The only cruciform temple hall in Thailand, carried on the backs of two nagas, with four Buddha images facing the four doors and a mural cycle of the 1860s and 1870s that contains the most reproduced painted figures in the country.
วัดภูมินทร์ · Wat Phumin
| Official name | วัดภูมินทร์ — Wat Phumin |
|---|---|
| Where | Nai Wiang, Mueang Nan, Nan |
| 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. 97, part 10, special issue, p. 1, 24 January B.E. 2523 This announcement was opened and read page by page in this run, and it corrects two things that circulate widely. It is a ประกาศกรมศิลปากร เรื่อง ขึ้นทะเบียนโบราณสถาน made under section 7 of the Ancient Monuments Act B.E. 2504, registering วัดภูมินทร์ ตำบลในเวียง อำเภอเมืองน่าน; the monument area is about ๓ ไร่ ๔๘ ตารางวา; it was announced on 26 November B.E. 2522 and signed by ไพรัช ชูติกุล, Deputy Director-General acting for the Director-General. First correction: several sites give the volume as 93. It is 97. Second correction: at least one report says the registration covers the ubosot. It does not — the สิ่งสำคัญ list contains exactly one item, วิหาร, the wihan, which matters because the building is a single cruciform hall serving as both and the gazette registered it under the word wihan. The register id 0003806 comes from a transcription of the department's register table rather than from the register record itself, which was not opened. Separately, a second announcement of 12 May B.E. 2529 registers two small bronze Maravijaya images kept in the abbot's kuti here, of lap width 46 cm and 20 cm — neither of them one of the four principal Buddhas. |
Nai Wiang, Mueang Nan, Nan
The exact location has not been confirmed yet.
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.
Nothing here is a documented founding date, and the Fine Arts Department does not claim one. The distinction worth holding on to is that the restoration is dated and the foundation is not: B.E. 2410–2417 rests on the department's own published account, while B.E. 2139 rests on a chronicle and is hedged by the department as a presumption. The painter's name is in the same category as the founding year.
Wat Phumin sits on Thanon Pha Kong in the centre of old Nan, a few minutes' walk from Wat Phra That Chang Kham and the Nan National Museum. It is not a royal monastery — the National Office of Buddhism's Nan office lists four of those in the province and this is not among them — and it is not, on the evidence, an especially large or wealthy foundation. It is on this list because of a building, and because of about a square metre of painted wall inside it.
The building is a jaturamuk, a cruciform hall, and the Tourism Authority of Thailand calls it the only temple building of its kind in Thailand. It serves as both ubosot and wihan: the east–west arm is the wihan and the north–south arm the ordination hall. Two very large nagas carry it. Unlike the usual arrangement, where only a naga's head emerges at the foot of a stair, here the craftsmen gave both head and tail, so the pair appear to have slid clean through the building, and there are four openings beneath their bodies that a person can walk through. Local belief attaches meanings to passing under them, from returning to Nan to meeting the person you are meant to meet.
Inside, four large Buddha images sit back to back against a square chedi at the core of the hall, facing out through the four doors. Which Buddhas they are is a real question and it has an answer with a citation: writing from the Fine Arts Department's 2544 provincial culture volume, silpa-mag identifies them as the four Buddhas of this aeon who have already come — Kakusandha, Konagamana, Kassapa and Gotama — in stucco, lacquered and gilded, in the Maravijaya attitude, each with a lap width of two metres seventy. That source calls the style Lanna of the Nan school; the tourism authority and press writing call it Sukhothai. The Lanna reading is the one carrying a departmental citation, and why there are four at all is, in silpa-mag's own words, not clearly established.
The murals were painted in distemper on a chalk ground during the restoration under Chao Anantaworaritthidet, which the Fine Arts Department dates to about B.E. 2410–2417. Most of the surface tells the Khatthanakumara Jataka, an extra-canonical birth story: the bodhisattva's birth on the lower north wall, his search for his father, his two companions with their hundred clumps of bamboo and their hundred carts, a wharf on the Indrapat city front with European merchant ships in it, the subduing of a giant serpent on one wall and a giant bird on another, a marriage, two half-brothers and a battle between them over a throne. The west wall carries the Nemiraja Jataka — the ascent to Tavatimsa and the tour of the hells — with the Parinibbana above it. Scattered through all of it are life-size figures who belong to none of the stories, and those are what make this cycle unlike any other.
One of them, low on the left of the west doorway, is the pair called Pu Man Ya Man: a man with red protective tattoos from elbow to knee, his lower garment hitched high to show them, leaning in to say something to a woman with her hair in nine plaits. It is known as Kra-sip Rak, the whisper of love, and it is on postcards, banknotes of the imagination, murals of murals. The Nan National Museum describes the figures in detail and attributes the painting to Nan Bua Phan with the word presumed. It gives no measurements. The caption everyone writes — that we know what he is saying — is the one thing nobody knows.
Wat Phumin was also, briefly and genuinely, money. The Bank of Thailand's own description of the fifth banknote series, first issued in B.E. 2485 and printed at the banknote works of the Japanese Ministry of Finance, lists the supporting image on each denomination, and the second of the seven is the ubosot and wihan of Wat Phumin. The bank does not itself say which note; the images are listed in denomination order, which puts it on the one-baht note.
