The forest monastery inside the city where Luang Pu Mun Bhuridatta was cremated in January 1950, and where the museum built to hold his few possessions was deliberately designed as a cave rather than as a shrine.
วัดป่าสุทธาวาส · Wat Pa Suthawat
| Official name | วัดป่าสุทธาวาส — Wat Pa Suthawat |
|---|---|
| Where | That Choeng Chum, Mueang Sakon Nakhon, Sakon Nakhon |
| Royal temple class | Not established from an official register. |
| Monastic order | Not recorded in any register we could read. |
| Ancient monument | Not established. |
| Coordinates | 17.150964, 104.138625 Fine Arts Department national monument register, the department's own recorded point for record 0014619, read from its province service on 26 September 2026. It falls in Tambon That Choeng Chum, Mueang Sakon Nakhon, which is the address the register itself states. This is NOT record 0002856, which is a different Wat Pa Suthawat in So Phisai district, Bueng Kan province. |
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 Fine Arts Department's register does carry this monastery, as record 0014619, but its status is รอประเมินความเป็นโบราณสถาน — awaiting assessment of ancient-monument status. That is not registration and there is no gazette instrument, so the ancient-monument field on this page is null rather than rounded up to a status the monastery does not hold. The date the monastery itself was founded was not established by any state source read here.
Wat Pa Suthawat stands in Tambon That Choeng Chum in Mueang Sakon Nakhon, which is to say inside the city — a forest monastery that the town grew around. It is the single most visited Buddhist site in this province and the reason is one event. Luang Pu Mun Bhuridatta, the teacher whom the modern Thai forest tradition traces itself to and whose disciples founded meditation monasteries across the north-east, the north and beyond, died on 11 November B.E. 2492 and was cremated here on 31 January B.E. 2493. Those two dates are taken here from a study in the journal of the Faculty of Architecture at Khon Kaen University rather than from devotional literature, because a peer-reviewed source that cites its own evidence is a different kind of claim from a hagiography.
The same study records a detail that says a great deal about the man and about the twenty-three years that followed. There was no royally bestowed cremation. Luang Pu Sao, his own teacher, had received one in B.E. 2486; for Luang Pu Mun in B.E. 2493 the King was abroad — studying in Switzerland from B.E. 2489 — and returned only in March of that year, after the cremation was over. For more than two decades afterwards nothing permanent was built. The study is explicit about why: Luang Pu Mun had not wanted buildings raised, would not even have his own hut rebuilt unless it was genuinely necessary, and his ordained disciples held to that strictly. A great reliquary stupa would have contradicted the whole point of him.
What was eventually built instead, in B.E. 2516, was a museum of his requisites — his bowl, his robes, the few objects a forest monk owns. The study names the people: the architect was Khaisri Tansiri, an architectural specialist at the Ministry of Public Health, and the engineer was Chawalit Kaenmani. The foundation stone was laid on 11 November B.E. 2516, the twenty-fourth anniversary of his death, with Luang Pu Fan Ajaro presiding for the sangha and Son Sutthisan, then governor of Sakon Nakhon, for the laity. The building was finished and opened on 2 February B.E. 2518, with the Supreme Patriarch, Somdet Phra Ariyawongsakhatayan of Wat Ratchabophit, presiding.
The design is the interesting part, and it is not a shrine. The concept, the study says, was to reproduce the condition of a cave — specifically Tham Phai Khwang beside the Sarika waterfall in Nakhon Nayok, where tradition holds he attained the dhamma in B.E. 2455 — so the building curves outward at the sides instead of being rectangular in the manner of a hall. Inside, at the far end, a platform raised seventy centimetres carries a cast statue of him in dark metal, a little larger than life, the work of sculptors from Silpakorn University; his relics are displayed in front of it. Eight display cases line the inner wall, shaped as lotus flowers in alternating colours, which the study reads as pointing either to the eightfold path or to Ubon Ratchathani, his home province, whose emblem is the lotus. The study also notes what is absent: no symbol of the Buddha appears anywhere in the building, inside or out, except one image he had kept for his own private devotion, which is displayed among his things.
The museum of Luang Pu Mun's requisites: a single-storey building raised 1.50 metres, in reinforced concrete with a black marble floor, whose sides curve outward because the design reproduces the shape of a cave rather than of a hall.
The terracotta relief sculpture across the front of the museum, which sets out the thirteen dhutanga austerities — the ascetic practices that defined his life.
Inside, on a platform raised seventy centimetres: the dark cast statue of him, slightly larger than life, by sculptors from Silpakorn University, with his relics displayed in front of it.
The eight lotus-shaped display cases along the inner wall holding his few possessions, and the single Buddha image he kept for private devotion — the only Buddha symbol in the building.
The ordination hall, which won an award for pioneering religious architecture from the Association of Siamese Architects under royal patronage in B.E. 2516 and which functions as part of the memorial rather than apart from it.
The grounds themselves: the place where the cremation was held on 31 January B.E. 2493, and where the annual Wan Burapha Charn observance for him has been kept since.
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 middle of a city and a place of pilgrimage rather than an attraction. Cover shoulders and knees, keep voices low, and remove shoes before entering the museum and the ordination hall. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | In Tambon That Choeng Chum, Mueang Sakon Nakhon district, about two kilometres south-west of Phra That Choeng Chum and within the built-up area of the city. |
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 Luang Pu Mun Bhuridatta, the teacher the modern Thai forest tradition traces itself to, was cremated here on 31 January B.E. 2493, and the museum built afterwards holds his relics and his few possessions.
Deliberately not. The Khon Kaen University study of the site records that his disciples held to his wish that nothing permanent be built, and that when a building finally went up in B.E. 2516 it was designed as a museum of his requisites in the shape of a cave, with no symbol of the Buddha anywhere in it.
Khaisri Tansiri, an architectural specialist at the Ministry of Public Health, with Chawalit Kaenmani as engineer. The statue inside is the work of sculptors from Silpakorn University.
No. The Fine Arts Department's register carries the monastery as record 0014619 with the status awaiting assessment of ancient-monument status, and no Royal Gazette instrument exists for it. The registered monument associated with Luang Pu Mun is his hut at Ban Nong Phue in Phanna Nikhom.
No official source read for this page publishes them. They are left unconfirmed here rather than guessed; the monastery is a place of pilgrimage and is normally accessible through daylight.
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.