B.E. 2478, and says in terms that no clear boundaries were declared then; those came in the B.E. 2511 instrument that fixed ten zones across the old town and Nakhon Chum. Pitthaya Damdenngam excavated it in B.E. 2508, clearing the main vihara base, the subsidiary viharas around the monastery, the ordination hall, the four-posture mondop and its surrounding wall, and the restoration that followed was partly a matter of bricking up the holes where all four images had been dug into by looters.
One more thing about this monastery matters for the city's history rather than its own. The department records that a silver-leaf inscription was excavated from an old chedi standing in front of it — in front of Wat Phra Yuen, as the department writes it, using the monastery's other name — recording that a lord called Sadet Pho Phraya Soi came to rule Kamphaeng Phet in B.E. 1963. He is probably the Phaya Saen Soi Dao who turns up in the Ayutthaya chronicle. A good deal of what is known about who governed this city at the end of the Sukhothai period came out of the ground here.
The four-sided mondop: a square core carrying the roof with a porch on each face, each porch built to hold a stucco Buddha image in a different posture — walking east, reclining north, seated south, standing west.
The standing image on the west face, which the Fine Arts Department records as surviving in better condition than the other three.
The low surrounding wall enclosing the mondop, and the subsidiary chedis at its corners, built in the tiered-spire form.
The vihara in front of the mondop, and the small, low-based ordination hall set against the southern boundary wall with boundary stones planted in the ground around it.
The monastic quarter behind the sacred precinct — bases of halls and cells, and a well — and, at the front of the monastery, a well, a washroom and a pavilion.
The repairs where the four images were broken into: the B.E. 2508 restoration bricked up the holes left by looting in all four of them.
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 | Every day, including government and public holidays, 8am to 4.30pm. The Fine Arts Department's own park site states these hours. |
|---|---|
| Admission | Thai nationals: 20 baht. Foreign visitors: 200 baht. |
| Dress | Ruins rather than a working monastery, but still a consecrated Buddhist site: shoulders and knees covered, and do not climb on the brickwork or sit with your feet toward an image. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | In the Aranyik zone north of the old city wall, about 850 m north of the moat and roughly 200 m north of Wat Phra Non, near the historical park office. From town, Ratchadamnoen 2 Road runs on to the park road. |
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.
Walking, reclining, seated and standing, one on each face of the mondop. The Fine Arts Department records the walking image on the east, the reclining on the north, the seated on the south and the standing on the west.
The standing one on the west face. The department's description notes that it survives in better condition than the other three, which are now closer to outlines than figures.
Yes, Wat Chetuphon outside Sukhothai to the south, which is the comparison the 1979 Silpakorn University study used to date this one. That study traced the form to Pala-period Indian art reaching Sukhothai through Mon and Lankan culture.
Nobody can say from a document. A stylistic study places the mondop at about the reign of Maha Thammaracha Lithai, in the late Sukhothai period, and there is no dated inscription on the building itself to settle it.
A silver leaf excavated from an old chedi in front of this monastery, recording that a lord called Sadet Pho Phraya Soi came to rule Kamphaeng Phet in B.E. 1963. It dates an event in the city, not the building of this monastery.
Yes, it is one of the eight Kamphaeng Phet monuments the Fine Arts Department names in the first national list of B.E. 2478, long before the historical park project began in B.E. 2525. Boundaries were only determined later, in B.E. 2511.
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 Kamphaeng Phet’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.
Last checked 1 November 2026
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.