A third-class royal monastery a few minutes from King Narai's palace, formerly called Wat Khwit and renamed under King Mongkut — with an ordination hall lit by pierced yellow Chinese tiles instead of windows, 205 square metres of Fourth Reign wall painting, and an octagonal well the Interior Ministry named a source of sacred water for the coronation.
วัดกวิศรารามราชวรวิหาร · Wat Kawitsararam Ratchaworawihan
| Official name | วัดกวิศรารามราชวรวิหาร — Wat Kawitsararam Ratchaworawihan |
|---|---|
| Where | Tha Hin, Mueang Lopburi, Lopburi |
| Royal temple class | Third class royal temple, Ratchaworawihan (ชั้นตรี ราชวรวิหาร) The grade of third class is given by the Fine Arts Department's own register and by the National Office of Buddhism's Lopburi provincial office. The sub-rank is where the state disagrees with itself, and the disagreement sits inside one record: the department's narrative field writes ชั้นตรี ชนิดวรวิหาร, Worawihan, while the department's own name field for the same monument, the Royal Gazette announcement of 23 June B.E. 2566 and the National Office of Buddhism all write ราชวรวิหาร, Ratchaworawihan. A fourth state page writes วัดกวิศรารามวรวิหาร. This entry follows the form used in the temple's own registered name and in the gazette, and records the department's conflicting narrative here rather than hiding it. No instrument conferring either the royal-monastery status or the grade, and no date for it, was located in this run. |
| Monastic order | Maha Nikaya |
| Ancient monument | Named in a Royal Gazette list of ancient monuments; not registered Royal Gazette vol. 140, special part 149 ง, p. 70, 23 June B.E. 2566 This is a different status from the other five temples in this province file and the difference is legal, not cosmetic. The Fine Arts Department's register carries this monument at status 6, โบราณสถานประกาศรายชื่อในราชกิจจานุเบกษา — an ancient monument named in a gazette list — where the others sit at status 1 or 5, ขึ้นทะเบียน, registered. The announcement was read in full in this run: ประกาศกรมศิลปากร เรื่อง รายชื่อโบราณสถานในเขตจังหวัดลพบุรี, at vol. 140, special part 149 ง, pp. 70–71 of 23 June B.E. 2566, issued on 12 January B.E. 2566 and signed by Phanombut Chantharachot as Director-General, listing this temple as item 7 under Amphoe Mueang Lopburi, Tambon Tha Hin. It is made under section 32 of the State Administration Act B.E. 2534 as amended, recites the section 4 definition of an ancient monument from the Ancient Monuments Act B.E. 2504 as amended, and states its purpose as making the protection of ancient monuments clear. It does not invoke section 7 of that Act, which is the registration power. The practical effect is real: section 10, which requires the Director-General's written permission before any repair, alteration, demolition, excavation or building, applies to any ancient monument and therefore to this temple; the provisions that attach only to a registered monument — the construction ban inside a declared zone, the Director-General's power to order restoration, the duty to notify a transfer of ownership, the higher penalty for damaging it, and the ministerial fee schedule — do not. The land is the monastery's own: title deeds 9597 and 11511, 15 rai 44 square wa, with no monument area recorded, which is consistent with there being no section 7 zone. |
| Coordinates | 14.798213, 100.610537 Fine Arts Department heritage GIS register, monument 0008766, recorded by GPS |
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 department's two long narrative fields for this monument are each exactly one thousand characters and each stops mid-word, in the live register and in the department's own export of it. Anything quoted from them is quoted from a cut record.
Wat Kawitsararam Ratchaworawihan stands on Thanon Phetracha in Tambon Tha Hin, a short walk from Phra Narai Ratchaniwet, and it is a working royal monastery of the third class whose abbot is the ecclesiastical head of the province. Its earlier name, in the Fine Arts Department's own register, was Wat Khwit. Lopburi municipality, quoting the chronicle of royal monasteries, says King Narai built it, King Mongkut re-established it and gave it the present name, and King Chulalongkorn restored it further; the National Office of Buddhism gives the Fourth Reign name in a different spelling. No instrument recording the renaming was found in this run.
The temple's place in the state record is unusual and worth setting out plainly, because it is the kind of distinction that gets flattened everywhere else. The Fine Arts Department carries this monument at a status it calls an ancient monument named in the Royal Gazette, not at the status it calls registered. The announcement is recent — 23 June B.E. 2566, listing eleven monuments across Lopburi province, this temple seventh among the nine in the city district. It is made under the general power of a department head in the State Administration Act, recites the statutory definition of an ancient monument, and says its purpose is to make protection clear. It does not use the registration power in section 7 of the Ancient Monuments Act. So the temple is protected as an ancient monument — nothing may be repaired, altered, demolished, excavated or built here without the Director-General's written permission — but the provisions that attach only to registration do not reach it, and it is absent from the ministerial fee schedule for that reason.
There is an oddity in that sequence worth noticing. The department had already spent 5,200,000 baht restoring the Buddhist precinct here in B.E. 2549–2550 and 2,693,000 baht conserving the murals and sculpture in B.E. 2557–2558, decades before the temple was named on any list.
The ordination hall is the building to look at. The department describes it as small and of the maha ut type — one way in, no windows — with light and air coming instead through pierced openings, and the low enclosing wall around it is not solid masonry but panels of yellow pierced tile made in China, set in to keep the whole thing light and open to the eye. The hall stands on a stepped plinth, its walls articulated with engaged columns whose capitals carry the long-petalled moulding called bua waeng, and its roof is tiled in glazed yellow interlocking tiles with raised porches front and back, gilt-and-glass finials along the ridge.
