A Khmer sanctuary thirty kilometres from Phimai that ran the opposite way: built for Hinduism over an older group of eight brick towers, converted into a Buddhist wat in the Ayutthaya period, and still a working temple today. Eight inscriptions were recovered from it, the earliest dated B.E. 1433.
ปราสาทหินพนมวัน (วัดพนมวัน) · Prasat Hin Phanom Wan (Wat Phanom Wan)
| Official name | ปราสาทหินพนมวัน (วัดพนมวัน) — Prasat Hin Phanom Wan (Wat Phanom Wan) |
|---|---|
| Where | Ban Pho, Mueang Nakhon Ratchasima, Nakhon Ratchasima |
| 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, part 34, p. 1527, item 5, 27 September B.E. 2479; boundary at vol. 115, special part 83 ง, p. 8, item 3, 21 September B.E. 2541 Both instruments were downloaded from the Fine Arts Department's mirror and read by eye in this run. The 1936 list registers it as วัดพนมวัน อำเภอเมือง ตำบลบ้านโพธิ์, item 5 of the Nakhon Ratchasima block, under section 6 of the Act B.E. 2477, with no land boundary. A boundary was fixed sixty-two years later by the ประกาศกรมศิลปากร เรื่อง กำหนดเขตที่ดินโบราณสถาน at เล่ม ๑๑๕ ตอนพิเศษ ๘๓ ง หน้า ๘, published 21 September B.E. 2541 under section 7 of the Act B.E. 2504, signed on 10 April B.E. 2541 by นิคม มูสิกะคามะ as Director-General. Item 3 of that order reads โบราณสถานปราสาทหินพนมวัน (วัดพนมวัน) บ้านมะค่า ตำบลบ้านโพธิ์ อำเภอเมืองนครราชสีมา and gives ๒๐๖ ไร่ ๕๖ ตารางวา — which matches the department's structured boundary field of 206-0-56 exactly. The recital in that order is also where the 1936 part number comes from: it cites the earlier registration as ราชกิจจานุเบกษา เล่ม ๕๓ ตอนที่ ๓๔ วันที่ ๒๗ กันยายน พ.ศ. ๒๔๗๙. |
| Coordinates | 15.025081, 102.193702 Fine Arts Department register, monument 0001020 (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.
The department contradicts itself on the inscriptions, and both statements are its own. The national register says the door frames give B.E. 1548 and 1625. The department's published study of the eight Phanom Wan inscriptions gives B.E. 1433 for the first, B.E. 1598 for the second and B.E. 1625 for the third and fourth, with the fifth placed in the seventeenth Buddhist century. B.E. 1548 appears in the register and in none of the eight readings. Nothing read here reconciles them.
Phanom Wan stands at Ban Makha in Tambon Ban Pho, in Amphoe Mueang Nakhon Ratchasima, about fifteen kilometres north-east of the city on the Korat–Khon Kaen road. It is the second Khmer sanctuary of the province and it is the one that most rewards being read against Phimai, because the two are close in date, close in plan and opposite in religion.
The Fine Arts Department's register describes a site used and rebuilt across several periods, standing on ground that was already occupied in the Iron Age about 1,500 years ago. Eight brick sanctuaries stood here first, dated by the department to the fifteenth Buddhist century. The stone prasat that dominates the site now was built over them — the register is specific that the bases of some of the brick towers are partly overbuilt by it — and it was built for Hinduism. Only later, in the Ayutthaya and Rattanakosin periods, was Phanom Wan converted into a Buddhist wat. That is why the monument and the temple share a name and why the register itself calls the row ปราสาทหินพนมวัน (วัดพนมวัน).
How much later the stone phase is, the state cannot agree with itself about. The department's register puts it at the sixteenth to seventeenth Buddhist century, in Baphuon style, and reads the lintels, pediments, colonettes and pilasters that way. The Tourism Authority of Thailand puts the stone building at the eighteenth to nineteenth Buddhist century and calls it เทวาศรม. Those are two centuries apart on the same masonry, and this page prints both rather than choosing.
What is not in doubt is the writing. Eight inscriptions have been recovered from Phanom Wan, and the Fine Arts Department has published a reading of every one of them. The oldest, Phanom Wan 1, is cut in old Khmer script in the Khmer language on a lintel frame 109 by 25 centimetres, and it is dated: มหาศักราช 812, which is B.E. 1433. It records a royal order of Yasovarman about the celebration of a cremation pavilion and a residence, and names Indravarman before him. It was found during the department's own excavation of the site in B.E. 2513, lying among rubble outside the sanctuary to the south, and it is now in the Phimai National Museum.
