The most complete Khmer sanctuary in the upper Isan, at Pueai Noi in the south of Khon Kaen province: three brick towers on one laterite platform inside a laterite wall with gopuras east and west and a horseshoe moat around the lot. The Fine Arts Department calls it a Hindu temple outright. A Buddhist wat was built beside it in 1929 and gave it the name most visitors hear.
ปราสาทเปือยน้อย · Prasat Pueai Noi
| Official name | ปราสาทเปือยน้อย — Prasat Pueai Noi |
|---|---|
| Where | Pueai Noi, Pueai Noi, 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 is a different monument; this is item 10 of the Khon Kaen block, as กู่หรืออาศรม อำเภอพล ตำบลเปือยน้อย); vol. 58, p. 586, 18 March B.E. 2484 (relisted as ปรางค์ (อยู่ที่บ้านหัวขวา) อำเภอบ้านไผ่ ตำบลเปือยน้อย); and vol. 99, part 172 (special issue), p. 35, 18 November B.E. 2525 (the boundary, 8 rai 2 ngan 52 square wa) Three instruments. The 1935 national list and the 1982 boundary order were both downloaded from the Fine Arts Department's mirror and read by eye in this run; the 1941 list was downloaded but its Khon Kaen entry is quoted here from the department's own register rather than from the page, and is marked as such. The boundary order — ประกาศกรมศิลปากร เรื่อง กำหนดเขตที่ดินโบราณสถาน, announced ๒๓ กันยายน ๒๕๒๕ by ไพรัช ชุติกุล as รองอธิบดี รักษาราชการแทนอธิบดี — is the document that ties the three names together in its own words: it recites that the department registered โบราณสถานกู่ หรืออาศรม (อยู่ที่บ้านหัวขัว) ตำบลเปือยน้อย อำเภอพล จังหวัดขอนแก่น, that this is now ปราสาทเปือยน้อย (วัดธาตุกู่ทอง) in กิ่งอำเภอเปือยน้อย, that the 1935 announcement at เล่ม ๕๒ ตอนที่ ๗๕ วันที่ ๘ มีนาคม ๒๔๗๘ set no land boundary, and that one is therefore drawn under section 7 of the Act B.E. 2504 at ๘ ไร่ ๒ งาน ๕๒ ตารางวา. The register's land parcel carries 8 rai 2 ngan 52 square wa and codes the row at status 5. Note the spelling: the gazette writes the village บ้านหัวขัว and the register's own name field writes บ้านหัวขวา. |
| Coordinates | 15.879753, 102.908781 Fine Arts Department register, monument 0002365 |
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 here is worth stating: nobody official dates this monument to a year, names its patron, or connects it to a named king. The department's register offers no century at all, and the only century range on the page is the Tourism Authority's.
Prasat Pueai Noi stands at Moo 1, Tambon Pueai Noi, in the district of the same name in the far south of Khon Kaen province, about eighty kilometres from the city by way of Ban Phai. The Tourism Authority of Thailand's own summary of it is the fairest one-line description available: it is not as large as Phimai or as many of the sanctuaries in the lower Isan, but it is one of the most complete Khmer sanctuaries there is, and it is the most complete in the upper Isan found so far.
The first thing to be clear about is what it was for. The Fine Arts Department's architectural description begins by calling it a Hindu temple — เทวสถานในศาสนาฮินดู — and everything it then lists is consistent with that. The lintel over the front door of the central tower is Vishnu reclining on the naga. Behind the northern subsidiary tower is a Gajalakshmi lintel. Behind the library is a pediment of Uma-Mahesvara, Shiva and Uma seated on the bull Nandi. This matters because the neighbouring Khmer monument in this guide, Ku Prapha Chai in Amphoe Nam Phong, is the opposite case: a Mahayana Buddhist foundation of Jayavarman VII with a Vajradhara head and a naga-sheltered Buddha in it. Two Khmer ruins in one province, a religion apart, and describing either from the other is a factual error.
The second thing is that the name most people meet it under belongs to something else. The Fine Arts Department records that the place was a ruin, badly collapsed, with carved lintels and pediments lying about it, until B.E. 2472, when Phra Achan Pu and a man named Noi led the founding of Wat That Ku Thong close by. Phra That Ku Thong, the villagers' name for the sanctuary, is that temple's name applied backwards to the older stones.
The third is administrative and it is a good illustration of why this guide reads instruments rather than summaries. In the first nationwide list of national ancient monuments, published on 8 March B.E. 2478, this monument is the tenth and last entry in the Khon Kaen block, and it is filed as กู่ หรือ อาศรม — a ku, or a hermitage — in อำเภอพล, ตำบลเปือยน้อย. In a second list of 18 March B.E. 2484 the department's register records it appearing again as ปรางค์ (อยู่ที่บ้านหัวขวา) in อำเภอบ้านไผ่, ตำบลเปือยน้อย. In November B.E. 2525 the boundary order sets all of this out in its own words and adds a third district: the monument, it says, is now Prasat Pueai Noi at Wat That Ku Thong in กิ่งอำเภอเปือยน้อย, the minor district that later became the full district it sits in today. Three instruments, three districts, one monument — and the order spells the village บ้านหัวขัว where the register's name field spells it บ้านหัวขวา.
