An old riverside temple at Tha Wung whose vihara carries large modelled panels of the ten Jataka and the life of the Buddha — and whose Phra Si Ariya image is hauled through the villages on a wheelless sledge twice a year, a practice recognised as national intangible heritage in 2023.
วัดไลย์ · Wat Lai
| Official name | วัดไลย์ — Wat Lai |
|---|---|
| Where | Khao Samo Khon, Tha Wung, Lopburi |
| 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. 53, p. 905, 2 August B.E. 2479 Registered by the same ประกาศกรมศิลปากร กำหนดจำนวนโบราณสถานสำหรับชาติ that covers the Lopburi city monuments, but one page further on: item 35 on p. 905, reading วัดไล อำเภอท่าวุ้ง ตำบลเขาสมอคอน — the name in its 1936 spelling, without the final ย์ that everything modern uses, and the department's register preserves that older form in its gazette-name field. Like every entry in that announcement it is a bare line with no description, no area and no boundary, and unlike the city monuments no boundary was ever added: the register carries this temple at status 1, registered without monument land fixed, and its land block is empty of area, title deed and ownership entirely. There is an irony in the pairing worth noting — Wat Lai is registered and has no land data at all, while Wat Kawitsararam, which is only named in a gazette list, carries two title deeds and an area. |
| Coordinates | 14.911449, 100.464460 Fine Arts Department heritage GIS register, monument 0000709, 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.
Damrong's essay is a printed travel account, not a record, and the department quotes it as the source of its own dating. Where a state body has since offered an independent argument it is the pierced-slit walls of the vihara, and that argument dates the building rather than the monastery.
Wat Lai stands beside the Bang Kham water in Tambon Khao Samo Khon, in Amphoe Tha Wung, about twenty kilometres north-west of Lopburi town and well away from the monuments most visitors see. Prince Damrong Rajanubhab went there and wrote it up in his travel essay on the railway line, and the Fine Arts Department's register still quotes him for the temple's dating: an old temple of the first rank of the Ayutthaya foundation, restored under King Borommakot, with old modelled panels of the ten Jataka and the first enlightenment that he thought very fine indeed. The register is candid that this is what it has: it opens by saying the temple's history is not certainly known.
It was registered as a national ancient monument in the same 1936 announcement as the Lopburi city temples, one page further on, as item 35 — วัดไล, in the older spelling that the department's register still preserves in its gazette-name field. Unlike the city monuments it never received a land boundary, and its register entry carries no area, no title deed and no ownership at all.
What people come for is the stucco. Large modelled panels on the vihara carry the ten Jataka and the life of the Buddha, with the descent from the Tavatimsa heaven singled out, along with foliate work and figures; the department calls one of them a wall sculpture of national importance. Where exactly they are is recorded three ways in the department's own files: the register's art field puts them on the gable-end walls, its history field says the front and the back of the vihara, and the survey of February B.E. 2532 places them on the outer west and east walls and on the inner wall behind the principal Buddha. The panels are dated to King Borommakot's reign in the register and the architecture to early Ayutthaya in the survey, which is reconcilable as an older building redecorated in the mid-eighteenth century — that is exactly Damrong's reading — but the department never states the reconciliation and prints both bare.
The vihara itself is measured, which is rare in this province: ten bays, 11.30 by 31.20 metres, brick under plaster, divided internally into two rooms by a cross wall, with a tiered roof and porches front and back, doorways at each end and five rectangular slit openings in each bay of the side walls instead of windows. Inside, a large gilded principal Buddha in the attitude of subduing Mara sits in a ruean kaeo arch of the kind at Phra Phuttha Chinnarat in Phitsanulok. The mondop is prang-form, 9.10 metres square, with a redented base and directional niches, and a slender prang above it that the register likens to an ear of maize, ornamented with plain kleep khanun and ban thalaeng, its chamber closed and solid.
The Phra Si Ariya image sits in its own hall, rebuilt in the modern period, and it is the reason the town's calendar turns here. Twice a year — on the fourteenth waxing day of the sixth month and the fourth waning day of the eleventh — the image is set on a wheelless sledge under a canopied throne, two heavy ropes are tied to it in two lines, and the people pull it by hand from the temple across to Wat Thong Khung in Amphoe Ban Mi and back. The Lopburi provincial public relations office records the practice as listed national intangible cultural heritage in B.E. 2566, under social practices, rituals and festivals. It also gives the round trip as more than ten kilometres in one year's announcement and twelve in the next.
Everything in the paragraph above about the fire, the royal restoration and the age of the custom comes from Damrong through the department, and none of it carries a year. Where the record has none, this page says so rather than supplying one.
