A laterite Khmer chapel of the kind built alongside Jayavarman VII's hospitals, in the grounds of a working temple at Ban Na Kham Noi in Amphoe Nam Phong. Excavation in the late 1990s recovered a Vajradhara head, a naga-sheltered Buddha and silver- and gold-clad images, and left a lotus-carved gold foundation plate in a socket in the gate chamber's floor.
กู่ประภาชัย (กู่บ้านนาคำน้อย) · Ku Prapha Chai
| Official name | กู่ประภาชัย (กู่บ้านนาคำน้อย) — Ku Prapha Chai |
|---|---|
| Where | Bua Yai, Nam Phong, 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. 52, part 75, p. 3683, 8 March B.E. 2478 (item 9 of the Khon Kaen block, as กู่บ้านนาคำน้อย อำเภอน้ำพอง ตำบลบัวใหญ่); and vol. 100, part 36, p. 875, 15 March B.E. 2526 (the boundary, 3 rai 1 ngan 29 square wa) Two instruments, both downloaded from the Fine Arts Department's mirror and read by eye in this run. The first is the first nationwide list of national ancient monuments; its Khon Kaen block is province 4, runs to ten items, and this monument is the ninth, entered as กู่บ้านนาคำน้อย อำเภอน้ำพอง ตำบลบัวใหญ่ — the same address the 1983 order recites and the same one the monument has today. The second — ประกาศกรมศิลปากร เรื่อง กำหนดเขตที่ดินโบราณสถาน, announced ๒๙ มกราคม ๒๕๒๖ by คุณหญิงอารี กุลตัณฑ์ as อธิบดีกรมศิลปากร — recites the 1935 listing, cites it as เล่ม ๕๒ ตอนที่ ๗๕ วันที่ ๘ มีนาคม ๒๔๗๘, notes that it set no land boundary, states that the place is now วัดกู่ประภาชัย, and draws a boundary under section 7 of the Act B.E. 2504 at ๓ ไร่ ๑ งาน ๒๙ ตารางวา. The register's land parcel carries 3 rai 1 ngan 29 square wa and codes the row at status 5. |
| Coordinates | 16.611073, 102.929605 Fine Arts Department register, monument 0002345 |
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 figure of 102 hospitals is not this monument's own record. It comes from the inscription of Ta Prohm in Cambodia, which the department cites, and the department is explicit that placing this particular ku among those 102 is an inference and not a reading of an inscription found here.
Ku Prapha Chai stands at Ban Na Kham Noi, in Tambon Bua Yai, Amphoe Nam Phong, in the north-east of Khon Kaen province. It is a small, complete and legible example of a building type that was produced across the Khmer empire in a single burst, and the Fine Arts Department's account of it is unusually clear about which parts of that story are evidence and which are inference.
The type first. In the reign of Jayavarman VII, in about the 18th Buddhist century, the crown built public works across the empire — arogayasala, which were hospitals, and dharmasala, which were rest-houses for travellers. The department cites the inscription at Ta Prohm in Cambodia for the number: 102 arogayasala were ordered. Many have been identified in what is now Thailand. Whether this one is among them the department states as a supposition, สันนิษฐานว่า, and this page keeps that word. What is not in doubt is the class of building: a religious structure serving a hospital, in a king's programme, by a king the department describes as a follower of Mahayana Buddhism.
That religious identification is not decoration on the page — it is the fact that separates this monument from the other Khmer ruin in this batch. Prasat Pueai Noi, eighty kilometres south, the department calls a Hindu temple and describes through Vishnu, Gajalakshmi and Uma-Mahesvara. Here the objects recovered by excavation are a head of Vajradhara, a Buddha sheltered by the naga, and Buddha images clad in silver and gold. Two Khmer monuments, one province, two religions.
The plan is the standard one for its class and is worth walking in order. A single main sanctuary of laterite faces east, on a high base with a projecting porch, its chamber holding a pedestal against the west wall and a square socket cut in the floor for a sandstone slab and an image base. Three of its walls carry false doors; only the front opens. A library stands to the south-east, facing west, its roof gone but probably corbelled. A laterite boundary wall runs round both, meeting a cross-shaped gopura on the east. Outside the wall, at the north-east corner, is a rectangular pond lined with laterite, seventeen and a half metres by twenty-one and a half and four metres deep. That north-east pond is the signature of the type.
The object that most repays a slow look is in the gopura. The department records that inside the gate chamber a pedestal for an image sits sunk into the floor, facing north, and that a deep socket in the middle of it contains a gold plate — a foundation plate — carved with a lotus design. It has stayed where it was put.
