A village temple in Pak Thong Chai with three things the state singles out: an Isan-style ordination hall with jataka murals, a scripture library standing on an island in its pond with a gilt-lacquer door from the Kaki story, and a stupa built by settlers who came from Vientiane.
วัดหน้าพระธาตุ (ตำบลตะคุ) · Wat Na Phra That, Tambon Takhu
| Official name | วัดหน้าพระธาตุ (ตำบลตะคุ) — Wat Na Phra That, Tambon Takhu |
|---|---|
| Where | Takhu, Pak Thong Chai, 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. 113, special part 50 ง, p. 13, item 15, 18 December B.E. 2539 Registered and bounded in a single act, which is unusual in this province and makes the record unusually clean. The ประกาศกรมศิลปากร เรื่อง ขึ้นทะเบียนโบราณสถานและกำหนดเขตที่ดินโบราณสถาน of 18 December B.E. 2539 was made under section 7 of the Act B.E. 2504 and covers four provinces — Chiang Mai, Lampang, Nakhon Ratchasima and Buriram — in nineteen items. It was downloaded from the Fine Arts Department's mirror and read by eye in this run. Item 15 reads โบราณสถานวัดหน้าพระธาตุ ตำบลตะคุ อำเภอปักธงชัย จังหวัดนครราชสีมา พื้นที่โบราณสถานประมาณ ๓ ไร่ ๓ งาน ๖๘ ตารางวา, matching the department's structured boundary field of 3-3-68 exactly. It was signed on ๑๗ ตุลาคม พ.ศ. ๒๕๓๙ by สด แดงเอียด, then Director of the Administration Division acting for the Director of the Office of Archaeology and National Museums, acting for the Director-General. THE NAME COLLIDES: the Fine Arts Department register carries a วัดหน้าพระธาตุ in Chonburi (0007177) and a พระปรางค์วัดหน้าพระธาตุ in Singburi (0000716), which is why the slug here is qualified by its subdistrict. |
| Coordinates | 14.722883, 101.985410 Fine Arts Department register, monument 0001134 (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 register gives a reign rather than a year, and this page does not convert one into the other. The reign of King Rama III is conventionally B.E. 2367 to 2394; the register says only ราวรัชสมัย, about the reign, and the boundary between that dating and the Vientiane migration it also records is not drawn by any source read here.
Wat Na Phra That stands in Tambon Takhu, in Amphoe Pak Thong Chai, about thirty kilometres south of Nakhon Ratchasima town. It is not a famous temple and it is not a large one — the boundary the state drew around it in 1996 runs to three rai, three ngan and sixty-eight square wa — but the Fine Arts Department's description of it is one of the most specific in this province, and what it describes is a small Isan monastery that kept its buildings.
The register puts the temple in the early Rattanakosin period, about the reign of King Rama III, and names three things as the monuments of importance: the ordination hall, the scripture library standing in water, and the stupa. It is worth noticing what that list is not. There is no prang here, no Khmer masonry, no Dvaravati sculpture. This is the other Nakhon Ratchasima — the Lao-speaking, Isan-building province that the Khmer sanctuaries tend to eclipse, and the department's own record of it is a record of timber, brick and paint.
The ordination hall is described as a sim in the Isan manner: a tall gabled roof of a single tier, one entrance at the front and no other, and each of the two side walls pierced with two window openings. Inside the old ordination hall, the register says, are wall paintings — jataka scenes from the Buddha's former lives, and an image of the Buddha's footprint among them. That is a plain statement in a state register that a small village temple in Pak Thong Chai holds a mural cycle, and it is the reason this temple is on this page rather than a larger one somewhere else.
The scripture library is the building people come for. It stands on its own in the temple pond — a hor trai of the local Isan type, put over water for the ordinary practical reason that ants and termites do not cross it. Its door leaves are painted in lai rot nam, the gilt-and-lacquer technique, and the subject the register names is นกอุ้มนาง, the bird carrying the woman: the moment from the Kaki story in which the garuda Venateyya lifts the queen away over the sea. A literary scene from a Thai poem, painted in gold on a library door, on an island in a village pond.
