An Isan ordination hall painted inside and out by a named village artist, in indigo and green, with a different story on each outside wall and every scene captioned in Thai Noi.
สิมวัดโพธาราม บ้านดงบัง · Sim Wat Photharam
| Official name | สิมวัดโพธาราม บ้านดงบัง — Sim Wat Photharam |
|---|---|
| Where | Dong Bang, 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. 119, special part 129 ง, p. 1, 26 December B.E. 2545, item 2 — the ancient monument of Wat Photharam, Ban Dong Bang, Moo 5, Tambon Dong Bang, Amphoe Na Dun, with a monument area of about 6 rai 1 ngan 76 square wa Registered with a determined land boundary under section 7 of the Ancient Monuments Act B.E. 2504, in a single instrument that also registered Wat Ban Ku in Amphoe Yang Sisurat and monuments in Loei, Sakon Nakhon and Nong Bua Lamphu. It was read at source and signed on 30 September B.E. 2545 by the Director-General, Group Captain Awut Ngernchuklin. One spelling point: the Gazette, the department's B.E. 2565 survey report and the register's own custodian field all write the name Wat Photharam, while the register's monument name field writes Wat Pho Tharam with an extra character. The majority of the state record uses the former. |
| Coordinates | 15.660474, 103.249919 Fine Arts Department national monument register, monument id 0002957, and consistent with the UTM grid reference 48P 312418E 1732153N printed in the department's B.E. 2565 survey report. Checked against the address the register, the survey report and the B.E. 2545 Royal Gazette instrument all state, Ban Dong Bang, Moo 5, Tambon Dong Bang, 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 survey report, which is otherwise the most thorough state document on this province, gives this monument no dating section at all. So the hall and its murals are placed only relative to the preaching hall beside them and to the B.E. 2485 name change, and that is as far as the record goes.
This is the other kind of monument in Maha Sarakham, and the contrast with the laterite at Na Dun five kilometres away is the point. A sim is an Isan ordination hall and this one is the closed type: brick with a vernacular lime render, the raised base standing on a circumambulation platform, four point seven five metres wide and seven point three five long. A gable roof, with posts carrying a flat pent roof all the way round in two receding tiers. Originally it was shingled in wood. The ridge carries the ngo and the cho fa, and the lam yong and hang hong finials are naga figures in local hands. The gable face is plain. Two small rectangular windows a side, their plain wooden shutters carved on the frame and the central mullion with prachamyam motifs and glass-inlaid roundels, most now fallen out. No door arch. A brick stair with a naga balustrade. Inside, a cement-screed floor and no ceiling, so you look straight up into the roof structure. The eaves were once edged all round with pierced zinc sheet painted green alternating with yellow.
What people come for is the painting, and the department's survey report names the painter and describes how he worked. Nai Sing, a villager of Ban Khlong Chok in Amphoe Phayakkhaphum Phisai, painted both the outer and the inner walls — the same man who painted the murals at Wat Pa Lelai nearby. He laid no ground: he drew straight onto the wall and used its own colour as the background, mixing powder pigment with glue for the figures. He blocked in figures, costumes, palaces, walls, houses, rocks, trees and animals, then flooded in colour and outlined everything, varying the line weight between principal and secondary subjects. The palette is cool — mostly indigo blue, green, brown, black and white — and the survey's own verdict is that overall it reads soft rather than garish.
The subjects are worth knowing before you go in, because the arrangement is navigable. Inside: the Vessantara Jataka, the life of the Buddha, Phra Palelai, and Ramasura and Mekhala. The sequence starts on the wall opposite the principal Buddha image and runs clockwise until it closes with the first scene, on the wall left of the door. Outside the walls do not run on from one another, with one exception: on the front wall, left of the door is Phra Malai saving the beings of hell and ascending to Tavatimsa, and right of the door is the Vessantara Jataka. The other three walls each carry a story of their own — south is Sinsai, the Lao epic also called Sang Sinchai; west is the life of the Buddha; north is the Vessantara Jataka again. Every scene is captioned in Thai Noi, the old Lao-derived script of the region. That is not decoration. It means the paintings were made to be read aloud to people who read Thai Noi, in a building put up by and for a Lao-speaking community on the Khorat plateau.
The preaching hall beside it is worth going into as well, and the survey is blunter than the register about where its design came from: Vietnamese artistic influence. It is a large open brick-and-stucco hall on a raised floor, roofed now with zinc, and in place of the usual cho fa, bai raka and hang hong it carries painted stucco naga, lions and garuda. The gable is finished with carved wooden foliage and flowers painted yellow and red, which the survey calls finely done. The walls are pierced all round with large arched openings instead of windows. Both buildings have been restored, which the register states without giving a date — and the register records no period for this monument at all, which is the honest reason this page gives no year for the sim.
The sim: a closed Isan ordination hall, four point seven five metres by seven point three five, brick with a vernacular lime render, on a raised base standing on a circumambulation platform, under a gable roof with a two-tier pent roof on posts all round.
Murals on both the outside and the inside walls by Nai Sing of Ban Khlong Chok, painted straight onto the wall with no ground layer, in a cool palette of indigo blue, green, brown, black and white.
Inside: the Vessantara Jataka, the life of the Buddha, Phra Palelai, and Ramasura and Mekhala — read clockwise from the wall opposite the principal image.
Outside, a different story on each wall: Phra Malai left of the front door and the Vessantara Jataka right of it, Sinsai on the south wall, the life of the Buddha on the west, the Vessantara Jataka again on the north.
Captions in Thai Noi script running beside the painted scenes, which is how the stories were meant to be read in this community.
Two small windows a side with carved frames and glass-inlaid roundels, most of the glass now gone, and a brick stair with a naga balustrade; inside, no ceiling, so the roof structure is open to view.
The preaching hall: a large open brick-and-stucco hall on a raised floor with Vietnamese design influence, painted stucco naga, lions and garuda in place of the usual roof finials, a carved and painted timber gable, and wide arched openings instead of windows.
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. Cover shoulders and knees, take shoes off before entering the hall, and ask before going inside, since it is in use for monastic ritual. |
| Photography | Mural painting is light-sensitive and these are on both the inner and the outer walls. No photography rule is published for this monument; ask at the wat before using a flash inside. |
| Getting there | At Ban Dong Bang, Moo 5, Tambon Dong Bang, Amphoe Na Dun. The provincial government's own cultural route puts it about five and a third kilometres from Phra That Na Dun, on the same loop as the mural hall at Wat Pa Lelai, which the same artist painted. |
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 the Isan word for an ubosot, the ordination hall of a monastery. This one is the closed type, brick with a vernacular lime render on a raised base, as against the open-sided sim also found in the region.
Nai Sing, a villager of Ban Khlong Chok in Amphoe Phayakkhaphum Phisai, named in the Fine Arts Department's survey report. He also painted the murals at Wat Pa Lelai nearby, and he worked straight onto the wall with no ground layer.
Outside: Phra Malai left of the front door, the Vessantara Jataka right of it, Sinsai on the south wall, the life of the Buddha on the west, the Vessantara Jataka again on the north. Inside, four subjects run clockwise from the wall opposite the principal image.
They are in Thai Noi, the old Lao-derived script of the region, because that is what the community that built and used this hall read. It is one of the clearest signs that Isan temple art has its own line of descent.
No state source reached gives a year for it, and neither the register nor the department's survey report records any period for this monument, so this page gives none. The dated facts nearby are the B.E. 2485 name change and the preaching hall of B.E. 2465 to 2472.
It is a working monastery and the hall is in use, so ask first. No opening hours or fee are published by any official source.
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.