One of the largest sandstone reclining Buddhas in Thailand, about 13.3 metres long, assembled from great blocks of red sandstone on a mound south-west of the Dvaravati city of Sema. The state registered the image in 1936 and fixed a boundary of 1 rai 1 ngan 39 square wa around it in 1952.
พระนอน วัดธรรมจักรเสมาราม · Phra Non, Wat Thammachak Semaram
| Official name | พระนอน วัดธรรมจักรเสมาราม — Phra Non, Wat Thammachak Semaram |
|---|---|
| Where | Sema, Sung Noen, Nakhon Ratchasima |
| Royal temple class | Not established from an official register. |
| Monastic order | Maha Nikaya (มหานิกาย) |
| Ancient monument | Registered national ancient monument Royal Gazette vol. 53, part 34, p. 1528, item 10, 27 September B.E. 2479; boundary at vol. 69, part 60, p. 3285, item 7, 30 September B.E. 2495 Both instruments were read by eye from the scans in this run. The 1936 list registers it simply as พระนอน อำเภอสูงเนิน ตำบลเสมา, item 10 of the Nakhon Ratchasima block, under section 6 of the Act B.E. 2477 — the state registered the image, not the temple around it. A boundary was fixed sixteen years later by a further ประกาศกรมศิลปากร เรื่อง กำหนดจำนวนและขอบเขตโบราณสถานสำหรับชาติ, again under section 6: item 7 on หน้า ๓๒๘๕ reads พระนอน อำเภอสูงเนิน ตำบลเสมา and gives north 1 sen 2 wa, south 1 sen 2 wa, east 1 sen 4 wa 2 sok, west 1 sen 4 wa 2 sok, เป็นเนื้อที่ประมาณ ๑ ไร่ ๑ งาน ๓๙ ตารางวา — matching the department's structured field of 1-1-39 exactly. THE DATE OF THAT SECOND INSTRUMENT IS FILED TWO WAYS BY THE DEPARTMENT ITSELF. Some register rows date เล่ม ๖๙ ตอนที่ ๖๐ to 30 September B.E. 2495 and others to 2496, under two different filenames that are byte-for-byte the same document. The scan's own running head says ๓๐ กันยายน ๒๔๙๕; the department's 1983 boundary order for Mueang Khaek recites it as ๒๔๙๕; and the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre gives ๒๔๙๕. This registry uses 2495. |
| Coordinates | 14.916215, 101.793512 Fine Arts Department register, monument 0001264 (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 two state-adjacent bodies also differ on the image's height: the department's register says 2.50 metres, the Anthropology Centre says 2.8. They agree on the length at about 13.3 metres. Neither figure is averaged here.
The reclining Buddha at Wat Thammachak Semaram lies on a low mound in Ban Khlong Khwang, Tambon Sema, in Amphoe Sung Noen, about five hundred metres south-west of the moat of the old city of Sema. The Anthropology Centre gives the mound as roughly 550 metres east to west and 350 north to south, standing 218 metres above sea level in flat rice country, with Khlong Tum running past the western side. The village sits on the mound now; the temple sits at the edge of it.
What the state protects here is the image. The 1936 ancient-monuments list does not name a temple at all — item 10 of the Nakhon Ratchasima block is simply พระนอน, the reclining Buddha, in Amphoe Sung Noen, Tambon Sema. Sixteen years later a second instrument drew a boundary around it: a rectangle of one rai, one ngan and thirty-nine square wa, given side by side in sen, wa and sok as the surveying of the day required. It is a small protected area for a large object, and it is the shape of a rule written about a statue rather than about a monastery.
The Buddha itself is built rather than carved from one piece. Both the register and the Anthropology Centre describe great blocks of red sandstone assembled along a north-south line and then worked into shape. It is about 13.3 metres long. The register gives the height as 2.50 metres and the Centre as 2.8. The figure lies on its right side, head to the south, face turned east. The face is made of four sandstone slabs stacked on one another; the neck is a round stone ninety centimetres across; the body is a single long slab. From the navel down to the ankles the stone is broken, but the feet survive well and lie exactly level with one another, which is the detail a Dvaravati reading rests on.
The face is worth standing in front of. The brows are cut as a single raised ridge running across in a shallow bird-wing curve; the eyes look down; the nose is broad; the hair is in snail-shell curls, now damaged; the corners of the mouth turn up. The right hand is brought up under the head. The back of the head was left roughed out rather than finished, which suggests it was never meant to be seen. The register puts the workmanship at about the thirteenth Buddhist century; the Anthropology Centre reads it as Dvaravati mixed with local hands at about the fifteenth. Both readings are printed here.