Phanom Wan 2, on the southern jamb of the eastern porch doorway, is the long one — forty-five lines in Khmer and Sanskrit, dated B.E. 1598. It opens with an invocation to Shiva, praises Suryavarman, and then tells a story about a man: a warrior named Viravarman, rewarded for loyalty with a gilded palanquin and given the name Kritajnavallabha, who set up an image in the pleasant town of Sukhalaya, gave it two hundred slaves, gave it land and cattle, and fixed the boundaries of its ashram in all eight directions across twenty-three villages. Phanom Wan 3 and 4, on the southern sanctum door frame, are dated B.E. 1625 and record an order of Jayavarman VI about the upkeep of the ashram and the offerings due to it.
The modern chapter is a restoration. The department rebuilt Phanom Wan by anastylosis, the same method used at Phimai, and that work was completed in B.E. 2543. It was during and after it that the inscriptions were catalogued: one is now at the Maha Wirawong National Museum in Nakhon Ratchasima, two at the Phimai National Museum, and five are still where they were cut, on the side door frames of the main prasat. The site is administered by Phimai Historical Park, whose own account names both monuments in its title.
The main prasat, joined to a mandapa in front of it by a long antarala running east — the same arrangement as at Phimai and Phanom Rung, and the clearest sign of what family of building this is.
The carving on the lintels, pediments, door colonettes and engaged pilasters, which the Fine Arts Department reads as Baphuon-style work of the sixteenth to seventeenth Buddhist century.
Prang Noi, the small tower to the south-west, built of sandstone and brick on a laterite base. The Tourism Authority describes it as red sandstone and records that a stone Buddha footprint is enshrined in it — the clearest single object of the site's Buddhist second life.
The remains of eight brick buildings, older than the stone prasat, which is the physical evidence for the two-phase story the register tells.
The gallery enclosing the whole group, with a gopura in the middle of each of the four sides.
The mound in front of the sanctuary to the east called เนินอรพิม, which the department presumes to be a robing pavilion, and beyond it the baray known as สระเพลง.
The large baray to the north of the sanctuary, which has its own register row of its own (0000997) as บารายทางเหนือของปราสาทพนมวัน.
The five inscriptions still in place on the side door frames of the main prasat — including the forty-five-line Phanom Wan 2 on the southern jamb of the eastern porch.
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 | Thai nationals: 10 baht. Foreign visitors: 80 baht. |
| Dress | This is a working Buddhist temple as well as an archaeological monument. Shoulders and knees covered, shoes off where the signs say so, and the ordinary courtesies of a wat apply even though most visitors come for the Khmer masonry. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | Ban Makha, Tambon Ban Pho, Amphoe Mueang Nakhon Ratchasima, on the Korat–Khon Kaen road. The site is administered by Phimai Historical Park, whose office is on 0 4447 1568. |
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.
Both, in that order, and the Fine Arts Department says so plainly. The stone sanctuary standing there now was built for Hinduism over the remains of eight earlier brick towers, and in the Ayutthaya and Rattanakosin periods it was converted into a Buddhist wat. It is still a working temple, which is why the department's own register titles the row ปราสาทหินพนมวัน (วัดพนมวัน). This is the opposite of Phimai, thirty kilometres away, which the state describes as Mahayana Buddhist from the start.
Eight were recovered and the Fine Arts Department has published a reading of each. The oldest, dated to B.E. 1433, records a royal order of Yasovarman concerning the celebration of a cremation pavilion and a residence. The longest, dated B.E. 1598, invokes Shiva, praises Suryavarman, and tells of a warrior named Viravarman, renamed Kritajnavallabha for his loyalty, who set up an image at the town of Sukhalaya and endowed it with two hundred slaves, land, cattle and an ashram whose boundaries ran across twenty-three villages. Two more, dated B.E. 1625, carry an order of Jayavarman VI about the upkeep of that ashram.
There is no founding year and the two arms of the Thai state disagree about the century. The Fine Arts Department's register dates the stone prasat to the sixteenth to seventeenth Buddhist century and the eight brick sanctuaries beneath it to the fifteenth, on ground already occupied in the Iron Age about 1,500 years ago. The Tourism Authority of Thailand dates the stone building to the eighteenth to nineteenth Buddhist century. This page prints both. The only firm date at the site is the inscription of B.E. 1433, which dates an event rather than the building.
The current statutory schedule sets one. The annex to the ministerial regulation on admission fees, second issue, B.E. 2568, published in the Royal Gazette on 27 May 2568, lists โบราณสถานปราสาทพนมวัน in Amphoe Mueang Nakhon Ratchasima at ten baht for Thai nationals and eighty for other nationalities on a single ticket, and the Tourism Authority of Thailand's page shows the same eighty-baht foreign rate. No official source read for this page publishes opening hours for the site, so this guide states none.
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 Nakhon Ratchasima’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.