Wat Khian Khet

What the official record says

Where Wat Khian Khet 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.

Note the administrative geography in the account: Bueng Yi Tho was then in Amphoe Rangsit, Changwat Thanyaburi, and is now in Amphoe Thanyaburi, Changwat Pathum Thani. The monastery did not move; the province around it was redrawn.

The history of Wat Khian Khet

Wat Khian Khet — most people just say Wat Khian — stands in the grid of canals east of Rangsit, in country that did not exist in its present form until the late nineteenth century. The Rangsit scheme cut this plain into a lattice of irrigation canals and opened it to rice, and the monasteries out here were founded by the people who came with it. The Pathum Thani Provincial Office of Buddhism dates the monastery to about B.E. 2439 and names the donor: Mom Khian, consort of Phra Worawongse Thoe Phra Ong Chao Sai Sanitwong, who gave the land. Her name is in the monastery's name, which is a plainer kind of memorial than most.

The register adds that the first abbot was Luang Pho Dam and that Mom Khian, her relatives and the local people built and maintained the monastery together as a possession of the religion. That is the whole of the documented foundation. No instrument is quoted for the year, and the page does not treat about B.E. 2439 as more than the ecclesiastical office's own dating.

The address in that record is worth reading slowly, because it describes an administrative map that no longer exists: Mu 2, Bueng Yi Tho subdistrict, Amphoe Rangsit, Changwat Thanyaburi. Thanyaburi was then a province in its own right, with Rangsit as a district inside it. Today Bueng Yi Tho is a subdistrict of Amphoe Thanyaburi within Changwat Pathum Thani. Anyone matching old documents to present-day places in this part of the central plain has to allow for that, and the ecclesiastical register is careful enough to print both forms.

The one thing here that is documented to the day is the elevation. The Provincial Office of Buddhism quotes the Ministry of Education announcement in its own words: by royal graciousness, Wat Khian Khet in Bueng Yi Tho subdistrict, Thanyaburi district, Pathum Thani province, is raised to a royal monastery of the third class, ordinary kind, with effect from 11 October B.E. 2534, the announcement being made on 29 November B.E. 2534. An effective date and a separate announcement date, both printed — that is what a documented royal act looks like, and on this page it stands in deliberate contrast to the foundation stories around it.

What you actually see

A large working monastery in the Rangsit canal grid, laid out on the flat reclaimed land the irrigation scheme created rather than on a river bend.

The royal monastery's standing as a third-class ordinary foundation, which is the rank conferred in 1991 and the reason the monastery carries the word khet in its formal name.

The Fine Arts Department's register entry for the monastery, which places it as an ancient monument in the national register without a registration under the Act.

The canal frontage itself — the setting is the point here, and it is the best surviving illustration in this guide of what the Rangsit scheme did to this plain.

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 founding year. The ecclesiastical office gives about B.E. 2439 and cites no instrument for it.
• The sect. No state source read for this page states whether the monastery belongs to the Maha Nikaya or the Dhammayuttika order, so the field is null rather than assumed from the neighbours.
• A building-by-building account. Unlike Wat Chinwararam, this monastery's register entry lists no dated structures, so the page cannot say what is old here and what is recent.
• The Royal Gazette publication of the 1991 elevation. The Provincial Office of Buddhism quotes the ministry announcement and its two dates, but the gazette printing of it was not opened.
• A coordinate check worth doing: the Fine Arts Department's point and the compiled register listing for this monastery differ by roughly sixty metres.

Wat Khian Khet: 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.