The 1935 listing set no land boundary at all, which the 1982 order says explicitly before drawing one: about eight rai, two ngan and fifty-two square wa. That is the figure the register carries. Between B.E. 2534 and 2537 the Fine Arts Department excavated and rebuilt the sanctuary by anastylosis — taking the fallen stones down, recording them and putting them back in their original positions — which is why what stands today looks whole and why a visitor should understand that a good deal of it has been re-erected rather than never fallen.
The district holds an annual festival at the sanctuary. The Fine Arts Department places it at Songkran; the Tourism Authority puts it at the full moon of the fifth lunar month and describes religious ceremonies, the phuk siao friendship rite that Khon Kaen is known for, and a historical light-and-sound performance. Those two datings are close but not identical and both are printed. BAANLYY does not represent this site and nothing here is legal or religious advice.
Three brick towers on a single laterite platform, facing east — the arrangement the Fine Arts Department records as the core of the monument.
A library, or bannalai, at the south-east corner of the enclosure.
A laterite boundary wall joining gopuras — arched gate-buildings — on both the east and the west sides. Most sanctuaries of this kind have one; this has two.
A horseshoe-shaped moat around the whole enclosure, and beyond the road to the east a large reservoir the department names as สระวงษ์.
The Vishnu-on-the-naga lintel over the front door of the central tower, which the Tourism Authority describes as still in complete condition.
The naga-king pediment over the central tower, per the Tourism Authority.
The Gajalakshmi lintel over the rear doorway of the northern subsidiary tower, and behind the library a lintel of a seated deity holding a sword and a pediment of Uma-Mahesvara — Shiva and Uma on the bull Nandi. All three are the Fine Arts Department's identifications.
The inscription: four lines in old Khmer script and Sanskrit on a door-frame pillar of the central tower, which the department says speaks of the ascetic Muni Suvantaya and the rishi Vaisampayana and of the holding of a sacrifice.
A raised forecourt terrace in front of the eastern gopura, standing above the ground around it.
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 archaeological site rather than a working temple, but a place of veneration for the district and adjoining a working wat. Dress as you would for a temple and treat the sanctuary as a shrine rather than a ruin. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | Moo 1, Tambon Pueai Noi, Amphoe Pueai Noi, Khon Kaen 40340. The Tourism Authority of Thailand gives the route from Khon Kaen as Highway 2 to Ban Phai, 44 km; Highway 23 towards Borabue for about 11 km; then right to Amphoe Pueai Noi, a further 24 km. It lists parking on site and gives the contact number as +66 4349 4024. |
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.
No, and the Fine Arts Department says so in its own words: its description of the monument opens by calling it a Hindu temple, and the sculpture it lists is Hindu throughout — Vishnu reclining on the naga, Gajalakshmi, and Uma-Mahesvara on the bull Nandi. A Buddhist temple, Wat That Ku Thong, was founded beside the ruin in B.E. 2472, and the villagers' name for the sanctuary, Phra That Ku Thong, comes from that temple rather than from the sanctuary's own use.
By religion and probably by a century or more. The Fine Arts Department reads Ku Prapha Chai in Amphoe Nam Phong as an arogayasala chapel built under Jayavarman VII, who followed Mahayana Buddhism, and the objects recovered there include a Vajradhara head and a naga-sheltered Buddha. Prasat Pueai Noi it calls a Hindu temple. They are the two Khmer monuments in this guide's Khon Kaen batch and they are not the same kind of building.
Not established. The Fine Arts Department's register gives no century for it at all. The Tourism Authority of Thailand supposes the 16th to 17th Buddhist century and describes the art as a mixture of Baphuon and Angkor Wat styles, and in the same passage says the monument is about 800 years old — two statements that do not agree with each other. There is an inscription on the central tower, in old Khmer script and Sanskrit, and no source read here dates it.
Because the districts changed and the instruments did not. The 1935 national list has it in อำเภอพล; a 1941 list has it in อำเภอบ้านไผ่; and the boundary order of 18 November B.E. 2525 recites both and states that the monument is now in กิ่งอำเภอเปือยน้อย, the minor district that became today's Amphoe Pueai Noi. The order is the document that ties the three names to one monument.
Partly. The Fine Arts Department records that the monument was a badly collapsed ruin with lintels and pediments lying scattered around it, and that the department excavated and restored it by anastylosis between B.E. 2534 and 2537 — dismantling, recording and re-erecting the fallen stone in its original positions. The department does not say how much of the standing fabric that involved.
The Fine Arts Department records the physical fact and stops there: a horseshoe-shaped moat encircling the walled enclosure, with a raised forecourt terrace outside the eastern gopura and, across the road further east, a large reservoir the department names as Sa Wong. It offers no interpretation of either the moat or the reservoir — whether they were built for water supply, for drainage, for defence, or as part of the cosmological plan the Tourism Authority reads into the layout — and none is invented here. What can be said is that the arrangement of an encircling moat with a large tank outside it is common to Khmer religious sites of this kind across the region.
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.