The vihara: ten bays, 11.30 by 31.20 metres, brick under plaster, with an internal cross wall dividing it in two, a tiered khruea roof with porches front and back under terracotta tile, a doorway at each end, and five rectangular slit openings in every bay of the side walls where windows would be. That last feature is the department's stated ground for calling the building early Ayutthaya.
The stucco relief panels, which are what the temple is for. The subjects are agreed across the department's records: the ten Jataka and the life of the Buddha, with the descent from the Tavatimsa heaven singled out, plus foliate ornament and figures. Where they sit is not agreed — gable-end walls in one field, front and back in another, and the outer west and east walls plus the inner wall behind the principal image in the B.E. 2532 survey.
The principal Buddha in the vihara: large, gilded, in the attitude of subduing Mara, seated in a ruean kaeo arch of the type made for Phra Phuttha Chinnarat at Phitsanulok.
The mondop, prang-form, 9.10 metres square, its base modelled as a redented chedi with a directional niche at the centre of each side, and above it a slender prang the register describes as thin and straight like an ear of maize, with plain kleep khanun and ban thalaeng and a solid closed chamber.
The Phra Si Ariya vihara, rebuilt in the modern period with a four-porched front, holding the image the town processes. An iron Chinese bell hangs here, carrying three lines of Chinese round its body wishing peace to the country and ease to the people; the national inscription catalogue records no era date on it and no record of who found it or when.
The temple museum, which the Tourism Authority lists: Buddha images, blue-and-white ware, and old tools and household objects.
Modern fabric to expect: the vihara and the mondop were restored in B.E. 2545 at 1,500,000 baht, and the vihara, the enclosing wall and the landing pavilion again in B.E. 2555 at 2,949,900 baht, with the ordination hall and the nine-bay vihara following in B.E. 2558.
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 monastery with resident monks and, at festival time, a very large crowd: shoulders and knees covered, shoes off inside the halls. No official dress notice was found. |
| Photography | No official restriction was found. The stucco panels are outdoors on the vihara walls. |
| Getting there | 1 Moo 10, Tambon Khao Samo Khon, Amphoe Tha Wung, Lopburi 15180, beside the Bang Kham water. The Tourism Authority of Thailand gives the temple's telephone as 0 3648 9105 and its own Lopburi office as 0 3677 0096-7, and directs visitors along Highway 311 from Lopburi towards Sing Buri, turning onto Highway 3028 at the traffic lights near kilometre 18 and continuing about six kilometres; buses on the Lopburi–Tha Khlong, Khok Samrong–Ban Mi and Sing Buri–Ban Mi routes pass it. |
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.
It is a hauling procession rather than a carried one. The image of Phra Si Ariya — Maitreya, the Buddha to come — is set on a wheelless sledge under a canopied throne, two large ropes are tied to it in two lines, and the people pull it by hand from Wat Lai to Wat Thong Khung in Amphoe Ban Mi and back, with entertainments through the night. The Lopburi provincial public relations office gives the two occasions as the fourteenth waxing day of the sixth lunar month and the fourth waning day of the eleventh, and records that the practice was listed as national intangible cultural heritage under social practices, rituals and festivals in B.E. 2566. For B.E. 2569 it gives the festival as 29 April to 3 May with the procession on Thursday 30 April at 08.30.
No document establishes it, and the Fine Arts Department says so in its own first sentence: the history of Wat Lai is not certainly known. What the register then offers is Prince Damrong Rajanubhab's judgement from his travel essay on the railway line — an old temple of the first rank of the Ayutthaya foundation, restored under King Borommakot — and that attribution from the 1920s is the whole basis of the dating in circulation. The one argument from the fabric that the department makes independently is that the vihara is early Ayutthaya because its side walls are pierced with slits rather than windows, and that dates the building rather than the monastery.
The ten last Jataka and the life of the Buddha, with the descent from the Tavatimsa heaven singled out in the department's own description, together with foliate ornament and human figures. The Fine Arts Department calls one of them a wall sculpture of national importance. Their placement is recorded three different ways in the department's own files — the gable-end walls in one field, the front and back of the vihara in another, and the outer west and east walls plus the inner wall behind the principal image in its survey of February B.E. 2532 — so a visitor should expect to find them in more than one place on the building.
That is the account the Fine Arts Department carries, from Prince Damrong, and it comes without a single date. The story is that the image had been venerated here since ancient times, that a fire destroyed the vihara in King Chulalongkorn's reign and damaged the figure, that the King had it brought down to Bangkok for restoration and returned to its place, and that the procession has been kept up every year since. No state source read here supplies a year for the fire, for the restoration or for the return, so all of it is told as tradition. The Tourism Authority's page repeats the same account, also undated.
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.
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.