Wat Chinwararam Worawihan

What the official record says

Where Wat Chinwararam Worawihan is

When was it founded — and what actually establishes that?

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 rebuilding is dated by a state body building by building; the foundation is not. The two should not be read as equally firm and this record keeps them apart.

The history of Wat Chinwararam Worawihan

Wat Chinwararam stands on the west bank of the Chao Phraya at Ban Bang Khayaeng, a little downstream of the provincial town. The Pathum Thani Provincial Office of Buddhism records it as a second-class royal monastery of the worawihan sub-rank belonging to the Maha Nikaya, and that grading is the reason it matters in a province with only two royal monasteries: it outranks every other monastery on this page.

It was not always that. The same office records that the monastery was formerly called Wat Makham Tai — south tamarind temple — and was raised in the early Rattanakosin period around B.E. 2358. What changed it was a person. Phra Chao Worawongse Thoe Krom Luang Chinwarasiriwat, who became Supreme Patriarch, rebuilt the monastery in the reign of King Prajadhipok, and the monastery took his name. The sequence is worth being precise about, because the name Chinwararam belongs to the twentieth-century rebuilding and not to the village temple that preceded it.

The rebuilding is unusually well dated for this province, because the ecclesiastical register lists the buildings with their years rather than in a lump. The vihara of the Supreme Patriarch went up in B.E. 2460; the Chinwarasiriwat residence in B.E. 2475; the Guanyin pavilion at the water's edge in B.E. 2456; and the mondop that houses a replica of the Buddha's footprint, built on an older structure, in B.E. 2472. Alongside them stand the preaching hall, the bell tower and the landing-stage pavilion. A riverside monastery with a Guanyin shrine on its own jetty is not an anomaly here — this is a trading reach, and the Chinese presence on it is as old as the Mon one.

The interior is what most visitors come for. The ordination hall carries a painted cycle of the ten birth tales with captions written out in khlong si suphap, the four-line Thai verse form — a painted cycle and a poem together, which is rarer than either alone. Enshrined there is Phra Phuttha Chinwon, known as Luang Pho Thong Kham, a Sukhothai-manner image that the ecclesiastical register says was brought here from Ayutthaya. Neither the register nor any other state source read for this page dates that removal, so the page does not either.

What you actually see

The ordination hall's painted cycle of the ten birth tales, each scene captioned in khlong si suphap verse.

Phra Phuttha Chinwon, called Luang Pho Thong Kham — a Sukhothai-manner image that the ecclesiastical register records as brought from Ayutthaya.

The vihara of Krom Luang Chinwarasiriwat, dated by the register to B.E. 2460.

The Chinwarasiriwat residence, a monastic residence of B.E. 2475, and the preaching hall and bell tower beside it.

The Guanyin pavilion at the river's edge, dated to B.E. 2456, and the landing-stage pavilion on the same frontage.

The mondop of B.E. 2472, raised on an earlier structure and housing a replica of the Buddha's footprint.

The old Wat Chinwararam school building, which the Fine Arts Department's register treats as a monument in its own right under a separate number.

Visiting: hours, admission, dress and photography

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.

What we could not establish

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 foundation. The ecclesiastical register gives about B.E. 2358 and gives it as approximate; no instrument behind it was read.
• When and why Luang Pho Thong Kham was brought from Ayutthaya, which no state source read here dates.
• The date of the royal elevation. The grade and sub-rank are stated plainly by the Provincial Office of Buddhism, but the instrument that conferred them was not found, so the monastery's royal rank has no date on this page.
• Whether the ancient-monument entry covers the whole monastery or particular buildings within it. The register carries it at status 0 with no gazette instrument, so there is no wording to read.
• A discrepancy worth settling: ONEP's cultural-environment entry for this monastery dates the Supreme Patriarch's residence to a different year from the ecclesiastical register's B.E. 2475.

Wat Chinwararam Worawihan: common questions

Where to go from here

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 Pathum Thani’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.