One of the two tutelary standing Buddhas of Kanthara Wichai, in red sandstone, beside a Vietnamese-built ordination hall whose door panels carry Rahu swallowing a moon with a rabbit in it.
วัดสุวรรณาวาส · Wat Suwannawat
| Official name | วัดสุวรรณาวาส — Wat Suwannawat |
|---|---|
| Where | Khok Phra, Kanthara Wichai, Maha Sarakham |
| Royal temple class | Not established from an official register. |
| Monastic order | Maha Nikaya |
| Ancient monument | Registered national ancient monument Royal Gazette vol. 52, p. 3695, 8 March B.E. 2478 for the listing of the Suwannawat Buddha image and a stone inscription at Amphoe Khok Phra, Tambon Khok Phra; registration with a land boundary of about 1 rai 2 ngan 34 square wa at vol. 122, p. 5, special part 98 ง, 22 September B.E. 2548, item 2 Registered with a determined land boundary under section 7 of the Ancient Monuments Act B.E. 2504. Both instruments were read at source; the B.E. 2548 one carries a text layer and states the area as about 1 rai 2 ngan 34 square wa, matching both the register and the department's own B.E. 2565 survey report. It was signed on 4 July B.E. 2548 by the Director-General, Arak Sanghitkul. Note what the 1936 instrument actually protected: the Buddha image and a stone inscription, not the monastery. The 1936 district, Amphoe Khok Phra, is marked as the name at that time in the survey report, and Khok Phra survives today only as the subdistrict name inside Amphoe Kanthara Wichai. |
| Coordinates | 16.323127, 103.298691 Fine Arts Department national monument register, monument id 0002911, recorded as a GPS reading, consistent with the UTM grid reference 48Q 318257E 1805432N in the department's B.E. 2565 survey report and within about ninety metres of the coordinate Mahasarakham University's Isan information centre publishes. Checked against Tambon Khok Phra, Amphoe Kanthara Wichai. |
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 monastery, the hall and the image are three different ages and the record keeps them apart: the image is Dvaravati, the inscription beside it is in Thai Noi script, and the hall standing west of the image dates from B.E. 2459. Mahasarakham University's Isan information centre states outright that no clear evidence of the monastery's own founding has survived, so no year is given for the wat here.
There are two famous standing Buddha images in Amphoe Kanthara Wichai and local telling treats them as a pair. The one here is Phra Phuttha Ming Mueang, also called Phra Phuttha Suwannawat or Phra Phuttha Rup Suwanmali; the other, Phra Phuttha Rup Yuen Mongkhon, is four kilometres south at Wat Phuttha Mongkhon. The department's survey report describes this one precisely: a standing Buddha of Dvaravati culture, right hand in vitarka mudra — the gesture of teaching — left hand held along the body, carved from red sandstone, and found within the ancient walled town of Kanthara Wichai, like its twin. It also records something the tourism pages leave out: the head, the chest and the arms were added anew in B.E. 2499. What you are looking at is an ancient body with a twentieth-century face.
What the Fine Arts Department registered here in 1936 was the image, not the buildings. Read the Royal Gazette page itself and the Maha Sarakham section lists the Suwannawat Buddha image at Amphoe Khok Phra, Tambon Khok Phra, together with a stone inscription at the same place. The monastery as a monument came much later, in the B.E. 2548 instrument, with a boundary of about one rai two ngan and thirty-four square wa. The third registered item is that inscription: red sandstone, Thai Noi script, the Thai language, no era date, standing behind the image, and the text names only the zodiac year in which it was cut — the Year of the Horse, eighth of the decade. The survey report's bleak finding is that on inspection the traces of the inscription no longer appear on the stone at all, and the sandstone surface is flaking away.
