A village ordination hall of about 1931 at Ban Wang Khun in Amphoe Nong Song Hong, in the far south of Khon Kaen province. Its outer walls carry the Lao Ramayana across all four faces with captions written in Tham Isan and Tai Noi script, and the painters of those outer walls are named.
สิมวัดสระบัวแก้ว (อุโบสถ) · Sim Wat Sa Bua Kaeo
| Official name | สิมวัดสระบัวแก้ว (อุโบสถ) — Sim Wat Sa Bua Kaeo |
|---|---|
| Where | Nong Mek, Nong Song Hong, 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. 118, special part 127 ง, p. 13, 21 December B.E. 2544 — item 3 of a six-item instrument, registering โบราณสถานสิมวัดสระบัวแก้ว (อุโบสถ) บ้านวังคูณ ตำบลหนองเม็ก อำเภอหนองสองห้อง at 3 ngan 7.66 square wa The same instrument that registered the sim of Wat Chai Si — ประกาศกรมศิลปากร เรื่อง ขึ้นทะเบียนและกำหนดเขตที่ดินโบราณสถาน, under section 7 of the Act B.E. 2504, announced ๒๐ สิงหาคม พ.ศ. ๒๕๔๔ and signed นาวาอากาศเอก อาวุธ เงินชูกลิ่น as อธิบดีกรมศิลปากร — downloaded from the Fine Arts Department's mirror and read by eye in this run. Its item 3 gives ๓ งาน ๗.๖๖ ตารางวา, which matches the register's land parcel exactly. What is registered is the sim, not the temple; the register's ownership and custody fields both name วัดสระบัวแก้ว. The instrument gives no หมู่ number for Ban Wang Khun; the Tourism Authority gives หมู่ที่ ๔. |
| Coordinates | 15.751220, 102.748644 Fine Arts Department register, monument 0002382 |
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 dating here is unusually good for a village sim and it still rests on two non-departmental sources rather than on an instrument. The Tourism Authority's B.E. 2474 and the University Centre's visungkhamasima of B.E. 2475 are consistent with each other and neither is corroborated by the Fine Arts Department, which is silent on the year.
Wat Sa Bua Kaeo stands at Ban Wang Khun, in Tambon Nong Mek, Amphoe Nong Song Hong, about ninety kilometres south of Khon Kaen city near the Nakhon Ratchasima border. As at Wat Chai Si, the monument is the sim rather than the temple, and it was registered in the same instrument on the same day in December 2001, at three ngan and 7.66 square wa.
The paintings here are a different literature from the ones at Wat Chai Si and that is the point of visiting both. The Fine Arts Department's own summary of this sim is that it carries hup taem of Phra Lak Phra Ram — the Lao Ramayana, which the department also calls the Rama Jataka in its Lao recension — filling the outer wall, and that the story is written out in detail beside the pictures in Tham Isan and Tai Noi script. The Khon Kaen University Centre for Arts and Culture puts the same thing more exactly: the Rama Jataka runs across all four outer walls, with captions in Tua Tham script, while the inside — which the Centre says is younger — carries the life of the Buddha and parts of Sinsai. So the two great Isan mural cycles are split between the two buildings in this batch: Sinsai dominates at Wat Chai Si, the Ramayana at Wat Sa Bua Kaeo.
The Centre also names the painters of the outer walls, which is rare and worth recording: Chan Thong Ma, Chan Noi and Chan Di. It names the sculptor too. At the foot of the stair are a pair of crouching lions and, in front of them, two seated figures with their legs stretched out — the work, the Centre and the Tourism Authority agree, of Luang Pho Phui, the temple's preceptor, who copied both the lions and the figures from the sim at Wat Ban Yang that this building was modelled on. The Tourism Authority's page gives the sculpture two attributions in two consecutive paragraphs, first to Luang Pho Phui alone and then to Luang Pho Phui and Pho Yai Thong Ma together; both are printed here and neither is chosen.
The building itself has lost its roof-line and the reason is on the record. The Centre for Arts and Culture reports that the sim was built with the same body and roof as Wat Ban Yang, that the roof was damaged repeatedly by storms and by lightning, and that the villagers resolved to change its form — so the box-gable roof that was there at the start is no longer legible. The original survives at Wat Ban Yang in Maha Sarakham, which is where to go to see what this one looked like.
What is left is still a clear example of its type: a solid-walled sim of three bays, mahaut, with a single door at the front and no other; small windows two to a side; a raised terrace about seventy centimetres up on a lotus base; an aew khan waist-moulded base a metre high; a rectangular plan three bay-widths long. Above the central window frame is a Rahu swallowing the moon, flanked by dancing devas painted white against a white wall, their ornaments yellow instead of gold leaf, outlined thinly, with the strongest weight in the deep indigo of their clothes. The Tourism Authority records the palette — yellow, indigo, red earth, green, blue and black — and makes an observation about the composition that is worth carrying into any Isan sim: these painters divide their scenes with plain bands rather than with sinthao, the lightning-shaped divider used in Ayutthaya and early Rattanakosin painting, which is generally absent from Isan work.
