The Mon monastery on the sandy rise above Sanam Bin Nam, whose old ordination hall holds the earth goddess mural that the Department of Tourism calls one of the most beautiful paintings of her in Thailand.
วัดชมภูเวก · Wat Chomphuwek
| Official name | วัดชมภูเวก — Wat Chomphuwek |
|---|---|
| Where | Tha Sai, Mueang Nonthaburi, Nonthaburi |
| 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 ประกาศกรมศิลปากร เรื่อง ขึ้นทะเบียนโบราณสถาน ราชกิจจานุเบกษา เล่ม ๙๑ ตอนที่ ๘๒ หน้า ๑๒๖๘ ๑๔ พฤษภาคม ๒๕๑๗ ลงนามโดย นาวาเอก สมภพ ภิรมย์ อธิบดีกรมศิลปากร ประกาศ ณ วันที่ ๒๙ มีนาคม ๒๕๑๗ Read from the scan the Fine Arts Department serves from its own file store. The instrument registers พระอุโบสถและพระวิหารวัดชมภูเวก — the ordination hall AND the vihara, not the monastery — with monument land of about ๒ งาน ๑๐ ตารางวา, and it states the reason for registration in its own words: the buildings hold painting of value in art and archaeology. Two cautions for anyone rechecking it. The scan's masthead glyph reads เล่ม ๕๑, which is a print or scan artefact; every other record including the department's own filename gives ๙๑. And the boundary plan annexed to the announcement is captioned ๓ งาน ๑๐ ตารางวา, which its own dimensions of 48.20 by 17.50 metres contradict — the announcement's figure is the arithmetically correct one. |
| Coordinates | 13.887227, 100.496268 Fine Arts Department, national monument register no. 0000206, point geometry from the department's own GIS (WGS84) |
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 accounts contradict each other on sequence and on the chedi. The Ministry of Culture puts the chedi first and the monastery after; the Department of Tourism puts the monastery about B.E. 2300 and the chedi more than a hundred years later, in B.E. 2460 — and the provincial government, which repeats the B.E. 2460 date, also says the chedi was where amulets were consecrated for soldiers going to war in the First Reign, which cannot both be true.
Wat Chomphuwek is registered because of what is painted on its walls, and the 1974 announcement says so in as many words: the ordination hall and the vihara are entered on the national register as buildings that hold painting of value in art and in archaeology. That is the whole of the documentary record on this monastery. The instrument gives no date, no builder and no period, because registration under the 1961 Act required none.
Everything else is community memory, and the state bodies that carry it disagree. The Ministry of Culture says the monastery is supposed to have been raised about B.E. 2300 by Mon settlers, who began by putting a muteao — a Mon chedi — on an old brick mound that may itself have been the ruin of something earlier, in order to house the images and sacred objects they had brought with them, and built the monastery afterwards. The Department of Tourism tells it the other way round, with the monastery first and the chedi more than a century later, and hedges the whole thing with the words it is said. The same office offers three separate explanations of the name: a devotional reading of a quiet place on a high rise, a Mon community leader called Pho Pu Si Chomphu, and the jambolan tree, whose Pali name is jambu. It picks none of them, and neither does this page.
What everyone comes for is a single figure. On the wall of the old ordination hall, inside a pointed ruean kaeo arch, is the earth goddess wringing the water from her hair — the moment in the defeat of Mara when the earth bears witness for the Buddha. The Department of Tourism describes the whole scheme as distemper on all four walls, the last ten Jataka and the life of the Buddha, in the middle Ayutthaya manner and by the hand of the Nonthaburi school of craftsmen of that time, and calls the earth goddess one of the most beautiful images of her in Thailand. Note that attribution carefully: the painting is placed by the record in a Thai regional workshop, not in a Mon one. What is Mon here is the community that founded the monastery and the form of the chedi.
The hall that holds it is a maha-ut building: no windows in the long walls, the wall surfaces battered inward to carry the load in place of columns, one way in at the front under a porch. That is exactly the plan a full mural scheme needs, and it is why buildings of this kind survive with their painting when better-lit ones do not. Outside, the gable is stucco peony scrollwork with blue-and-white and bencharong bowls set into the centres of the flowers, and the door and window surrounds are stucco foliage.
The earth goddess wringing her hair, set inside a pointed ruean kaeo arch on the wall of the old ordination hall — the reason the building is a registered monument and, in the Department of Tourism's words, one of the most beautiful paintings of her in Thailand.
The rest of the scheme: distemper on all four walls, the last ten Jataka and the life of the Buddha, described by the Department of Tourism as middle Ayutthaya manner and as the work of the Nonthaburi school of craftsmen.
The old ordination hall itself, a maha-ut building standing behind the chedi with no windows in its long walls, the wall heads battered inward to carry the roof in place of columns, and a pa-lai porch across the front.
The gable of that hall: stucco peony scrollwork with blue-and-white and bencharong ceramic bowls set into the centres of the flowers, and stucco foliate surrounds to the doors and windows.
The muteao, a Mon-form chedi that the Department of Tourism says follows the form of the chedi at Hongsawadi and is supposed to hold relics.
The vihara — which the Fine Arts Department's own 1973 boundary plan labels as a building with coloured wall painting, exactly as it labels the ordination hall. Almost nothing published since mentions its paintings at all.
The community museum, whose existence the Department of Tourism confirms, and the Mon-script Tripitaka manuscripts it lists among the monastery's holdings.
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 | Daily 06:00–18:00, per the Department of Tourism — whose own structured record for the monastery lists Monday to Saturday only, while the remark beside it says every day. |
|---|---|
| Admission | Thai nationals: free. Foreign visitors: 0 baht. |
| Dress | Not established from an official source. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | Off Sanam Bin Nam Road at Soi Nonthaburi 33 in Tha Sai, reachable by car, motorcycle and bus per the Department of Tourism. The monastery grounds run to about 24 rai 2 ngan; the registered monument zone around the two painted buildings is 2 ngan 10 square wa of that. |
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.
The earth goddess wringing the water from her hair, painted inside a pointed ruean kaeo arch in the old ordination hall. The Department of Tourism calls it one of the most beautiful images of her in Thailand — and, two fields away in the same record, the most beautiful in the world. The first is the claim worth repeating.
Not according to the record. The Department of Tourism attributes it to the Nonthaburi school of Thai craftsmen and describes it as middle Ayutthaya in manner. What is Mon at this monastery is the community that founded it and the form of the chedi, not the hand that painted the walls.
The ordination hall and the vihara together, with about 2 ngan 10 square wa of ground around them — not the monastery as a whole. The 1974 announcement gives the reason for registration in its own words: the buildings hold painting of value in art and in archaeology.
Nobody can say from a record. The registration instrument gives no date at all, and the two state bodies that tell the story disagree about whether the chedi or the monastery came first. The figure usually quoted, about B.E. 2300, is flagged as supposition by the Ministry of Culture itself.
No official source says. Given that the building is a registered monument precisely because of its paintings, assume you may need to ask at the monastery office, and ask about photography at the same time.
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 Nonthaburi’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.