The royal monastery on the north bank at Lampang town: a great chedi over a hair relic, a Burmese-style mondop, a gold-pattern wihan of Chiang Saen workmanship, and the place the Emerald Buddha is recorded as having stood for thirty-two years before it moved on.
วัดพระแก้วดอนเต้าสุชาดาราม · Wat Phra Kaeo Don Tao Suchadaram
| Official name | วัดพระแก้วดอนเต้าสุชาดาราม — Wat Phra Kaeo Don Tao Suchadaram |
|---|---|
| Where | Wiang Nuea, Mueang Lampang, Lampang |
| 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 citation is the National Office of Buddhism's Lampang provincial office's, which states that the Fine Arts Department announced the registration of Wat Phra Kaeo Don Tao as an ancient monument on 8 March B.E. 2478 in ราชกิจจานุเบกษา เล่มที่ 52 ตอนที่ 75. That is the same national list and the same day as Wat Phra That Lampang Luang, for which the anthropology centre gives the page as 3698. Neither document was opened in this run: the Royal Gazette's own site refused every request, as it has in every previous run of this guide. Two state sources therefore place two Lampang monuments in the same 2478 announcement, which is mutual corroboration of the announcement but not a reading of it. |
Wiang Nuea, Mueang Lampang, Lampang
The exact location has not been confirmed yet.
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.
No source reachable in this run dates the foundation of either of the two temples that were merged in B.E. 2527. The tourism authority's claim that the Wihan Phra Chao Thong Thip is over a thousand years old and was built by Queen Chamathewi is offered without a register, an inscription or an excavation behind it, and is carried here as the tradition it is rather than as a construction date.
Wat Phra Kaeo Don Tao Suchadaram stands on Thanon Phra Kaeo in Wiang Nuea, on the old north-bank side of Lampang town, and it is the province's second great monastery after the hilltop compound at Ko Kha. It is a royal monastery — the tourism authority and the National Office of Buddhism's provincial office both write พระอารามหลวง after its name — though neither prints the grade, so this guide does not give one.
Its claim on the national story is a specific and datable one. The Tourism Authority of Thailand records that the Phra Phuttha Maha Mani Rattana Patimakon, the image known in English as the Emerald Buddha and now the palladium of the kingdom in Bangkok, stood at this temple for thirty-two years from B.E. 1979. That is one stop on a long itinerary that also took the image to Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai, Luang Prabang and Vientiane before it reached the capital. A visitor who comes expecting to see it will not: it is in Bangkok, and the image that carries this temple's own name, the Phra Kaeo Don Tao, is at Wat Phra That Lampang Luang.
The name itself comes from the Suchada story, and the state sources tell it as a story. A woman found a piece of emerald in a melon and gave it to the temple's senior monk; the stone was carved into an image; an accusation was laid before the ruler of the city about the monk and the woman; she was executed and he fled with the image to Lampang Luang. Where her house had stood, a temple called Wat Suchadaram was raised. What makes this more than a folk tale is that it left an administrative trace: the two temples existed separately into the twentieth century, and the National Office of Buddhism's provincial office records that the Ministry of Education, through the Department of Religious Affairs, announced their amalgamation into one temple on 6 August B.E. 2527. The double name a visitor sees on the gate is the record of that merger.
The compound was registered as a national ancient monument by the Fine Arts Department on 8 March B.E. 2478, in the same Royal Gazette volume and on the same day as Wat Phra That Lampang Luang — the two principal monuments of the province entering the national register together. What stands inside is unusually mixed: a Lanna chedi, a mondop in Burmese manner from the years when Burmese teak wealth was rebuilding this town, and a wihan whose gold-line painting the tourism authority attributes to Chiang Saen craftsmen. Lampang's architecture is a record of who had money here and when, and this one compound carries three answers.
Phra Borommathat Don Tao: the large chedi that the tourism authority records as containing a hair relic of the Buddha, and the reason the compound exists on this spot.
The Wihan Phra Chao Thong Thip, holding an image in Chiang Saen manner. The tourism authority attributes the building to Queen Chamathewi and gives it an age of more than a thousand years; that is the tradition and no register or excavation reachable in this run supports it as a date.
The mondop, also called the phaya that, in Burmese style — the architectural signature of the Burmese timber merchants whose money rebuilt much of Lampang in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the same current that produced Wat Si Chum across town.
The Wihan Lai Kham Suchadaram: gold-pattern mural work the tourism authority attributes to Chiang Saen craftsmen, around a Chiang Saen Buddha image. This is the building that came in with the Wat Suchadaram side of the merger.
The Lanna museum in the compound, holding sattaphan candle stands, ceramics and Buddha images, per the tourism authority's account.
A wihan of the reclining Buddha, and the wihan luang with a large image in the attitude of subduing Mara.
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 | Open daily 08.00–17.00, per the Tourism Authority of Thailand's attraction page read through a rendering browser. |
|---|---|
| Admission | Not established from an official source. |
| Dress | Not established from an official source. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | 106 Thanon Phra Kaeo, Tambon Wiang Nuea, Mueang Lampang 52000, on the north bank of the Wang river a short distance from the town centre. The tourism authority lists parking on site. |
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.
Not now. The Tourism Authority of Thailand records that the image stood here for thirty-two years from B.E. 1979 before continuing the journey that ended at Wat Phra Kaew in Bangkok, where it is today. The confusion is compounded by a second image with a similar name: the Phra Kaeo Don Tao, the jade Buddha that the temple's own legend concerns, is at Wat Phra That Lampang Luang in Ko Kha district and has been for centuries. Neither image is in this compound.
Because it is two temples. The National Office of Buddhism's Lampang provincial office records that on 6 August B.E. 2527 the Ministry of Education, through the Department of Religious Affairs, announced the amalgamation of Wat Phra Kaeo Don Tao and Wat Suchadaram into a single temple. Wat Suchadaram is said in the legend to have been raised on the site of the house of Suchada, the woman who found the emerald in the melon, and the merged compound carries both names on its gate and in the register.
It is a royal monastery, and this guide cannot tell you which grade. Both the Tourism Authority of Thailand and the National Office of Buddhism's Lampang provincial office write พระอารามหลวง after the name and neither states a class or a sub-rank, and no state register that would settle it was reachable in this run. Since an invented grade is worse than an omitted one, the field is left empty here rather than filled from a temple directory that no official body maintains.
Yes. The National Office of Buddhism's Lampang provincial office states that the Fine Arts Department announced the registration on 8 March B.E. 2478 in the Royal Gazette, volume 52, part 75. That is the same day and the same volume as the registration of Wat Phra That Lampang Luang, so the two principal monuments of the province entered the national list together. The gazette itself was not opened in this run; its own website refused every request.
The tourism authority's page, read through a rendering browser, gives 08.00 to 17.00 every day and lists parking on site. It publishes no admission figure, and no other official source consulted in this run states one, so this guide prints none rather than repeating a number from a travel site. That silence is not a statement that entry is free — it is a statement that no state source says what entry costs.
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 Lampang’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.