A small all-timber scripture library standing on four carved posts in the middle of a pond at Ban Wa in Amphoe Nong Ruea, registered in 1999. The Fine Arts Department says the year it was built is not known; the only dated object in it is a manuscript wrapper embroidered with the year 1925.
หอไตรไม้ วัดศรีชมชื่น · Ho Trai Mai, Wat Si Chom Chuen
| Official name | หอไตรไม้ วัดศรีชมชื่น — Ho Trai Mai, Wat Si Chom Chuen |
|---|---|
| Where | Non Than, Nong Ruea, Khon Kaen |
| 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. 116, special part 17 ง, p. 10, 17 March B.E. 2542 — item 1 of a three-item instrument, registering โบราณสถานหอไตรไม้ วัดศรีชมชื่น บ้านหว้า ตำบลโนนทัน อำเภอหนองเรือ at 1 rai 2 ngan 22.16 square wa One instrument, downloaded from the Fine Arts Department's mirror and read by eye in this run: ประกาศกรมศิลปากร เรื่อง ขึ้นทะเบียนและกำหนดเขตที่ดินโบราณสถาน, made under section 7 of the Act on Ancient Monuments B.E. 2504, announced ๒ ตุลาคม พ.ศ. ๒๕๔๑ over the signature of นิคม มูสิกะคามะ as อธิบดีกรมศิลปากร. It carries three monuments across three provinces — this library in Khon Kaen, the sim of Wat Thipphayaram in Nong Bua Lamphu, and the wooden bell tower of Wat Si Bun Rueang at Ban Na Baek, Tambon Wiang Kham, Amphoe Kumphawapi, Udon Thani, at ๓ งาน ๘๘ ตารางวา, which is the one registered monument the Udon Thani run of the same day left unbuilt. The area for this monument, ๑ ไร่ ๒ งาน ๒๒.๑๖ ตารางวา, matches the register's land parcel exactly. What is registered is the library, not the temple, and the register's land field marks the ground as regional-authority land rather than temple land. |
| Coordinates | 16.500272, 102.352606 Fine Arts Department register, monument 0002316 |
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.
This is the clearest statement of the record-versus-inference line in this batch, and it is the Fine Arts Department's own. One dated object, a body of interview testimony, an inference of about a century, and an explicit refusal to name a year. The page keeps all four apart.
The ho trai of Wat Si Chom Chuen stands at Ban Wa, in Tambon Non Than, Amphoe Nong Ruea, west of Khon Kaen city. It is the smallest monument in this batch and the one whose record is most candid about its own limits.
A ho trai is a scripture library: the building where a temple keeps its palm-leaf manuscripts and its Tipitaka. Across Isan and Lan Na they are frequently built over water, and the reason is practical rather than symbolic — a moat of water is a barrier to termites and to fire. This one is a small square room raised on four wooden posts in the middle of a pond, with a surrounding veranda carried on a ring of secondary posts, under a roof stepping down in three tiers.
The Fine Arts Department's 8th Regional Office at Khon Kaen has published a study of it, and the most useful thing in that study is a sentence declining to date the building. The year it was built is not known. What the Office offers instead is set out in order: interviews with residents of the community, from which it concludes that the library was probably put up from about the middle of the 25th Buddhist century onwards; and one piece of physical evidence, a cloth used to wrap a palm-leaf manuscript kept inside the library, embroidered with letters giving the year B.E. 2468. On that basis the Office estimates that the building is roughly a hundred years old. An embroidered wrapper dates the wrapper. The Office says as much, and this page does not turn its inference into a founding date.
The temple around it is dated, and by two independent statements from the same department: established in B.E. 2319 by villagers who came from Amphoe Wapi Pathum and settled by a large wa tree — hence Ban Wa Ngo, the village's old name — and granted its visungkhamasima on 18 July B.E. 2456. The temple is two and a half centuries old; the library in its pond is probably one. Those are different facts about different things and it is easy to see how they get merged.
