The third-class royal monastery at the center of old Ratchaburi, built around a laterite prang that Khmer-culture builders raised and early Ayutthaya rebuilt.
วัดมหาธาตุวรวิหาร · Wat Maha That Worawihan
By the BAANLYY Editorial Team · Last checked 3 October 2026
| Official name | วัดมหาธาตุวรวิหาร — Wat Maha That Worawihan |
|---|---|
| Where | Na Mueang, Mueang Ratchaburi, Ratchaburi |
| Royal temple class | Third class royal temple, Worawihan (พระอารามหลวงชั้นตรี ชนิดวรวิหาร) The Ratchaburi provincial office of the National Office of Buddhism gives the grade in its list of the province's principal monasteries, and resolutions of the Sangha Supreme Council published on the same office's national site repeat it in the formula used when appointing to the monastery. |
| Monastic order | Not recorded in any register we could read. |
| Ancient monument | Registered national ancient monument Royal Gazette vol. 52, part 75, p. 3696, 8 March B.E. 2478, item 29.1; land boundary set by Royal Gazette vol. 100, part 88, 31 May B.E. 2526 Two instruments, and they do not name the same thing. The 1935 list, read at source, enters the monument as วัดพระมหาธาตุ — the monastery. The 1983 boundary announcement recites that earlier registration as โบราณสถานพระปรางค์วัดมหาธาตุวรวิหาร — the prang of the monastery — and then sets a boundary in two zones: area ก of 7 rai 2 ngan 96 square wa and area ข of 2 ngan 59 square wa. Both figures were read off the scan and match the register exactly. The narrowing from the wat to the prang happens entirely in the department's own recital, forty-eight years later. The same list names three other monuments in this province, and one of them, Phong Tuk, is in Kanchanaburi today: the Act Changing Provincial Boundaries, in force 1 April B.E. 2480, moved all of Amphoe Tha Maka except one subdistrict out of Ratchaburi two years after the list was published. |
| Coordinates | 13.546607, 99.814538 Fine Arts Department national monument register, record 0004810, which gives the position as GPS-derived and places it in Tambon Na Mueang, Amphoe Mueang Ratchaburi — the subdistrict the 1983 instrument also names. |
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 two bodies then print different years for that. The Fine Arts Department register says about B.E. 2388, in the reign of Rama III. The provincial office of the National Office of Buddhism names the same reign but gives B.E. 2338, which is fifty years earlier and falls in the reign of Rama I. One of the two is a slip, and this page does not guess which.
Stand in front of the prang and you are looking at three towns at once. The Fine Arts Department's register says plainly that excavation found building of several periods set one over another here, and the National Office of Buddhism's provincial office spells out the sequence: a Dvaravati religious building first, then in about the eighteenth Buddhist century a rebuilding in Khmer form, with a laterite wall thrown round it to make the place the center of the town on the Khmer cosmological model, and then in early Ayutthaya a prang in Ayutthaya form raised over the top of that, with three smaller prangs added on the same base. Nothing was demolished to make room. Each town built on what the last one left.
Then the town walked away. Under Rama II the provincial seat of Ratchaburi was moved from the west bank of the Mae Klong to the east bank, and the population followed the move. The monastery was left without resident monks — a deserted wat in the middle of a place that was no longer the middle of anything. That is the part of the story worth sitting with, because it is why the prang survived in the state it is in: for a generation nobody had the money or the reason to improve it.
What brought it back was one person. Both the department and the provincial Buddhism office tell the same account of a monk named Bunma who came through on tudong, found the ground quiet and shaded and fit for practice, and set about clearing and repairing the buildings with help from the people living nearby. The monastery became the religious center of Ratchaburi again and has stayed one. It holds the grade of a third-class royal monastery of the Worawihan rank, which the provincial office states and the Sangha Supreme Council's appointment resolutions repeat.
The registration history has a wrinkle of its own. The 1935 national list, read on the page, registers the monastery. The 1983 boundary announcement describes that same earlier registration as covering the prang, and draws its boundary accordingly — in two separate zones rather than one. Whether the department meant to narrow what was protected or simply wrote loosely in the recital, the two instruments do not say the same thing, and this page prints both rather than picking one.
The main prang with three subsidiary prangs on a single base, faced in stucco ornament, with a porch and steps on the east leading into a crypt that connects to the tower.
Murals of the past Buddhas on every interior wall of the prang. The department's register notes that the painting inside the mondop is very badly faded; the prang's own cycle is presumed by the provincial office to be contemporary with the tower.
The kamphaeng kaeo — a rectangular enclosure wall built of laterite blocks laid in six horizontal courses all the way round the prang, which the register lists as a separate feature of the monument.
The ruined wihan luang in front of the prang, outside the cloister: a rectangular platform with a laterite lowest course, carrying an open timber building with a sheet-metal roof that is said locally to have been put up in B.E. 2454. Inside it, two large Buddha images of stucco over a sandstone core, in the maravijaya gesture, seated back to back.
The ubosot, which the department attributes on its architecture to the late Ayutthaya period and records as last repaired in B.E. 2509. Its base curves like the hull of a junk — the แอ่นท้องช้าง profile — and the door and window arches are stucco set with mirror glass.
The mondop north of the prang, square with twenty indented corners, its roof entirely gone. A red sandstone Buddha footprint stands inside, and the murals of the descent from Tavatimsa and the defeat of Mara have been washed down the walls by rain since the roof went.
Five chedi in a row in front of the mondop — four bell-shaped, one with twelve indented corners — and a marble plaque at the foot of the twelve-cornered one recording who paid for it in B.E. 2462.
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 | A working royal monastery. Cover shoulders and knees, and take your shoes off before going into the ordination hall or any building where people are at practice. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | On Thanon Khao Ngu in Tambon Na Mueang, near the center of Ratchaburi town on the west bank of the Mae Klong, about a kilometer from the provincial hall. |
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.
Yes. The Ratchaburi provincial office of the National Office of Buddhism records it as a third-class royal monastery of the Worawihan rank, and the Sangha Supreme Council's appointment resolutions use the same formula.
There is no single answer, and that is the point. The department's register says excavation found work of several periods built one over another. The provincial Buddhism office describes a Dvaravati building first, a Khmer-form rebuilding in about the eighteenth Buddhist century, and an Ayutthaya-form prang raised over that in the twentieth to twenty-first Buddhist centuries.
Because the town left. Under Rama II the provincial seat was moved from the west bank of the Mae Klong to the east bank and the people went with it, leaving the monastery without resident monks until a monk named Bunma rebuilt it in the reign of Rama III.
No official source consulted publishes any. It is a working monastery rather than a ticketed site.
The painting is there — past Buddhas on every interior wall — but access to the crypt is the monastery's to give, so ask at the office rather than assuming.
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.
Last checked 3 October 2026
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.