The principal temple of Nakhon Ratchasima, at the centre of the walled city, entered in the national register under two names because the 1936 list registered the temple and its Vishnu shrine as separate items. Sandstone images of Vishnu and Ganesha four centuries older than the temple were found here.
วัดพระนารายณ์มหาราช (สถานพระนารายณ์) · Wat Phra Narai Maharat (Sathan Phra Narai)
| Official name | วัดพระนารายณ์มหาราช (สถานพระนารายณ์) — Wat Phra Narai Maharat (Sathan Phra Narai) |
|---|---|
| Where | Nai Mueang, 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, items 3 and 4, 27 September B.E. 2479; boundary at vol. 115, special part 83 ง, p. 7, item 2, 21 September B.E. 2541 This temple appears in the 1936 list twice, under two names, and the department's own register carries both: the row is titled วัดพระนารายณ์มหาราช, สถานพระนารายณ์ with วัดกลาง and วัดกลางนคร as alternative names. Read by eye from the scan, item 3 of the Nakhon Ratchasima block is สถานพระนารายณ์ อำเภอเมือง ตำบลในเมือง and item 4 is วัดกลาง อำเภอเมือง ตำบลในเมือง — the shrine and the temple entered separately on consecutive lines. The department's later boundary order treats สถานพระนารายณ์ as the registered entity when it recites the 1936 instrument, then fixes the boundary for both together. THE TRAP: item 6 of the same 1936 list is a different วัดกลาง — วัดกลาง (ปรางค์) in ตำบลพุดซา, which is monument 0001019, three kilometres away and built around a Khmer prang. Never attach one record to the other. The boundary was fixed by the ประกาศกรมศิลปากร เรื่อง กำหนดเขตที่ดินโบราณสถาน at เล่ม ๑๑๕ ตอนพิเศษ ๘๓ ง หน้า ๗, 21 September B.E. 2541, under section 7 of the Act B.E. 2504, signed ๑๐ เมษายน ๒๕๔๑ by นิคม มูสิกะคามะ: item 2 gives two areas, พื้นที่ ก. ๔ ไร่ ๓ งาน ๕๗ ตารางวา and พื้นที่ ข. ๘ ไร่ ๑ งาน ๗๒ ตารางวา, both matching the register's structured fields exactly. |
| Coordinates | 14.975969, 102.108005 Fine Arts Department register, monument 0000985 (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.
No founding year is established. The register gives a period — Ayutthaya — and a set of dated later acts, and this page does not convert a period into a year. The register also contradicts itself about the ordination hall: its history field names the ubosot as the surviving monument of importance and dates a restoration to B.E. 2494, while its architectural field says the old ordination hall was taken down by the temple and a new reinforced-concrete one built in its place in B.E. 2529. Both sentences are the department's.
Wat Phra Narai Maharat stands in Tambon Nai Mueang, inside the old walls of Nakhon Ratchasima, and it is the temple the city's own record puts at its centre. The Fine Arts Department's register says so in as many words: formerly Wat Klang or Wat Klang Nakhon, a Buddhist temple of the Ayutthaya period, the most important temple of the city of Nakhon Ratchasima, standing in the middle of a town enclosed by walls and a moat.
The city around it is the part of the story with a date attached. The register describes the walls and moat as the work of a French engineer in the reign of King Narai, about B.E. 2199 to 2235 — the period when Ayutthaya was rebuilding its frontier towns with European fortification advice, and when Nakhon Ratchasima became the walled rectangle whose gates and moat are still traceable. The temple's later name carries that reign in it. What the register does not say is that the temple itself was built then, and this page does not say so either.
The other name is a shrine. Inside the temple grounds stands สถานพระนารายณ์, a Vishnu shrine, and the department's register treats the shrine and the temple as one monument with two names. The 1936 ancient-monuments list treated them as two: read by eye from the scan, สถานพระนารายณ์ is item 3 of the Nakhon Ratchasima block and วัดกลาง is item 4, on consecutive lines. That is why the register row is titled with both, and it is a small demonstration of how a temple can end up registered twice without anybody meaning it to happen.
