A Khmer hospital chapel of Jayavarman VII, laterite and almost complete in plan, whose restoration turned up three four-armed Bodhisattvas in white sandstone.
กู่สันตรัตน์ · Ku Santarat
| Official name | กู่สันตรัตน์ — Ku Santarat |
|---|---|
| Where | Ku Santarat, Na Dun, 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; land boundary of about 5 rai 3 ngan 93 square wa at vol. 99 (special issue), p. 32, part 155, 21 October B.E. 2525 Registered with a determined land boundary, the stronger protection, made 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 with the same figures. The 1982 instrument is where the address history is recorded: Tambon Na Dun in Amphoe Wapi Pathum in 1936, Tambon Nong Phai in Amphoe Na Dun by 1982, Tambon Ku Santarat today. One detail worth stating plainly, because it is the department's own slip and it has propagated: the 1982 instrument's recital calls the monument wat Ku Santarat, while both the 1936 page it is reciting and the department's 2565 survey give the name with no wat in it at all. This is a Khmer hospital chapel, not a Buddhist monastery. |
| Coordinates | 15.706639, 103.268223 Fine Arts Department national monument register, monument id 0002955, and consistent with the UTM grid reference 48P 314422E 1737246N printed in the department's B.E. 2565 survey report for the same monument. Checked against the address both sources state, Ban Ku Non Mueang, Tambon Ku Santarat, Amphoe Na Dun. |
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 eighteenth-Buddhist-century attribution is art-historical and epigraphic, resting on the standard hospital-chapel plan and on the Ta Prohm text, not on any inscription found at this site naming a year. The two state sources also give Jayavarman VII's reign differently — B.E. 1724 to 1761 in the survey report, B.E. 1700 to 1750 on the Tourism Authority page — and neither is adopted here as the date of the building.
Ku Santarat is not a temple, and calling it one is the first mistake most English sources make. It is the religious building that stood beside an arogayasala, a hospital, and the Fine Arts Department files it that way. The reason anyone can say so is a text carved a thousand kilometres away: the Ta Prohm inscription in Cambodia records Jayavarman VII ordering 102 hospitals built across his kingdom, each with a chapel to a fixed plan. Several of those chapels survive on Thai soil and they repeat the same five elements — a central tower, a library, a gateway through an enclosure wall, and one pond outside the north-east corner. Ku Santarat has all five, and unlike most of them it has been measured. The department's own survey report gives the central tower as seven metres by eight and about ten metres tall, the library as five by seven and a half and about three metres tall, the gateway as eight by ten and about five metres tall, and the pond as fifteen by ten and roughly two metres deep.
What the restorations pulled out of it is better than the architecture. During the B.E. 2545 work a high-relief panel in white sandstone came out of the library: Avalokiteshvara, seated against a back slab with his legs folded, four-armed — upper right hand holding a rosary, lower right making the boon-granting gesture, upper left a conch, lower left a water pot or a lotus, with a tenon below for fixing. Beside it were white sandstone figures of the Bodhisattva Vajrapani riding a garuda and of Yama riding a buffalo. Inside the gateway chamber the same campaign found a free-standing four-armed Avalokiteshvara on a pedestal — rosary, lotus, scripture, water pot — plus a naga-sheltered Buddha in red sandstone and another white sandstone pedestal. That is a Mahayana programme, which is what a Jayavarman VII hospital chapel should have, and it is the clearest confirmation of the attribution that this site has produced.
The archaeology has been worked over five times and the record is specific about who did what. Fine Arts Unit 7 cleared the site first, and here the two state sources disagree by a year: the GIS register says B.E. 2515 and the B.E. 2565 survey report says B.E. 2514. Then in B.E. 2537 the Faculty of Archaeology at Silpakorn University excavated inside and outside the enclosure wall under a joint France-Thailand research project, which the survey dates B.E. 2532 to 2534. In B.E. 2542 the Office of Archaeology and National Museums 7 in Khon Kaen contracted the work of excavating and clearing in order to design a restoration. In B.E. 2545 Office 9 Khon Kaen restored the central tower, the laterite court, the gateway, the library and the enclosure wall. In B.E. 2546 a second contractor reset fallen stone on all four, consolidated the pond and landscaped the site.
So this is not a ruin you have to imagine your way into. It is a consolidated, legible, measured monument, and the register nonetheless describes it as deserted and locally venerated, which is the usual and not contradictory condition of an abandoned Khmer chapel in rural Isan. There is a bathing ceremony each April. On 31 January B.E. 2563 the Deputy Director-General of the Fine Arts Department presided over a propitiation ceremony here and opened a small local museum on the site, during that year's observance for Phra That Na Dun a few kilometres away — which is how most visitors arrive.
The central tower: laterite, on a redented square plan facing east, seven metres by eight and about ten metres tall, with a projecting porch under a barrel-vaulted roof. The north and south walls were built with window openings; the other three sides are solid, carrying false doors.
The library, laterite, five metres by seven and a half and about three metres tall, facing west and set parallel to the southern enclosure wall. This is where the seated four-armed Avalokiteshvara relief was found in B.E. 2545.
The gateway, laterite, cruciform, eight metres by ten and about five metres tall, in the middle of the eastern wall, with porches north, west and south and steps on the east and west. A standing four-armed Avalokiteshvara and a red sandstone naga-sheltered Buddha came out of its chamber.
The enclosure wall, laterite, running from the eastern gateway around both tower and library; the top course still carries the cut seatings where a coping was meant to sit.
The pond outside the wall at the north-east corner: fifteen metres by ten, about two metres deep, its sides lined with laterite in receding steps to the bottom.
Plain sandstone lintels and door-frame pilasters, carved with nothing, which the Tourism Authority page points to as the signature of the place.
A small local museum on the site, opened by the Fine Arts Department on 31 January B.E. 2563.
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 rather than a working monastery, but it is a place of local veneration and the April bathing ceremony is a religious occasion. Dress as you would at a wat. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | In Tambon Ku Santarat, Amphoe Na Dun, about four and a half kilometres from Phra That Na Dun, which is the landmark most people navigate by. The Tourism Authority lists a car park and gives a contact number of +66 43 227714. |
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.
No. It is the religious building of a Khmer arogayasala, a hospital of Jayavarman VII's reign, and both the Fine Arts Department register and its B.E. 2565 survey report file it that way. The B.E. 2525 Royal Gazette instrument does call it wat Ku Santarat, but the 1936 page it recites does not, and no monastic community is recorded here.
Nobody official publishes either figure. The Tourism Authority page for Ku Santarat renders with its opening-hours block empty, and the Fine Arts Department publishes no hours or fee for this monument, so this page gives none.
The Fine Arts Department attributes it to about the eighteenth Buddhist century, in the reign of Jayavarman VII. That is an attribution from the building's standard hospital-chapel plan, from its Mahayana sculpture and from the Ta Prohm inscription, not a date carved on the site.
From the B.E. 2545 restoration: a seated four-armed Avalokiteshvara relief in white sandstone, a standing four-armed Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva Vajrapani riding a garuda, Yama riding a buffalo, and a naga-sheltered Buddha in red sandstone. Earlier clearance also recovered a Vajradhara.
Because the plan required one. Every arogayasala chapel of this group has a single pond outside the enclosure at the north-east corner, and the register names the pond as one of the five registered elements here. This one is fifteen metres by ten and about two metres deep.
Yes. The Fine Arts Department opened a local museum on the site on 31 January B.E. 2563, at a ceremony presided over by its Deputy Director-General. No opening hours for it are published.
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.