Between the library and the old ordination hall stands the that that gives the temple its name. The register records that it was built by a community that had migrated from Vientiane, and calls the manner folk rather than formal. That single sentence is the temple's history in miniature: the Khorat plateau took in Lao settlement across the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the buildings those communities put up are the physical record of it. The department protects the stupa as one of four elements — ordination hall, library, stupa and sala — inside a boundary of under four rai.
The registration itself is worth a line. Most monuments in this province were registered in 1936 and bounded decades later, or were bounded and never registered. Wat Na Phra That was registered and bounded in one act, under section 7 of the Ancient Monuments Act B.E. 2504, in an instrument that took in nineteen monuments across four provinces on 18 December B.E. 2539. Nine of the nineteen are in Nakhon Ratchasima, which makes that one instrument the best single list of this province's village temples the state has published. BAANLYY does not represent the temple and nothing here is legal or religious advice.
The sim, or ordination hall: a tall single-tier gabled roof, one entrance at the front only, and two window openings in each of the side walls — the Isan pattern rather than the central-Thai one.
The murals inside the old ordination hall, which the Fine Arts Department's register describes as jataka scenes from the Buddha's former lives together with an image of the Buddha's footprint.
The hor trai standing on its own in the temple pond, built in the local Isan manner, put over water to keep insects out of the manuscripts.
The library's door leaves, painted in lai rot nam with the scene the register calls นกอุ้มนาง — the bird carrying the woman, from the Kaki story.
The that between the library and the old ordination hall, which the register records as the work of a community that had migrated from Vientiane, built in a folk rather than a formal manner.
The sala, which the register lists as the fourth of the four elements protected inside the 3 rai 3 ngan 68 square wa boundary.
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 village monastery. Shoulders and knees covered, shoes off before entering the ordination hall, and ask at the temple before going into the old hall or the library rather than assuming either is open. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | Tambon Takhu, Amphoe Pak Thong Chai, about thirty kilometres south of Nakhon Ratchasima town. Three other registered temples in the same district — Wat Pathum Khongkha and Wat Khok Sisaket in Tambon Nok Ok, and the sim of Wat Pho Thong in Tambon Mueang Pak — were bounded by the same 1996 instrument. |
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.
A hor trai, a scripture library. The Fine Arts Department's register describes it as one building in the temple pond, built in the local Isan manner. Putting a manuscript library on an island is a practical measure rather than a decorative one: water stops ants and termites reaching palm-leaf texts. What makes this one worth the trip is its door leaves, painted in lai rot nam — the gilt-and-lacquer technique — with the scene the register names as นกอุ้มนาง, the bird carrying the woman, from the Kaki story.
The Fine Arts Department's register says it was built by a community that had migrated from Vientiane, and describes the manner as folk rather than formal. That one sentence carries the wider history of the Khorat plateau in it: Lao settlement moved south and west across the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the buildings those communities put up are the physical record of the movement. The register does not give a year for either the migration or the stupa, and this page does not supply one.
That is what the state's own register says. Its architectural description records that inside the old ordination hall there are wall paintings of the jataka — scenes from the Buddha's former lives — together with an image of the Buddha's footprint. It is a plain statement in a national monument register, not a tourism claim. Nothing read for this page says what condition the paintings are in or whether the old hall is open, so a visitor should ask at the temple rather than assume.
On 18 December B.E. 2539, and unusually it was registered and given its land boundary in the same act. The instrument covers nineteen monuments across Chiang Mai, Lampang, Nakhon Ratchasima and Buriram, was made under section 7 of the Ancient Monuments Act B.E. 2504, and was signed on 17 October B.E. 2539. Item 15 gives the temple's protected area as about 3 rai 3 ngan 68 square wa, which matches the department's own structured field exactly.
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.