The sacred Buddha images on Khao Sakkhi

What the official record says

Where Phra Phuttharup Sakdisit bon Khao Sakkhi 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 register prints the two key years for the monastery's move, 1932 and 1941, in Thai numerals with no era marker, while using พ.ศ. explicitly elsewhere in the same paragraph. Read as Buddhist Era they would put the move in the fourteenth century, which cannot be right for a named abbot; read as Christian Era they are self-consistent. The era is not stated and is not assumed here.

The history of Phra Phuttharup Sakdisit bon Khao Sakkhi

Khao Sakkhi means the hill of the witness, and the name is the whole point. On its summit stand a small wihan with three seated Buddha images and the base of a ruined brick chedi, and beside the path up is an old brick-lined well. The images were registered as a national ancient monument in the first list Thailand ever published, and the reason they were worth registering is the use they were put to. According to the Fine Arts Department's own history, when two people were in dispute they would come here, drink water, and swear in front of the images, calling on them to witness the oath and asking that whoever had lied should die. The department records that this worked well enough to become famous, and that a later abbot locked the wihan to stop people swearing in front of the images and told them to use the government courts instead.

The monastery that once stood on the summit is no longer there, and the sequence is documented. The department's history records that the temple was called Wat Krakkhi or Wat Karaki before it was Wat Sakkhi, and that an abbot, Phra Athikan Po Thammarattano, moved it down to its present site on the reasoning that a site between two hills is bad ground — what he called the path the ghosts pass. The name was changed again later to Wat Sutthikawat, the monastery of purity. The years printed for both events, 1932 and 1941, appear in the register in Thai numerals with no era marker beside them, while the same paragraph uses พ.ศ. explicitly elsewhere. They are reported here as printed and not converted.

The well is the other reason this is a state monument and not just a local shrine. The department's record says its water was used in Sai Buri's own oath-of-allegiance ceremony, and that it was among the wells from which water was drawn for the royal ablution at a coronation. That is a very specific claim about a hole in the ground 1.25 meters across, and it places a hill in the deep south inside the machinery of the Thai monarchy. The well now has a roof and a cover over its mouth, and the department's last survey records the water still plentiful and clear.

The archaeology is thinner and the department says so. The chedi has never been excavated, only its base survives at 4.50 by 5.50 meters, and the department's Ninth Fine Arts unit suggested on the evidence of an old photograph and the brick that it might belong to Dvaravati culture — a suggestion, not a dating. The chukchi base under the images carries painted stucco of the Vessantara Jataka, and an earlier survey recorded figures there with animal heads, almost all of which had been chiselled off, leaving one that looks like a cock or a bird. The monastery also keeps a riddle of its own, the sort southern temples hand down: พุทธสามดอก วัดเข้าสามศอก วัดออกสามวา เชิญคิดเถิดหนา จะได้ของดี — three Buddhas, measure in three sok, measure out three wa, think it over and you will have something good.

What you actually see

The wihan, facing east: brick and stucco on a rectangular plan about 6.21 by 10.30 meters, walled on all four sides, one door at the front, two air vents in each gable, round brick piers inside. Its roof has been Thai tile, then thatch, and is now corrugated; the walls are painted yellow and a pa lai was added across the front.

The three stucco images themselves, seated cross-legged in the Maravijaya posture with oval faces the department reads as Ayutthaya work — curved brows, lowered eyes, jackfruit-thorn hair curls and a flame finial. The department's current measurements give the central image a lap 1.58 meters wide and a height of 2.50 meters, with the two flanking images at 1.06 by 1.50 and 1.05 by 1.36 meters.

The chukchi base under them, now brick, lime and ceramic tile, with painted stucco panels of Buddhist subjects including the Vessantara Jataka and a thep phanom kan yaeng border — and the near-total loss recorded by the Ninth Fine Arts unit of the stucco figures with animal heads, of which one cock's or bird's head survives.

The ruined chedi: the base only, 4.50 by 5.50 meters, square with arched niches around it that once held stucco sculpture. It has not been excavated and the department will not date it beyond calling it a small brick chedi.

The holy well on the right of the path up, about 1.25 meters across and still brick-lined, now under a roof with a cover over the mouth — the well whose water served Sai Buri's oath-of-allegiance rite and was among those drawn for a royal coronation ablution.

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 era of the two years the register prints for the monastery's move and renaming. The numerals are given without พ.ศ. or ค.ศ. beside them in a paragraph that uses พ.ศ. elsewhere, and nothing in the file resolves it.
• The date of the chedi. It has never been excavated. The Dvaravati attribution is the department's Ninth unit reasoning from an old photograph and the brickwork, and the department presents it as a hypothesis.
• Which of the three images, if any, was brought from Wat Chong Maeo. The department's history carries both accounts — all three brought in from three abandoned temples, or only the front one brought and the other two modeled new — and does not choose.
• Which coronation the well's water was drawn for. The department's record says the well was among those used for the royal ablution and names no reign.
• The part number and the day of the month of the 1935 instrument. The scan's header gives the volume, the month and the year legibly and the day is not readable at 300 or 600 dpi. The register gives 8 March and the department's own article elsewhere gives part 75.
• Opening arrangements. No state source consulted states hours, a fee, or whether the wihan the abbot once locked is open today.

Phra Phuttharup Sakdisit bon Khao Sakkhi: 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 Pattani’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.