The reason for a Vishnu shrine in a Buddhist temple is in the ground. The department records that the antiquities found here include sandstone deity images — Vishnu, Ganesha — and a lintel carved with Vishnu reclining on the ocean, all placed at about the fifteenth to sixteenth Buddhist century. That is Khmer-period sculpture, four or five hundred years older than the Ayutthaya-period temple standing over it, and it puts this ground in the same story as Phanom Wan and Phimai rather than in a separate one. The shrine now holds Phra Narai, Phra Naret and Phra Khanet.
The buildings themselves have been rebuilt more than the register's summary suggests, and the register is the source for that too. Its history field names the ordination hall as the surviving monument of importance and dates a restoration by the people of Nakhon Ratchasima to B.E. 2494. Its architectural field then says that the old ordination hall was demolished by the temple and a new one built in reinforced concrete in B.E. 2529, and describes the Phra Narai shrine as a reinforced-concrete building too. A reader standing in front of the ubosot should know that the department describes both an old one and its replacement, and does not reconcile them.
The vihara is the older-feeling building on the site as the register describes it: brick and mortar, four door leaves on each side front and back, ten windows a side, a timber roof frame under fish-scale glazed tiles. The boundary order of B.E. 2541 protects the ground in two parcels, together a little under thirteen rai, in the middle of a provincial capital of nearly three million people. Nothing here is legal or religious advice and BAANLYY does not represent the temple.
The ordination hall on its island in the temple pond, rectangular, brick and mortar within a kamphaeng kaeo wall — the arrangement the department's register describes, though the register also records that the old hall was replaced in B.E. 2529.
The vihara: brick and mortar, four door leaves each side front and back, ten windows to a side, timber roof structure under fish-scale glazed tiles.
สถานพระนารายณ์, the Vishnu shrine, a reinforced-concrete building under the same fish-scale glazed tiles, housing Phra Narai, Phra Naret and Phra Khanet.
The sandstone Khmer-period sculpture recovered on this ground: images of Vishnu and of Ganesha, and a lintel carved with Vishnu reclining on the ocean, dated by the department to about the fifteenth to sixteenth Buddhist century.
The setting itself. The temple sits inside the old walled city whose walls and moat the register attributes to a French engineer working in the reign of King Narai, and the Chumphon gate — separately registered as monument 0000989 — stands a short walk away.
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 city temple. Shoulders and knees covered, shoes off before entering the ordination hall and the vihara, and no photography where the temple asks for none. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | Tambon Nai Mueang, in the centre of the old walled city of Nakhon Ratchasima, a short walk from the Chumphon gate. The Thao Suranaree monument and the city pillar shrine, both separately registered monuments, are in the same quarter. |
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.
Because the 1936 ancient-monuments list registered the temple and the Vishnu shrine inside it as separate items. Read by eye from the scan, item 3 of the Nakhon Ratchasima block is สถานพระนารายณ์ and item 4 is วัดกลาง, on consecutive lines, both in Amphoe Mueang, Tambon Nai Mueang. The Fine Arts Department's modern register carries both in one row titled วัดพระนารายณ์มหาราช, สถานพระนารายณ์, with Wat Klang and Wat Klang Nakhon recorded as alternative names, and the 1998 boundary order fixes a single boundary for the two together.
Because they were found in the ground. The Fine Arts Department's register lists the antiquities recovered at this site as sandstone deity images of Vishnu and Ganesha and a lintel carved with Vishnu reclining on the ocean, and dates them to about the fifteenth to sixteenth Buddhist century — four or five hundred years earlier than the Ayutthaya-period temple. The shrine that now holds Phra Narai, Phra Naret and Phra Khanet is a modern reinforced-concrete building, and the temple's later name takes the Vishnu image rather than the Buddhist foundation as its reference point.
The Fine Arts Department gives a period rather than a year: a Buddhist temple of the Ayutthaya period, at the centre of the walled city of Nakhon Ratchasima. What carries a date in the register is the city rather than the temple — the walls and moat are attributed to a French engineer working in the reign of King Narai, about B.E. 2199 to 2235. No founding year for the temple is established by any source read for this page, and this guide does not turn a period into one.
The department's register says two different things and this page prints both. Its history field names the ordination hall as the surviving monument of importance and records that it was restored by the people of Nakhon Ratchasima in B.E. 2494. Its architectural field says the old ordination hall was taken down by the temple and a new one built in reinforced concrete in B.E. 2529. Nothing read for this page reconciles them, so a visitor should not assume that the building they are looking at is the fabric the 1936 registration was made about.
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.