The department's condition note records that the temple filled in the ground until it was level with the circumambulation terrace, and that after the 1999 conservation the terrace was paved with fired clay tile — with the result that the sema stones around the sim now show only their tips above the surface, because the ground has been raised and lowered repeatedly. The Centre records that the sim is still used for sangha acts. BAANLYY does not represent this temple and nothing here is legal or religious advice.
The outer walls: the Lao Ramayana — Phra Lak Phra Ram, the Rama Jataka in its Lao recension — running across all four faces, with the story written out beside the pictures in Tham Isan and Tai Noi script. Both the Fine Arts Department and the Khon Kaen University Centre for Arts and Culture describe it this way; the department adds a hell scene, นรกภูมิ, on the outside as well.
The inner walls: the life of the Buddha and parts of Sinsai. The University Centre records that the interior painting is younger than the exterior.
The stair: a pair of crouching lions, and in front of them two seated figures with legs outstretched — modelled by Luang Pho Phui, the temple's preceptor, after the pair at Wat Ban Yang in Maha Sarakham.
Above the central window frame, a Rahu swallowing the moon, flanked by dancing devas with white skin against the white wall, their ornaments painted champa yellow in place of gold leaf.
The door: two wooden leaves opening inwards, framed by simple ornament with vine scrolls alternating left and right, and animals worked in among them — bats, birds, a squirrel, a monkey. The University Centre notes that these animals appear only on the left side and are probably a later addition.
The form: a solid-walled sim of three bays, mahaut, with a single front door, small windows two to a side, an aew khan base a metre high, and a raised veranda about 70 cm up on a lotus-moulded plinth. The Fine Arts Department adds that the third bay's wall is built solid.
The sema stones around the sim, showing only their tips above the paving — the Fine Arts Department records that the ground has been filled and refilled around 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 | Not established from an official source. |
|---|---|
| Admission | Not established from an official source. |
| Dress | A working village temple, and the Khon Kaen University Centre for Arts and Culture records that this sim is still used for sangha acts. Shoulders and knees covered, shoes off; the outer walls carry most of the painting and are seen from the terrace. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | Ban Wang Khun, Tambon Nong Mek, Amphoe Nong Song Hong, Khon Kaen 40190 — the Tourism Authority gives the village as Moo 4. Its route from Khon Kaen is Highway 2, the Mittraphap road, towards Amphoe Phon for about 75 km; left onto Highway 207 towards Nong Song Hong for about 17 km, between kilometre posts 27 and 28, which reaches Ban Wang Khun; then right for about a kilometre. It lists parking on site and gives the contact number as +66 4324 4498. The Fine Arts Department's register gives the monument's position as 15.751220 N, 102.748644 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 Lao Ramayana. The Fine Arts Department calls it พระลักพระราม, or the Rama Jataka in its Lao recension, and records that it fills the outer wall with the narrative written out beside the pictures in Tham Isan and Tai Noi script. The Khon Kaen University Centre for Arts and Culture says it runs across all four outer walls. The department also records a hell scene on the outside; the interior, which the Centre says is younger, carries the life of the Buddha and parts of Sinsai.
The Khon Kaen University Centre for Arts and Culture names three painters for the outer walls: Chan Thong Ma, Chan Noi and Chan Di. That is unusual — no painter is named for the sim at Wat Chai Si, registered in the same instrument on the same day.
About 1931, on the two sources that give a year. The Tourism Authority of Thailand dates it to B.E. 2474 in the reign of Rama VII; the Khon Kaen University Centre records that the temple received its visungkhamasima in B.E. 2475. The Fine Arts Department's register offers no date, so this page carries the two figures with the sources named rather than as a settled fact.
After the pond. The Khon Kaen University Centre records that the earth to build this dry-land sim was dug from beside it, and that the resulting hollow became the large lotus pond the temple is named for. The village's earlier sim was a water sim standing in the marsh to the south.
Because the ground keeps moving. The Fine Arts Department's condition note records that the temple filled in the earth until it was level with the circumambulation terrace, and that after conservation in B.E. 2542 the terrace was paved with fired clay tile — with the result that the sema around the sim now show only their tips above the surface.
At Wat Ban Yang, Tambon Bua Mat, Amphoe Borabue, Maha Sarakham. The Khon Kaen University Centre records that this sim was modelled on that one, that its roof was changed by village resolution after repeated storm and lightning damage, and that the original form still stands at Wat Ban Yang. Luang Pho Phui copied the lions and the seated figures from there too.
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.