Wat Pathumwari

What the official record says

Where Wat Pathumwari 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 B.E. 2325 attribution reaches the register through a published compilation rather than through an instrument, and the department does not rest its own dating on it: it argues from the inscription instead, which gives a floor of B.E. 2437 and nothing above it. The two should not be read as one claim.

The history of Wat Pathumwari

Wat Pathumwari has had four names and the register files all of them. The compilation of temple histories the department quotes attributes its building to a monk called Phra Phet from Ban Khuan over in Panare, at about B.E. 2325, and gives the first name as Wat Kla Pho. Villagers called it Wat Tro Bon after the locality, which is also the subdistrict name, and the official name became Wat Prathumwari in B.E. 2485. The department is careful not to treat the B.E. 2325 attribution as its own dating. It reasons from an object instead.

That object is an inscription written on the kho song board inside the old timber preaching hall. The department transcribes it in full, spelling and all, and it reads as a dedication with dates: the hall was begun in B.E. 2437, a Year of the Horse, in the fourth lunar month, by Athikan Kaeo together with the monks of the temple and the lay supporters and relations of the village, at a place the inscription calls Wat Ko Bon; the work ran until B.E. 2443, a Year of the Rat, in the seventh lunar month, when the finished hall was celebrated. It ends with wishes for the donors — that they escape hardship and suffering, that the finished hall bring merit, and a Pali closing. From that six-year build the department infers that the monastery was already there before B.E. 2437, at the latest early in the twenty-fourth Buddhist century. That is as far as the evidence goes and the department stops there.

The painting is why the place is registered. Both the timber kuti and the old sala carry distemper-and-glue work on wood, and the two schemes are versions of the same idea: a ceiling with the sun and the moon at the center, ringed by deities, the Witthayathon, Ramasun and Mekhala, with a border of prachamyam khruea thao. In the kuti the ground is yellow with a red ceiling and there is a yaksha with a monkey, Ramakien scenes elsewhere, and some panels the department reads as episodes from monks' lives. In the sala the ceiling ground is blue and the kho song carries the life of the Buddha. The department puts the whole painted area at about fifteen square meters and calls it fifth-reign work crossed with southern vernacular style — the manner, it notes, that was painted across the monasteries of the five southern border provinces, naming Wat Khuan Nai and Wat Hongsaram in Panare, Wat Chulamani in Sai Buri and Wat Chonthara Singhe over in Tak Bai as the comparisons.

That last point is the one worth carrying away. Fifteen square meters is not much painting. But it belongs to a regional school that survives in a handful of village monasteries along this coast, several of them registered and most of them in trouble, and the department's condition note on this one is blunt: the kuti is very badly decayed and has gone without restoration. The monument has been registered since September B.E. 2548 with 4 rai 1 ngan 36 square wa protected. Registration is a legal protection and not a repair.

What you actually see

The Thai-form timber kuti in the middle of the compound: a two-bay house facing south, about 5.60 by 7 meters in its original part, with a veranda round the rooms, no solid walls but eaves-skirt screens on three sides, and a masonry extension about 4.40 by 7 meters built on across the front.

The painting inside that kuti — distemper mixed with glue on wood over a yellow ground, with a red ground on the ceiling. At the center the sun and the moon, ringed by deities, the Witthayathon, Ramasun and Mekhala, and a yaksha with a monkey; a prachamyam khruea thao border; and Ramakien scenes and some monks' lives elsewhere.

The old timber sala, the former preaching hall, about 20 meters south of the kuti on the east side of the compound: 3.60 by 4 meters, facing west, raised high on posts, clay-tile roof, with a painted ceiling on a blue ground carrying the same sun, moon and company of deities, and the life of the Buddha along the kho song.

The inscription on the kho song board of that sala, which the department transcribes in full: begun B.E. 2437 under Athikan Kaeo, finished and celebrated B.E. 2443, at a place the writer calls Wat Ko Bon.

About fifteen square meters of painting in total across the two buildings — the department's own figure, and a useful corrective to any expectation of a mural cycle.

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.

• Whether anything supports the attribution of the founding to Phra Phet of Ban Khuan at about B.E. 2325. It appears in a published compilation of temple histories and in no instrument, and the department's own dating argument does not use it.
• Who painted the kuti and the sala. The department dates the style to the fifth reign crossed with southern vernacular work and names no painter for either building.
• What the panels the department reads as monks' lives actually depict. The register says only that some images are the history of monks.
• Why the inscription calls the place Wat Ko Bon while the register and the village call it Wat Tro Bon. The department prints both without comment.
• The present state of the painting. The department's recorded condition is that the kuti is very badly decayed and unrestored, and that note is the most recent thing any state source consulted says about it.
• Opening hours and admission. No official source consulted states either.

Wat Pathumwari: 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.