Three ancient brick chedis on the site of a vanished temple at Ban Khanan, Thalang, which villagers hold contain the bones of a nun, a revered monk whose spirit is still honoured at every major village event, and soldiers from Phuket's 1785 defence against Burmese invasion. Named in the same 2018 Royal Gazette listing as Wat Khosit Worawiharn; not a functioning temple.
วัดแขนน · Wat Khanan
| Official name | วัดแขนน — Wat Khanan |
|---|---|
| Where | Thep Kasattri, Thalang, Phuket |
| Royal temple class | Not established from an official register. |
| Monastic order | Not recorded in any register we could read. |
| Ancient monument | Named in a Royal Gazette list of ancient monuments; not registered Royal Gazette vol. 135, part special 165 ง, 12 July B.E. 2561 (2018), p. 27 Named in the same 2018 Royal Gazette list of ancient monuments as monument 0017436 (Wat Khosit Worawiharn) — a bare gazette listing under the department's general administrative power, not a registration under section 7 of the Ancient Monuments Act. The register gives no boundary area. |
| Coordinates | 8.035952, 98.345596 Fine Arts Department register, monument 0008487 |
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.
No founding date for the original temple, nor a burial date for any of the three chedis, is given by any source consulted. The department's own register frames the entire site through the word เชื่อว่า, 'it is believed,' throughout, and this page follows that framing rather than converting village belief into documented fact.
North of Ban Khanan village in Tambon Thep Kasattri, Amphoe Thalang, three small ancient chedis stand in a row on ground the Fine Arts Department's own register describes as once believed to have held a temple. No wat operates here today. What remains is the chedi group, gazetted in 2018 alongside Wat Khosit Worawiharn in the same Phuket listing, and a body of village belief the department records at length and treats, throughout its own note, as belief rather than fact — every sentence about the site's meaning is framed with the word เชื่อว่า, it is believed.
The belief itself is specific. Villagers hold that the site is sacred because a monk of great spiritual power, known as Pho Than Chai Khiri, once lived here, and that his spirit remains present to this day; the department records that every significant village event — ordinations, weddings, merit-making ceremonies — still includes paying respect to that spirit before proceeding. The three chedis west of the old site are held, in the same village telling, to contain three sets of remains: a Buddhist nun's, Pho Than Chai Khiri's own, and the bones of soldiers who served under Thao Thep Kasattri and Thao Sri Sunthon, the two women credited with rallying Thalang's defence against a Burmese invasion force in B.E. 2328 (1785) — the same campaign remembered at Wat Phra Nang Sang, several kilometres away, where the temple compound is separately recorded as having served as a military encampment that year.
The physical remains are more securely described than the belief attached to them. The department's own art-and-culture note gives the chedis' brick as 13 by 15 by 5 centimetres, a size it attributes, on comparative grounds rather than by citing a dated document, to the late Ayutthaya through early Rattanakosin period. Two of the three chedis are square in plan; the third has a twelve-niche, redented footprint and incorporates stone alongside its brickwork. In B.E. 2544 (2001) a local district official rebuilt new outer shells over all three — round, straw-stack-shaped casings the department likens to an upturned cover — over brick platforms laid at their bases.
Excavation at the site recovered a genuinely varied small assemblage: earthenware funerary urns, some whole and some broken, decorated with incised lines, cord-marked impressions and stamped patterns; a brown-glazed Chinese-style teapot consistent with early Rattanakosin manufacture; a blue-and-white glazed jar; a lidded brown-glazed jar decorated with a floral motif; a fragment of a fired-clay stupa finial; a small, flattened, button-like green stone; and a bronze bowl pierced through its base. The department records the finds without assigning individual dates to each, and this page does not add precision the excavation report itself does not supply.
BAANLYY does not represent this site, which is not a functioning temple, and nothing on this page is legal or religious advice.
Three ancient brick chedis in a row, two square in plan and one with a twelve-niche redented footprint, re-encased in round, straw-stack-shaped brick shells built in B.E. 2544 (2001).
The excavated finds recorded by the Fine Arts Department, including decorated earthenware funerary urns, a brown-glazed Chinese-style teapot, a blue-and-white glazed jar, a fired-clay stupa-finial fragment and a pierced bronze bowl — described in the register but not necessarily on public display at the site itself.
The site's setting north of Ban Khanan village, on ground no longer occupied by any standing temple.
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 | Not established from an official source. |
|---|---|
| Admission | Not established from an official source. |
| Dress | Not established from an official source. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | Ban Khanan (Moo 2), Thep Kasattri, Thalang, Phuket, per the Fine Arts Department's register. |
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.
No. The site is three ancient brick chedis on ground villagers believe once held a temple; no wat operates there today. The Fine Arts Department's own register treats the site as an archaeological and folk-devotional location rather than an active monastic institution, and this page follows that framing.
According to the Fine Arts Department's own record of local belief, the three chedis are held to contain, respectively, the remains of a Buddhist nun, the remains of a revered monk known as Pho Than Chai Khiri, and the bones of soldiers who served under Thao Thep Kasattri and Thao Sri Sunthon during Thalang's defence against a Burmese invasion force in B.E. 2328 (1785). The department states this throughout as belief, using the word เชื่อว่า, rather than as an established fact, and this page does the same.
A monk villagers of Ban Khanan hold once lived and is buried at this site, and whose spirit they believe remains present today. The Fine Arts Department's own register records that his spirit is still honoured at every significant village event — ordinations, weddings and merit-making ceremonies alike — though no documented biography or dates for him were found in the sources consulted for this page.
The Fine Arts Department's register lists a varied small assemblage: earthenware funerary urns, some intact and some fragmentary, decorated with incised, cord-marked and stamped patterns; a brown-glazed Chinese-style teapot consistent with early Rattanakosin manufacture; a blue-and-white glazed jar; a lidded brown-glazed jar with floral decoration; a fragment of a fired-clay stupa finial; a small green stone resembling a button; and a bronze bowl pierced through its base. The department records these finds without assigning individual dates.
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 Phuket’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.
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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.