The building rewards close looking. The four main posts are square in section and carved with vine ornament along their whole length — the department's register gives them as 9.9 inches across and its Regional Office as 10 inches, which is a small discrepancy between two arms of the same body and is printed rather than smoothed. The posts stand 1.36 metres apart, and it is four metres from the ground to the floor of the storage level. The upper woodwork is carved and set with mirror-glass. The walls of the room are made as raised timber cabinets, standing above the level of the veranda that runs round all four sides, with a row of nang riang posts carrying the roof frame. On the outside walls are painted figures — the register describes a yaksha design; the Regional Office says there is hup taem on all four walls. Vine ornament runs along the eaves edge and the posts.
It is no longer in use. The department's condition note is unsentimental: fairly complete, slightly decayed and rotted, traces of painting on the walls, out of service. There was once a walkway from the bank out to the library, and it has collapsed — what is left are the stumps of its posts in the water. The register classes the whole as Isan vernacular art. BAANLYY does not represent this temple and nothing here is legal or religious advice.
The library itself: a small all-timber building on a square plan, raised on four posts in the middle of a pond, with a roof stepping down in three tiers roofed in corrugated zinc.
The four main posts — square in section, carved with vine ornament the whole way up, standing 1.36 metres apart, with four metres from the ground to the floor of the storage level. The Fine Arts Department's register gives them as 9.9 inches across; the department's 8th Regional Office says 10 inches.
The upper woodwork, carved and set with mirror-glass, which the Regional Office notes particularly.
The room: the scripture store in the centre, its walls built as raised timber cabinets standing above the surrounding veranda, with a ring of nang riang posts carrying the roof frame and a veranda running round all four sides.
Painting on the outer walls — the register describes a yaksha design; the Regional Office records hup taem on all four faces. Vine ornament along the eaves edge and the posts.
Two small carved wooden columns set on each of the two gable ends, per the register.
The stumps in the water: the department records that a walkway once ran from the bank to the library and has collapsed, leaving only the posts of the bridge.
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 | A working village temple. Shoulders and knees covered, shoes off in the temple buildings. The library itself is out of use and the bridge to it has gone, so it is seen from the bank. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | Ban Wa, Tambon Non Than, Amphoe Nong Ruea, Khon Kaen, west of the city. The Fine Arts Department's register gives the monument's position as 16.500272 N, 102.352606 E. |
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 Fine Arts Department's 8th Regional Office at Khon Kaen says the year it was built is not known. It reports that interviews in the community suggest it was probably built from about the middle of the 25th Buddhist century onwards, and that the significant piece of evidence is a cloth wrapping a palm-leaf manuscript inside the library, embroidered with letters giving the year B.E. 2468 — from which it estimates an age of about a hundred years. That is an inference from one dated object, and this page carries it as one.
Yes, and the two facts are easy to merge. The department's register and its regional office both record that Wat Si Chom Chuen was established in B.E. 2319 and received its visungkhamasima on 18 July B.E. 2456. The temple is roughly two and a half centuries old. The library standing in its pond is probably about one century old. They are different buildings with different records.
It is a scripture library — the building where a temple keeps its palm-leaf manuscripts and its Tipitaka — and libraries of this kind are commonly built over water across Isan and the north, because a ring of water keeps termites and fire away from the manuscripts. The Fine Arts Department describes this one as a small timber room on four posts in the middle of a pond, with a veranda all round.
Not readily. The Fine Arts Department's condition note records the building as out of service, slightly decayed, and reports that the walkway that once ran from the bank to the library has collapsed, leaving only the stumps of its posts. It is a building to look at from the edge of the pond.
The library, not the temple. The instrument of 17 March B.E. 2542 registers โบราณสถานหอไตรไม้ วัดศรีชมชื่น with a plot of 1 rai 2 ngan 22.16 square wa, and the register's land field marks that ground as regional-authority land rather than temple land.
The Fine Arts Department contradicts itself, mildly, and the contradiction is worth showing rather than tidying. Its national monument register gives the four main posts as 9.9 inches across; the study published by its own 8th Regional Office at Khon Kaen says 10 inches. The gap is a tenth of an inch and it changes nothing about the building, but it is a small demonstration of why this guide names the source beside every measurement instead of stating one number as the fact. Both figures are printed here and neither is corrected.
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 Khon Kaen’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.