The old ordination hall is the surprise. It went up in B.E. 2459 and was built by Vietnamese craftsmen, and since the wat has put up a new hall the old one now sits fenced off outside the boundary wall, to the south of its replacement. It is brick and stucco, four bays, eight point seven three metres long and four point nine eight wide, a closed sim with one entrance at the front. Brick walls encase five round timber posts a side; there is a wooden plank ceiling; the gable roof steps down in two tiers with reduced porches front and back. The carved wooden door leaves show guardian figures among kanok foliage, and in the lower panel Rahu swallowing the moon — with a single rabbit inside the moon, which the survey's author stops to call beautifully done. Above the door is a stucco arch with three pointed chedi-like finials, and above that a low-relief Buddha with a monkey and an elephant presenting gifts to either side: the Palelai episode. Carved timber brackets, five to each side wall, run kanok at the top into a softly flowing naga head below. A pair of stucco lions by the same Vietnamese hands once stood in front; they have collapsed entirely.
So the honest summary of this monastery is that it holds three things of three ages and no founding date. Mahasarakham University's Isan information centre, which keeps a record of the wat, says plainly that no clear evidence of its construction has survived, that it was formerly called Wat Khok Phra after the village, and that it is a community monastery of the Maha Nikaya order on nine rai and ninety-nine square wa of land. That is as far as the record goes, and it is further than a guessed year would have taken anyone.
Phra Phuttha Ming Mueang: a standing Buddha in red sandstone, right hand in vitarka mudra, left hand along the body — with the head, chest and arms added anew in B.E. 2499, which the department's survey report states.
The old ordination hall west of the image: brick and stucco, four bays, eight point seven three metres by four point nine eight, built in B.E. 2459 by Vietnamese craftsmen and now fenced off outside the wall of the newer hall.
Its carved wooden door leaves — guardian figures in kanok foliage, and in the lower panel Rahu swallowing the moon with a rabbit visible inside the moon.
Above the doorway, a stucco arch with three pointed chedi-like finials, and over it a low-relief Buddha flanked by a monkey and an elephant offering gifts: the Palelai episode.
Carved timber brackets on the side walls, five a side, kanok above running into a flowing naga head below.
A red sandstone inscription standing behind the image, in Thai Noi script, whose carved text the survey report found no longer legible on the stone, the surface now flaking.
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 | An active monastery with a venerated image. Cover shoulders and knees, take shoes off before entering the hall, and do not stand or sit higher than the Buddha image when photographing it. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | At Ban Khok Phra, Tambon Khok Phra, Amphoe Kanthara Wichai, on the Maha Sarakham to Kalasin road. The Tourism Authority gives a contact number of 08 7336 4443 and lists a car park. |
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.
The image, together with a stone inscription at the same place. The Royal Gazette page of 8 March B.E. 2478 protects those; the monastery itself was registered as an ancient monument only in B.E. 2548, with a boundary of about one rai two ngan and thirty-four square wa.
Not the head. The Fine Arts Department's B.E. 2565 survey report states that the head, the chest and the arms were added anew in B.E. 2499, in place of parts that had broken away. The Dvaravati work is the body.
The Fine Arts Department's survey report places it in Dvaravati culture, about the fourteenth to sixteenth Buddhist century, and describes it as carved from red sandstone with the right hand in the teaching gesture.
No — they are a pair, and separately registered. Ming Mueang stands here at Wat Suwannawat; Phra Phuttha Rup Yuen Mongkhon stands about four kilometres south at Wat Phuttha Mongkhon in Tambon Khanthararat.
It is tradition, and this page tells it as tradition. The Tourism Authority records it alongside a second, quite different local account in which the two images were made during a drought by the men and the women of the district.
No. The Fine Arts Department's survey report found that the carved traces no longer appear on the stone and that its surface is flaking. What is recorded is that it was in Thai Noi script and named the Year of the Horse, eighth of the decade.
No official source publishes them. It is a working monastery rather than a ticketed site, and the Tourism Authority page renders with its opening-hours block empty, so this page gives no times.
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.