The state's interest in the place is old and the state's work on it is recent. The monument is the ninth of ten entries in the Khon Kaen block of the first nationwide list of ancient monuments, published on 8 March B.E. 2478 — filed then, as now, under Amphoe Nam Phong, Tambon Bua Yai. That listing set no boundary, and on 29 January B.E. 2526 the Director-General, Khunying Aree Kultan, signed an order drawing one at three rai, one ngan and twenty-nine square wa, and noting that the place is now Wat Ku Prapha Chai. Excavation and restoration followed between B.E. 2541 and 2543 — the sanctuary, then the wall, then the library, the gopura and the pond. The department records that the finds are kept at the local museum at Ban Na Kham Noi, inside the temple grounds, which is a short walk rather than a trip to Bangkok.
It is a living shrine as well as a monument: the department's condition note records that it is venerated by local people and by visitors. BAANLYY does not represent this site and nothing here is legal or religious advice.
The main sanctuary — laterite, square in plan, facing east, on a high base with a projecting porch. The Fine Arts Department gives the base as 8 metres wide, 10 metres long and 10 metres high, with a redented body, false doors on three walls, and one window opening in the south wall of the porch.
Its crown: redented tiers stepping up to a top course of sandstone laid as an eight-petalled flower, capped by a lotus-bud finial.
Inside the sanctuary chamber, a sculpture pedestal set against the west wall and a square socket cut in the middle of the floor for a sandstone slab and an image base.
The library at the south-east, facing west — laterite, 3.50 by 8.10 metres and 2.70 metres high, on a four-tier plinth, walled solid on three sides with a double-recessed doorway in front and a laterite floor. Its roof has fallen and the department supposes it was corbelled into a barrel vault.
The gopura and the wall: a cross-shaped gate-building 9 by 11.50 metres and 4.50 metres high on a four-tier plinth, with a double doorway on its eastern porch, joined to a laterite wall enclosing the sanctuary and the library.
The gold plate in the gopura floor — a foundation plate carved with a lotus design, sunk in a deep socket in the middle of an image pedestal set into the chamber floor and facing north.
The pond outside the north-east corner of the wall, lined with laterite: 17.50 metres by 21.50, four metres deep.
The local museum at Ban Na Kham Noi, inside the temple grounds, where the department records that the objects from the excavation are kept — fragments of inscription, a head of Vajradhara, a naga-sheltered Buddha, a sandstone sculpture pedestal, the stand for the foundation plate, and Buddha images clad in silver and gold.
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 | The monument stands inside a working temple and is venerated. Shoulders and knees covered; treat the sanctuary as a shrine rather than a ruin. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | Ban Na Kham Noi, Tambon Bua Yai, Amphoe Nam Phong, Khon Kaen, in the north-east of the province. The Fine Arts Department's register gives the monument's position as 16.611073 N, 102.929605 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.
A hospital. The Fine Arts Department describes Ku Prapha Chai as the religious building attached to one — a chapel serving a hospital rather than the hospital itself — built under a programme of public works ordered by Jayavarman VII of the Khmer empire in about the 18th Buddhist century. The department cites the Ta Prohm inscription in Cambodia for the figure of 102 such foundations across the empire.
The Fine Arts Department says it is supposed to be, and uses that word — สันนิษฐานว่า, it is surmised. The figure of 102 comes from the inscription of Ta Prohm in Cambodia, which lists the hospitals Jayavarman VII founded across his empire; it is not an inscription found at this site, and no inscription recovered here names this building as one of them. What the department asserts firmly is the class of structure and the reign. Which of the 102 it is, or whether it is one of them at all, is an inference from architectural type and this page does not upgrade that inference into a fact.
Buddhist, and Mahayana. The Fine Arts Department describes Jayavarman VII as a follower of Mahayana Buddhism who venerated the bodhisattvas, and the objects recovered from the excavation here are a head of Vajradhara, a Buddha sheltered by the naga, and Buddha images clad in silver and gold. That is the opposite of Prasat Pueai Noi in the south of the same province, which the department calls a Hindu temple.
A foundation plate, and it is still in place. The Fine Arts Department records that inside the gopura's chamber an image pedestal is set into the floor facing north, with a deep socket cut in the middle of it, and that inside the socket is a gold plate carved with a lotus design.
Not far. The Fine Arts Department's note on the monument says the objects recovered in the excavation and restoration are kept at the local museum at Ban Na Kham Noi, which is within the grounds of Wat Ku Prapha Chai.
A good deal, and the department dates the work: the 7th Office of Archaeology and National Museums at Khon Kaen excavated and restored the main sanctuary in B.E. 2541, the boundary wall in B.E. 2542, and the library, gopura, pond and further work on the sanctuary in B.E. 2543, along with landscaping. The department does not say what proportion of the standing fabric that involved.
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.