The second Khmer hospital chapel in this province, measured down to its courses, with a Sanskrit invitation carved on a door jamb and a jar of silver-clad Buddhas from a much later century.
กู่บ้านเขวา · Ku Ban Khwao
| Official name | กู่บ้านเขวา — Ku Ban Khwao |
|---|---|
| Where | Khwao, Mueang Maha Sarakham, Maha Sarakham |
| 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, p. 3695, 8 March B.E. 2478 for the listing, as Khu Maha That of Mueang Yang Thit Nak, which the local people call Ku, at Amphoe Talat, Tambon Khwao; land boundary of about 4 rai 2 ngan 23 square wa at vol. 118, special part 29 ง, p. 11, 26 March B.E. 2544 Registered with a determined land boundary under section 7 of the Ancient Monuments Act B.E. 2504. Both instruments were read at source and the department's own B.E. 2565 survey report transcribes both. The B.E. 2544 one was signed by the Director-General, Group Captain Awut Ngernchuklin; the day of signature was not legible with confidence in the scan, so only the publication date is given. The survey report writes the 1936 district as Amphoe Talat and marks it as the name at that time, which is the department itself confirming the rename to Amphoe Mueang Maha Sarakham. The register records the monument land as Crown property. |
| Coordinates | 16.158217, 103.417431 Fine Arts Department national monument register, monument id 0002892, recorded as a GPS reading, and consistent with the UTM grid reference 48Q 330785E 1787088N printed in the department's B.E. 2565 survey report. Checked against the address both sources state, Ban Khwao, Moo 2, Tambon Khwao, Amphoe Mueang Maha Sarakham. |
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 register's two inscription date ranges do not quite agree with each other, and both are letterform datings rather than dated texts. Both are printed above as the register gives them rather than averaged into one range.
Ku Ban Khwao sits in Tambon Khwao, a short drive east of the provincial town, and it is the same kind of building as Ku Santarat: a Mahayana Buddhist chapel attached to one of Jayavarman VII's hospitals. All laterite, the department's survey notes, except where it mattered — the door frames are red sandstone. The survey is unusually exact about the state of it. The central tower's base is seven metres by nine and a half, in four laterite courses: a plinth of single blocks, now sagging and tilted in the middle, and above it three more courses laid up as a lotus base with no lotus moulding actually carved. Each side leaves a gap in the middle for a stair, one step per side, cut into half a block. The base runs on into the front porch chamber, three metres wide and four and a half long, where only one or two courses of laterite survive.
In that wreckage is the thing worth coming for. A sandstone jamb was found at the south side of the central tower, probably shifted there from the front porch, and it carries an inscription in Khom script and the Sanskrit language. The survey names the epigrapher who read it — Ajarn Cha-em Kaewklai — and gives the translation: come and worship the god who dwells in the ashram. The GIS register describes a second short inscription, in Khom script and the Khmer language, on a door-frame fragment found in the B.E. 2540 clearance, whose text invites people to pay homage to the deity enshrined in the sanctuary. The register dates one of them to roughly the sixteenth to seventeenth Buddhist century by letterform and the other to roughly the seventeenth to eighteenth, and the two ranges do not line up. This page prints the disagreement rather than tidying it.
Then there is a find from an entirely different age. Inside a jar at the site were several dozen Buddha images clad in silver, which the register attributes to the Lan Chang cultural period — a thousand years after the Khmer chapel was raised. That is the ordinary history of a place like this: a state building goes up, the state that built it goes away, and the structure keeps being used by people who had nothing to do with it. Nothing in the record explains how or when the jar was deposited.
The condition is worth knowing before you drive out. The register says that after consolidation most of the components are substantially incomplete because a great deal of material has broken and been lost, and the survey bears that out element by element: the library is down to two courses, the gateway to three as a base with only its front porch chamber standing seven courses high, and the enclosure wall, twenty-five metres by thirty-seven, is sagging or collapsed on nearly every side — three courses left on the east, seven or eight elsewhere, and on the south-west it survives all the way up to the ridge coping. So what you are reading is a plan on the ground with one corner that still shows you how high the wall once stood. The register entry was last updated by Fine Arts Department Office 10 in Nakhon Ratchasima on 21 July B.E. 2569.
The central tower, facing east: a laterite base seven metres by nine and a half in four courses, the cella a five-metre square, and above it a superstructure of four receding storeys each imitating the cella below. The door frames are red sandstone.
A red sandstone door jamb at the tower's south side carrying a two-line Khom-script Sanskrit inscription, read as an invitation to worship the god who dwells in the ashram.
The library at the tower's south-east corner, facing west: a laterite rectangle six metres by seven and a half, now down to two courses — the plinth and the wall stone.
The gateway on the east, cruciform, ten metres by eleven, with a central hall and porch chambers projecting on three sides. Only the front porch chamber still stands, seven courses high, with one window opening per side.
The enclosure wall, twenty-five metres by thirty-seven, around both tower and library. Three courses survive on the east, seven or eight on the other sides, and at the south-west corner it stands up to the ridge coping.
A condition the register states plainly: after consolidation most of the components are incomplete, with much of the original material broken or gone.
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 deserted monument in open country. No dress rule is published, but it is treated locally as a sacred place. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | At Ban Khwao, Moo 2, Tambon Khwao, Amphoe Mueang Maha Sarakham, east of the provincial town. The register records the monument land as Crown property. |
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.
Very little in kind and a good deal in condition. Both are chapels of Jayavarman VII's hospital network and both follow the same plan, but Ku Santarat has been restored and still stands about ten metres tall, while Ku Ban Khwao is a measured plan on the ground with one wall corner surviving to its coping.
Both are short invitations. The Sanskrit one on the door jamb was read by Ajarn Cha-em Kaewklai as an invitation to worship the god who dwells in the ashram; the register reads the Khmer-language text as inviting people to pay homage to the deity enshrined in the sanctuary.
That is the name the 1936 Royal Gazette listing uses — Khu Maha That of Mueang Yang Thit Nak, which the instrument says the local people called simply Ku. The modern register name, Ku Ban Khwao, is the village name.
Not in the sense of a shrine you enter. Three of the four sides are false doors, and after consolidation the register describes most components as incomplete, with much material broken or lost.
No official source publishes hours or a fee for this monument, so this page states none rather than copying a time from a travel site. It is an open rural site with no ticket office 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 Maha Sarakham’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.