Wat Khanon

What the official record says

Where Wat Khanon 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.

That supposition is as far as the record goes and this page does not take it further. The name is better attested than the date: the Ministry of Culture and the register agree that Khanon was the name of the water-toll post that stood in front of the monastery, and that the monastery took its name from the post.

The history of Wat Khanon

Nang yai is the oldest and grandest form of Thai shadow play: whole scenes cut into single hides, each figure carried and danced by a man who is as much a part of the performance as the puppet. It very nearly died. Three troupes in the country still carry the tradition, and the senior of them is here, in a monastery in Photharam that most people pass on the way to somewhere else.

The set was made in the reign of Rama V by Luang Pu Klom, then abbot, and the Ministry of Culture records that more than three hundred figures from it survive in good condition; the Fine Arts Department museum register puts the number at 313. That set is now the reason the monastery has a museum. The project to conserve it was begun by Phra Khru Satthasunthon, a later abbot, and it was taken up at the highest level: the museum register records that it rests on a royal initiative of HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, who proposed that the monastery make a complete new set to be performed in place of the old one, with the work carried out under Assistant Professor Son Simatrang, head of the applied arts department of the Faculty of Decorative Arts at Silpakorn University. The old set is kept and shown; the new set is danced.

What that has earned is worth stating exactly, because it is routinely overstated. In B.E. 2550 the transmission and revival of nang yai at Wat Khanon was given an award by ACCU, the Asia-Pacific Cultural Centre for UNESCO, and the monastery was named one of six outstanding communities worldwide for the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage. That is an award from a UNESCO-affiliated center, not an inscription on a UNESCO list. Nang yai was placed on Thailand's own national register of intangible cultural heritage in B.E. 2552. And in B.E. 2569 the Thai cabinet approved a nomination — the community-based revitalisation of nang yai in Thailand — for UNESCO's Register of Good Safeguarding Practices, the first Thai item ever put forward in that category. It is in process. It is not inscribed, and this page will not say otherwise until it is.

The monastery itself takes its name from its job. Khanon was a water-toll post in the Ayutthaya period, and one stood on the river in front of this monastery; the villagers took to calling the place after the post, and the older name dropped away. The protection it now has came late, in B.E. 2542, and covers about thirteen rai. Read the plan annexed to that instrument and the priorities are plain enough: among the numbered buildings are the hut where the shadow puppets are kept and the hall where they are shown.

What you actually see

The nang yai collection in the monastery museum — the Fine Arts Department register gives 313 figures in sound condition, with displays on the history of the form and on how a figure is cut.

A demonstration of the cutting itself, punch by punch, which the Ministry of Culture records being given at the monastery by Chalan Thawonnukunphong, a master craftsman of the handicraft arts.

The ordination hall, the subsidiary chedi, the monastery gateway arch and the bell tower, all of which the register lists among the monument's principal contents.

Two buildings on the registration plan that exist for the puppets alone: the kuti where the figures are stored and the hall where they are displayed, both labelled as such on the department's own drawing.

The river frontage where the Khanon toll post stood, which is where the monastery got its name.

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 date. A boundary stone cut with the numerals 2327 is reported by villagers, and the register treats what follows from it as a supposition. Nothing in the state record establishes a year.
• Whether the 313 figures in the museum register are the old set, the new set or both. The register gives one number and the Ministry of Culture says more than three hundred survive from the Rama V set.
• The outcome of the UNESCO nomination approved by the Thai cabinet in B.E. 2569, which was still in process when this page was written.
• Whether the performance schedule is fixed. The museum hours are published; the times of performances are not, beyond the annual festival in April.

Wat Khanon: 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 Ratchaburi’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.