The cruciform hall itself, on the backs of two nagas whose heads and tails both emerge, with four walk-through openings beneath their bodies. The Fine Arts Department repaired the east naga's stucco snout after it broke away on 23 December B.E. 2563.
The four principal Buddhas: stucco, lacquered and gilded, in the Maravijaya attitude, each with a lap width of 2.70 m, seated back to back against a square chedi at the centre of the hall and facing the four doorways. Identified from the Fine Arts Department's provincial culture volume as Kakusandha, Konagamana, Kassapa and Gotama — the four Buddhas of this aeon who have already appeared.
The doors. All four sets of leaves are single planks of golden teak roughly four inches thick, carved with interlaced foliage, flowers and leaves in Nan-school work — a detail the Tourism Authority of Thailand records and one that is easy to walk past.
The Khatthanakumara Jataka across the north, east and south walls: the birth, the journey, the two companions, the wharf at Indrapat with European ships at it, the giant serpent, the giant bird, the two marriages, the two sons and the battle between the half-brothers. Above it, on each wall, a register with the Buddha and his disciples at the centre.
The west wall: the Nemiraja Jataka below — Nemiraja's ascent to the Tavatimsa heaven and his tour of the hells — and the Parinibbana of the Buddha above. Pu Man Ya Man stands to the left of the doorway, at the lower left as you look at the wall from inside.
The condition of the paint, if you look for it. A survey in B.E. 2563 found the paint layer, the ground layer and the plaster all failing, and the department's conservation campaign of February to August B.E. 2564 treated 140 square metres, restricted to the worst-damaged bays between the windows and doors and to four metres above the floor.
Two registered bronzes you will not see: the announcement of 12 May B.E. 2529 registers two small Maravijaya images of Lanna work kept in the abbot's kuti, 73.5 cm and 53.5 cm tall with their bases.
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 08.00–16.00. Stated in the body text of the Tourism Authority of Thailand's attraction page, read in a rendering browser on 7 September 2026; the same page's structured opening-hours field carries no times. These are shorter hours than the temples around it — Chang Kham and Chae Haeng both run 06.00–18.00 — so a late-afternoon walking route through old Nan should take Phumin first. |
|---|---|
| Admission | Not established from an official source. |
| Dress | A working temple: shoulders and knees covered, shoes off before entering the hall. No official dress notice was found. |
| Photography | No official restriction on photography was found, which is worth flagging rather than treating as permission: the murals are under an active conservation programme and were being treated as recently as B.E. 2564. Assume no flash, and follow whatever is posted at the door. |
| Getting there | 33 Moo 1, Thanon Pha Kong, Tambon Nai Wiang, in the centre of old Nan, immediately beside Wat Phra That Chang Kham Worawihan and the Nan National Museum — the three are a few minutes apart on foot. Telephone, per the Tourism Authority of Thailand: +66 5452 1127. |
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.
It is a life-size pair painted low on the west wall, to the left of the doorway, known in Thai as Pu Man Ya Man and popularly as Kra-sip Rak, the whisper of love. The Nan National Museum describes the woman with her hair in nine plaits, ear ornaments, breast cloth, over-blouse and bracelets, and the man with red protective tattoos including a Hanuman from elbow to knee and his lower garment hitched high to display them. What he is saying is not recorded anywhere, and the museum does not claim it is. Every caption that supplies the words is supplying them.
The Fine Arts Department dates them to about B.E. 2410–2417, during the seven-year restoration under Chao Anantaworaritthidet, and describes the technique as distemper on a chalk ground. The painter is a different matter: the Nan National Museum attributes the whispering pair to Nan Bua Phan using the word presumed, and the department's own full account of the wall programme names no painter at all. The attribution is traditional rather than documented, and this page keeps it on that side of the line.
No, on the evidence of the state's own ecclesiastical record. The Nan provincial office of the National Office of Buddhism, listing the royal monasteries of the province when the royal calendars were presented in March 2025, names Wat Phaya Phu, Wat Bun Yuen, Wat Phra That Chang Kham Worawihan and Wat Phra That Chae Haeng. Wat Phumin is not among them. Municipal and popular sources sometimes call it a wat luang, but not in the technical sense the term carries in the register, and no gazette elevation for it was found.
The wihan, and only the wihan. The registration announcement of 24 January B.E. 2523 was opened and read in this run, and its list of significant things contains exactly one entry: วิหาร. That is worth stating precisely, because the building is a single cruciform hall that serves as both ordination hall and wihan, and at least one report describes the registration as covering the ubosot. The monument area is about 3 rai 48 square wa. The announcement was signed on 26 November B.E. 2522 by the Deputy Director-General acting for the Director-General.
Yes, and the Bank of Thailand says so in its own description of the fifth banknote series, first issued in B.E. 2485 and printed at the banknote works of the Japanese Ministry of Finance. That series carried the young King Ananda Mahidol on the front, with a different supporting image for each of seven denominations, and the second image the bank lists is the ubosot and wihan of Wat Phumin. The bank does not pair each image with its denomination; the images are given in denomination order, which places Wat Phumin on the one-baht note.
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 Nan’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.