The forest monastery at Ban Nong Phue in the Phu Phan hills where Luang Pu Mun spent his last five rains-retreats, and whose small wooden hut is a registered national ancient monument in its own right.
วัดป่าภูริทัตตถิราวาส · Wat Pa Phurithattathirawat
| Official name | วัดป่าภูริทัตตถิราวาส — Wat Pa Phurithattathirawat |
|---|---|
| Where | Na Nai, Phanna Nikhom, Sakon Nakhon |
| 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 Royal Gazette vol. 96 part 15, 6 February B.E. 2522 — registration of the ancient monument. No separate boundary-determination instrument is listed for it. Read from the Fine Arts Department's own register service on 26 September 2026. The register carries the monument under the name of the BUILDING rather than the monastery — กุฏิพระอาจารย์มั่น ภูริทตตโต, monument 0003388, in Tambon Na Nai, Phanna Nikhom — and gives its status wording as registered with a determined land boundary while listing only the one registration instrument of B.E. 2522. Those two things do not quite agree, and the discrepancy is printed here rather than resolved in the department's favour. The registered monument is the hut, not the monastery around it. |
| Coordinates | 17.197558, 103.812042 Fine Arts Department national monument register, the department's own registered point for monument 0003388, read from its province service on 26 September 2026. It falls in Tambon Na Nai, Phanna Nikhom district, which is the address the register itself states for the hut. |
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.
It is worth being exact about what is registered and what is not. The instrument of B.E. 2522 registers the hut. Nothing read for this page registers the monastery, dates its foundation or dates the hut's construction. That a twentieth-century monk's hut is a registered national ancient monument at all is unusual and is itself the strongest official statement of what this place is taken to be.
Wat Pa Bhuridattathirawas stands at Ban Nong Phue in Tambon Na Nai, in the Phu Phan hills of Phanna Nikhom district, roughly fifty kilometres from the city of Sakon Nakhon. Almost nobody uses its formal name. Locally it is Wat Pa Ban Nong Phue, and in the Fine Arts Department's register it appears under neither name but under the name of a single building inside it — กุฏิพระอาจารย์มั่น ภูริทตตโต, the hut of Phra Ajahn Mun Bhuridatta, monument 0003388. Searching a state register for the monastery finds nothing; searching for the hut finds everything. That is worth knowing before anyone tries to verify a claim about this place.
The reason the hut is what got registered is that the hut is what happened here. A study in the journal of the Faculty of Architecture at Khon Kaen University records that this was the residence where Luang Pu Mun spent the longest period of rains-retreats of his life, from B.E. 2488 to B.E. 2492, immediately before his death — five years in one place at the end of a lifetime of walking. The teaching that shaped the modern Thai forest tradition was given in these five years to the monks who came to sit with him here, and they carried it out to monasteries across the north-east and beyond. The building is small, wooden and raised, and it is not architecturally remarkable in any way; what is remarkable is that the Thai state registered it as a national ancient monument thirty years after it was built.
The registration instrument was published in the Royal Gazette at volume 96, part 15, on 6 February B.E. 2522, and that citation was read from the department's own register service rather than from a secondary account. One wrinkle is printed here rather than smoothed over: the register's status wording describes the monument as registered with a determined land boundary, but only the single registration instrument of B.E. 2522 is listed against it, with no separate boundary instrument of the kind that exists for the Khmer monuments in this province. Whether a boundary was ever determined for this hut is therefore unresolved on the department's own record.
The department has continued to treat it as its responsibility. On Thursday 27 January B.E. 2565 the director of the Fine Arts Department's Regional Office 8 in Khon Kaen, Thanaphat Chitsutthiphon, together with Sanphet Champathet, director of the office's ancient-monuments conservation group, inspected the hut for damage and reported both the damage and a proposed conservation approach to the abbot. The office published its own record of that visit. For a building of this kind — timber, in a damp upland climate, visited constantly — a documented state inspection is the most useful single fact about its condition, and it is more informative than any description of how the hut looks.
The hut itself: a small raised timber dwelling, the registered national ancient monument, where Luang Pu Mun lived through his last five rains-retreats from B.E. 2488 to B.E. 2492.
The monastery's forest setting in the Phu Phan hills, which is the point rather than the backdrop — this is what a forest monastery of the tradition actually looks like, as distinct from the city monastery where he was cremated.
The hall and the monastery buildings that have grown up around the hut since, including the cave-and-image motif the Khon Kaen University study traces from Wat Pa Suthawat to this site.
The evidence of continuing state conservation: the hut has been formally inspected for damage by the Fine Arts Department's Regional Office 8, which published its own record of the visit.
The distance itself — about fifty kilometres of hill road from the city, which is part of why the five years spent here were spent in seclusion.
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 forest monastery in the hills and a place of pilgrimage. Cover shoulders and knees, keep silence in the area of the hut, and remove shoes before entering any building. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | Ban Nong Phue, Tambon Na Nai, Phanna Nikhom district, in the Phu Phan hills roughly fifty kilometres from the city of Sakon Nakhon. The monastery is commonly signposted and searched as Wat Pa Ban Nong Phue rather than by its formal name. |
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.
Because of what happened in it. The Fine Arts Department registered the hut of Luang Pu Mun Bhuridatta by an instrument published in the Royal Gazette on 6 February B.E. 2522, about three decades after the building went up — an unusual thing for the register to do and the clearest official measure of how the place is regarded.
This is where Luang Pu Mun lived and taught through his last five rains-retreats, from B.E. 2488 to B.E. 2492. Wat Pa Suthawat, in the city about fifty kilometres away, is where he was cremated and where the museum of his possessions stands.
Its formal name is Wat Pa Bhuridattathirawas, locally it is Wat Pa Ban Nong Phue, and in the state monument register it appears only under the name of the hut. All three refer to the same place in Tambon Na Nai.
The Fine Arts Department's Regional Office 8 inspected it for damage on 27 January B.E. 2565 and reported the damage and a conservation approach to the abbot. The office's record does not publish what the damage was.
No source read for this page states whether the interior is open. Treat it as a registered monument under conservation and follow whatever the monastery directs on the day.
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 Sakon Nakhon’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.