Three brick prangs at Suwannaphum, raised for the Brahmanical trimurti and later rebuilt around a Buddha footprint and a six-headed naga.
กู่พระโกนา · Ku Phra Kona
| Official name | กู่พระโกนา — Ku Phra Kona |
|---|---|
| Where | Sa Khu, Suwannaphum, Roi Et |
| Royal temple class | Not established from an official register. |
| Monastic order | Not recorded in any register we could read. |
| Ancient monument | Registered national ancient monument Registered 8 March B.E. 2478 (1935); land boundary determined 21 October B.E. 2525 (1982), about 8 rai 2 ngan 16 square wa Both dates come from the Fine Arts Department's own interpretive page for the monument, which gives the areas in Thai digits as ๘ ไร่ ๒ งาน ๑๖ ตารางวา. The department's page states the dates without quoting volume and part numbers, so those are not printed here. |
Sa Khu, Suwannaphum, Roi Et
The exact location has not been confirmed yet.
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 year, founder or dedication inscription is recorded for this monument. The two state readings differ in emphasis rather than in date, and the Buddhist material on the site is demonstrably later than the building.
Ku Phra Kona sits inside a working temple compound at Tambon Sa Khu in Suwannaphum, and its plan is close enough to Ku Kasing's that the Fine Arts Department describes it by comparison: a group of buildings inside a wall, three prangs on a sandstone base in a north-south line facing east, a bannalai, and a pond outside. It is built of brick and sandstone. The department states plainly what it was for — the three gods of the trimurti, Shiva, Brahma and Vishnu — which is a firmer statement of dedication than most Khmer-culture sites in Isan get.
The reason to come is carved. The northern prang stands under a shelter that protects a set of stone panels, and the reliefs at the site include a Ramayana pediment and a Vishnu Anantasayin — the god reclining on the serpent on the cosmic ocean — which the Fine Arts Department has thought important enough to publish an article about under the title calling it the finest stone of Ku Phra Kona. The state tourism directory describes the same group: a pediment carved with the Ramayana and a panel of Vishnu asleep on the waters.
The Buddhist layer is later and is not hidden. On the lower level of the central prang there is a shrine housing a Buddha footprint, decorated with six-headed nagas, and the northern prang's shelter holds carved panels with both Vaishnava and Shaiva imagery. A Hindu sanctuary that has been in continuous devotional use as a Buddhist site is a common thing in Isan and an easy thing to describe wrongly. What is on record is that the building was raised for the trimurti and that the footprint shrine and the surrounding temple belong to a later use of it.
The layout once extended further than the wall. The state description has a naga bridge and a columned walkway running out from the sanctuary towards a reservoir roughly three hundred metres away, which places the monument in a landscape rather than on a plot — the water, the approach and the sanctuary read as one designed thing. That is the same relationship the pond has to the hospital chapel at Ku Phon Rakhang, seventy kilometres north-west, and it is the most useful habit of looking a visitor can take from one Khmer site in this province to the next.
Three brick prangs on a sandstone base in a north-south line facing east, the central one carrying shrine niches on all four sides.
The Buddha footprint shrine on the lower level of the central prang, decorated with six-headed nagas — a later Buddhist addition to a Brahmanical building, and the focus of devotion at the site today.
The northern prang under its protective shelter, holding carved stone panels with both Vaishnava and Shaiva subjects.
The Ramayana pediment, and the Vishnu Anantasayin panel — the god reclining on the serpent — which the Fine Arts Department singles out as the best carving on the site.
The line of the old approach: a naga bridge and a columned walkway once ran east towards a reservoir about three hundred metres away.
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 | No dress rule is published for the monument. It stands inside a working temple compound in daily devotional use, where the ordinary Thai convention applies: shoulders and knees covered, and shoes off inside any hall. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | Tambon Sa Khu, Suwannaphum district, in the southern rice districts of Roi Et. Reaching it needs a vehicle. |
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.
Hindu. The Fine Arts Department states that it was raised for the three gods of the trimurti — Shiva, Brahma and Vishnu. The Buddha footprint shrine on the central prang and the temple around the ruins are a later Buddhist use of a Brahmanical building, which is a different fact from what it was built as.
The Fine Arts Department's answer is the Vishnu Anantasayin panel, the god reclining on the serpent on the cosmic ocean, which it has published an article about under a title calling it the finest stone at the site. The Ramayana pediment is the other piece both state descriptions name.
The Fine Arts Department places it in the 16th Buddhist century, and the Ministry of Tourism and Sports' attraction directory gives the Baphuon period as B.E. 1560 to 1630. Neither gives a founding year, because no inscription from the site records one.
No. No source that names this monument publishes a coordinate for it, and this guide does not derive a pin from a temple name — there is more than one Ku in Roi Et alone. The district and subdistrict the register does carry are printed instead.
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 Roi Et’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.
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.