Inside are 205.2896 square metres of wall painting — the figure is the department's own, measured in June B.E. 2533 — dated to the reign of King Mongkut. They are not narrative scenes. The department's survey describes continuous ornamental design running over all four walls, and the 1996 re-inspection names the motif as a rice-bud spray executed in a Western manner.
In the compound stands an octagonal brick-lined well about 2.35 metres across and some five metres deep. In B.E. 2562 the Ministry of the Interior designated it one of the country's sacred water sources for the coronation, and the provincial record of the B.E. 2567 rite is exact: the water was drawn on 4 July at 14.49, consecrated on 7 July at 17.09 and the circumambulation held on 8 July at noon, all in this ordination hall. The provincial public relations office adds that the well's water was used in the old oath-of-allegiance ceremony of the Lopburi officials, and hedges that with the words from what is told.
The ordination hall, small and of the maha ut type — a single entrance and no windows, with pierced openings like a grille admitting light and air. Brick walls and columns under plaster, a hall-form timber roof clad in glazed yellow interlocking tiles, raised porches on the roof front and back, and gilt-and-glass cho fa, bai raka and hang hong along the ridge. It faces east on a stepped plinth.
The low wall around it, which is the detail people miss: not solid masonry but a frame with panels of yellow pierced tile made in China set into it, so that the enclosure reads as light and open. Along the same line the bases of the boundary stones are set in at intervals in the lion-plinth form.
The engaged columns on the ordination hall walls, whose capitals carry the long-petalled lotus moulding the department names as bua waeng.
The wall paintings inside: 205.2896 square metres measured by the Fine Arts Department in June B.E. 2533 and dated to the Fourth Reign, running as continuous ornament across all four walls rather than as scenes, with the motif named in the 1996 re-inspection as a rice-bud spray in a Western manner.
The principal chedi, and the pair of redented yo mum mai sip song chedi standing in front of the ordination hall, both restored in the B.E. 2549–2550 campaign along with the paving inside the low wall.
The scripture repository, restored in the same campaign.
The octagonal well, brick-lined, about 2.35 metres across and some five metres deep, which the Ministry of the Interior designated a sacred water source for the coronation rite of B.E. 2562. The provincial record of the B.E. 2567 observance gives the drawing of the water on 4 July at 14.49, the consecration on 7 July at 17.09 and the circumambulation on 8 July at noon, all held in the ordination hall here.
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 royal monastery: shoulders and knees covered, shoes off before entering the ordination hall. No official dress notice was found. |
| Photography | No official restriction was found. The ordination hall is in use and holds the murals; treat it accordingly. |
| Getting there | Thanon Phetracha, Tambon Tha Hin, Amphoe Mueang Lopburi 15000, a few minutes from Phra Narai Ratchaniwet. No telephone number is published for the temple by the Fine Arts Department or the National Office of Buddhism; the department's fourth regional office at Lopburi is on 0 3641 2510. |
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 in the strict sense, and the Fine Arts Department's own register makes the distinction. It carries this temple at the status it calls an ancient monument named in the Royal Gazette, which is a different code from the registered status held by the other Lopburi monuments in this guide. The announcement of 23 June B.E. 2566 that names it is made under the general power of a department head in the State Administration Act and recites the statutory definition of an ancient monument; it does not use the registration power in section 7 of the Ancient Monuments Act B.E. 2504. The temple is protected as an ancient monument, so nothing may be repaired, altered, demolished, excavated or built here without the Director-General's written permission, but the provisions that attach only to registration do not reach it.
Because of that same status. The current fee instrument is the ministerial regulation on entry fees for registered ancient monuments and national museums, second issue, B.E. 2568, and its title confines it to monuments that have been registered. Its Lopburi schedule names four sites — Ban Wichayen, Prang Sam Yot, Phra Thinang Krai Son Siharat and Wat Phra Si Rattana Mahathat — and this temple is not among them, which is consistent with its being named in a gazette list rather than registered. It is also a living royal monastery with a resident sangha rather than a state-managed ruin, which is the more everyday reason.
Ornament rather than story, and the Fine Arts Department is precise about it. Its mural conservation section surveyed them on 8 June B.E. 2533, dated them to the reign of King Mongkut, and recorded that they are not narrative scenes but continuous decorative design running across all four walls; the measured extent is 205.2896 square metres. A re-inspection on 10 May B.E. 2539 named the motif as a rice-bud spray executed in a Western manner. They were conserved again, together with the fixed sculpture in the hall, between December B.E. 2557 and June B.E. 2558 at a cost of 2,693,000 baht.
It is one of Thailand's designated sacred water sources. The octagonal brick-lined well, about 2.35 metres across and some five metres deep, was designated by the Ministry of the Interior as a source of sacred water for the coronation rite of B.E. 2562, and the Lopburi provincial record of the B.E. 2567 observance is exact about the ceremony: the water was drawn on 4 July at 14.49, consecrated on 7 July at 17.09 and the circumambulation held on 8 July at noon, all in the ordination hall of this temple. The provincial office adds that the water was used in the old oath-of-allegiance ceremony for Lopburi officials, and marks that as something told rather than recorded.
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 Lopburi’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.
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