The excavation told the rest. The Fine Arts Department dug here in B.E. 2533 and found the building the image had originally lain in: a rectangular brick gandhakuti, 6.5 metres wide and 26 metres long — as long as the Buddha — with a low moulded base about eighty centimetres high and walls that probably never rose above a metre. It had three parts: the chamber holding the image, with a walkway a little over a metre wide around it; a small ritual room beyond the feet; and a front terrace to the north, added later, which was built straight over the line of the earlier boundary wall and over a ring of sema stones. Two rings of sema surround the vihara.
In front of the face, on the villagers' account, lay a sandstone wheel of the law: 1.2 metres across, a solid disc with the spokes carved into it rather than pierced, with a Kala or Panasbodi face cut beneath. The Anthropology Centre compares it with the wheels from Nakhon Pathom and records that a crouching deer and an inscribed dharmachakra pillar were also recovered, which together suggest the wheel once stood on a pillar with the deer before it. The wheel is now in a glass case in the display building the temple put up in B.E. 2539; the Buddha lies under an open-sided shelter built in 2536 and finished in 2537, roofed in corrugated tiles with some translucent panels to let the light down.
The reclining Buddha itself, about 13.3 metres of red sandstone blocks, lying on its right side with the head to the south and the face turned east — the orientation a published Fine Arts Department study of B.E. 2553 compares with the reclining Buddha at Polonnaruwa.
The face, made of four stacked sandstone slabs, with the brows cut as one raised ridge, the eyes downcast, the hair in snail-shell curls and the right hand brought up beneath the head.
The feet, which are the best-preserved part of the figure and lie exactly level with one another, and the broken stretch between the navel and the ankles.
The excavated base of the original gandhakuti around the image: 6.5 by 26 metres of brick, its moulded base about eighty centimetres high, with the small ritual room beyond the feet and the later front terrace built over the earlier boundary wall.
The two rings of sema stones set around the vihara, and the line of the front terrace cutting across the inner ring.
The sandstone wheel of the law in the display building — 1.2 metres across, hub thirty-one centimetres, a solid disc with the spokes carved into the face and a Kala face beneath — together with the crouching deer, the inscribed dharmachakra pillar, sculpture fragments, a threshold stone and turned stone balusters.
The shelter over the image, built in B.E. 2536 and finished in 2537, with a timber walkway running around most of the figure and translucent roof panels overhead.
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 | Open daily 09.00–16.00, per the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre's archaeological database entry for the site. |
|---|---|
| Admission | Thai nationals: free. Foreign visitors: 0 baht. |
| Dress | A working temple with a great image in it. Shoulders and knees covered; shoes off at the shelter; do not sit or stand with the feet pointing at the Buddha, and do not climb on the excavated base of the old vihara. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | Ban Khlong Khwang, Moo 3, Tambon Sema, Amphoe Sung Noen. From Sung Noen town the Anthropology Centre's directions run north about three kilometres on Highway 2161 to Ban Hin Tang, then left along the road that skirts the southern moat of Sema for about a kilometre, left again for 180 metres to the entrance to Ban Khlong Khwang, and about another 220 metres to the temple on the left. Car park, toilets and a drinks and souvenir stall on site. |
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.
About 13.3 metres long, which both the Fine Arts Department's register and the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre agree on. They do not agree on the height: the register says 2.50 metres and the Centre says 2.8, and this page prints both rather than choosing. It is not carved from a single stone — it is built from several large blocks of red sandstone assembled along a north-south line and then worked, with the face alone made of four slabs stacked on one another.
A published Fine Arts Department study of B.E. 2553 reads it as a Sri Lankan model. The authors compare the conception here with the reclining Buddha at Polonnaruwa on two points: the head laid to the south, and the image set inside a narrow gandhakuti rather than an open hall. That is an attribution made by scholars rather than a transmission recorded in any document, and it is stated on this page as such. The excavated brick building around the image, 6.5 by 26 metres, is the narrow gandhakuti the comparison rests on.
A sandstone dharmachakra, a wheel of the law, 1.2 metres in diameter with a hub of thirty-one centimetres. It is the solid type, with the spokes carved into the face of the disc rather than pierced through, and a Kala or Panasbodi face cut beneath it. The Anthropology Centre compares it with the wheels found at Nakhon Pathom and records that a crouching deer and an inscribed pillar were found with it, which together suggest it once stood raised on a pillar. It is now in a glass case in the temple's display building.
The image, not the temple. Item 10 of the Nakhon Ratchasima block in the ancient-monuments list of 27 September B.E. 2479 reads simply พระนอน อำเภอสูงเนิน ตำบลเสมา. A boundary was added on 30 September B.E. 2495 by a second instrument, which gives the protected area as about 1 rai 1 ngan 39 square wa and sets out the four sides in sen, wa and sok. That is a small protected rectangle drawn around a statue, which is what the record is actually 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.