Phra Phutthachai

What the official record says

Where Phra Phutthachai 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.

The state's four positions on this object run from the dryly agnostic to the devotional, and the gap is the most interesting thing about it. The department's own mural conservation survey says in the register that it cannot be determined whether the image is human-made or natural and that the red may be seepage of hematite or iron minerals; its 2560 study says no clear origin record exists; a department-published rock-art survey of B.E. 2553 files พระพุทธฉาย among twelve prehistoric representational painting sites; and the royal proclamation of B.E. 2568 states without hedging that King Song Tham of Ayutthaya founded the monastery here.

The history of Phra Phutthachai

The thing people come to see is a faint reddish impression on the overhang of a limestone cliff, and the Fine Arts Department's own register is remarkably candid about it. Its mural conservation section describes a red image of a standing Buddha, the head large and the body full, heavily gilded below, still sound — and then says that it cannot be determined whether a human being made it or whether it formed on its own, and that the red may be the seepage of hematite or iron minerals. The register gives the image's height as about five meters; the same department's mural survey, in the same database record, says seven. Both figures belong on the page because neither body will withdraw one.

The monastery around it was raised to a royal monastery on 23 March B.E. 2568, and the proclamation was read at source: second class, Worawihan sub-rank, granted on the occasion of the King's sixth-cycle birthday. Its official name is now วัดพระพุทธฉายวรวิหาร. That makes a small oddity worth recording: the department's register for the monument was last updated in January B.E. 2569, ten months after the proclamation, and still carries only พระพุทธฉาย with no monastery name and no royal grade, so a reader consulting the heritage register alone would not learn that this is now a royal monastery. The provincial Buddhism office's own collection of the province's important temples does not list it either.

The better documentary story is thirty-one meters west of the mouth of ถ้ำฤๅษี, and it is not Buddhist. A Fine Arts Department archaeologist from the regional office that covers Saraburi surveyed and traced the prehistoric paintings in this rock shelter in fiscal year 2560 and published the result the same year. The shelter faces southwest, is about 106 meters long and about 20 meters above the foot of the hill, with the upper part overhanging like a roof. She records three groups of paintings in red and dark red, from 70 cm above the floor up to about 5.5 meters: a junglefowl with five curved tail feathers; a row of lozenges, a cross with parallel lines inside it, wavy lines still showing brush-tool marks, and a stick-figure man holding a weapon; and, under the mondop roof itself, a lozenge, a right hand made by laying the palm on the rock and filling it in, and a procession of people and animals facing west, the leader with both arms raised and a tether in one hand, with a dog in the line. She states that this is the only prehistoric rock-painting site found in Saraburi province.

Two things follow that a visitor should know. The first is that she dates the paintings to roughly 4,000 to 1,500 years ago and says in her own words that this is only her hypothesis — reasoning from the subject matter, which mixes foraging with herding or cultivation, and from the late Neolithic to Iron Age sites known in the area, with no direct dating and no pigment analysis done. The second is that the paintings are not in a gated archaeological zone: part of group two and all of group three lie under the mondop roof and inside the กำแพงแก้ว, which is to say inside the enclosure a pilgrim walks into, and her report records active graffiti and spray-paint damage there. The register also notes, without euphemism, that the monument sits inside a village with housing, shops, a school and a scout camp, and that wastewater from them runs into the stream.

What you actually see

The Phra Phutthachai itself: a faint reddish impression on the cliff overhang, described in the register as resembling a standing Buddha and painted in red lines like ดินเทศ, gilded over heavily at the lower part. The register gives its height as about 5 meters and the department's own mural survey gives 7 meters.

A two-spired mondop with a กำแพงแก้ว built against the shelter, enclosing the image — and, as the department's own 2560 study records, enclosing part of the prehistoric paintings with it.

The prehistoric paintings, in three groups along the shelter: a junglefowl in solid red about 31 m west of the mouth of ถ้ำฤๅษี; geometric lozenges, wavy lines and a figure with a weapon a further 15 to 21 m west, between 1.5 and 5.5 m up; and, under the mondop roof, a filled-in right handprint and a procession of people and animals with a dog in it.

A separate มณฑปพระเจ้าเสือ, which the department attributes to the reign of King Suea and restored in B.E. 2535, 2537 and 2552, and a third mondop over a replica footprint on the summit of เขาฆาฏกะ.

The royal cyphers at the cliff foot: จปร, cut by order of King Chulalongkorn with the year of his visit; ภปร and สก from the visit of King Bhumibol and Queen Sirikit on 3 November B.E. 2516; and the names of other royal visitors since.

A sala west of the cyphers enshrining a reclining Buddha, and a staircase from the monastery below up to the mondop and on to the cliff face — no official source publishes the number of steps.

The neighboring registered monuments a visitor walks past: ถ้ำฤๅษี, a natural limestone cave with a hermit figure enshrined at its mouth, and เขาลม, whose register record is bleak — its ordination hall, vihara, small chedis and wall are recorded as destroyed and its mondop as very badly decayed.

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.

• Whether the image is human work at all. The Fine Arts Department's own conservation survey says it cannot be determined, and that the red may be hematite or iron seepage; its 2560 study says no clear record of the origin or the painting exists.
• The height of the image. The register says about 5 meters and the department's mural survey says 7, in the same database record, and neither figure has been withdrawn.
• Whether the footprint here is an original or a replica. The royal proclamation of B.E. 2568 states that the monastery enshrines the right footprint of the Buddha, flatly; the department's register for the adjoining monument เขาลม calls it a replica with a mondop over it, and a departmental file of 18 November B.E. 2535 seeks permission to repair the มณฑปพระบาทจำลอง on the hilltop. This is a direct disagreement between the Crown and the heritage authority about the nature of the principal relic, and it is left standing.
• The sect. The national temple registry refused access, and the provincial Buddhism office's collection of important temples does not include this monastery at all.
• The age of the paintings beyond the published hypothesis. The department's own researcher reports 4,000 to 1,500 years before the present and states that it is only her hypothesis, that nearby evidence cannot be shown to be contemporaneous, and that scientific dating remains to be done. No pigment analysis has been published.
• Why the department's structured period data assigns this monument no period at all — every period flag is set to zero — while the same register's narrative and the department's own published research place paintings here in the prehistoric period.
• Opening hours, a dress rule, a photography rule, and whether any separate rate applies to foreign visitors. No official source states any of them.
• The number of steps on the staircase, which no official source publishes.

Phra Phutthachai: 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 Saraburi’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.