A reclining Buddha, an octagonal chedi of a type found almost nowhere outside this river, and a wooden footprint nobody can place.
วัดพระรูป · Wat Phra Rup
| Official name | วัดพระรูป — Wat Phra Rup |
|---|---|
| Where | Rua Yai, Mueang Suphan Buri, Suphan Buri |
| 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. 52, part 75, p. 3710, 8 March B.E. 2478, item 11 of the Suphan Buri section One instrument, read on the page. The 1935 list enters วัดพระรูป under Amphoe Tha Phi Liang, Tambon Rua Yai, as item 11 of the thirty-six Suphan Buri monuments. No land boundary has ever been determined for it, which is why the register shows a registration with no area attached. As at Wat Phra Si Rattana Mahathat, the modern register files it under Tambon Tha Phi Liang while the 1935 list says Tambon Rua Yai. |
| Coordinates | 14.470405, 100.113094 Fine Arts Department national monument register, record 0004885, placing it on the west bank of the Tha Chin in Mueang Suphan Buri, about 800 metres south of record 0004884, which matches the register's description of this monastery as standing on the west bank of the river. |
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 chedi is the dated thing here and it is dated by its shape. That is a real kind of evidence and a weaker one than an inscription, so the page says which it is. Nothing consulted names a founder or a year.
The thing to go and look at here is about 60 centimetres across and a metre and eighty long, and it is made of wood. The Fine Arts Department register describes a wooden Buddha footprint carved on the front with the 108 auspicious marks arranged inside a circle in the middle of the sole, and on the BACK with the defeat of Mara and the four guardian kings of the directions. A footprint carved on both faces is not a thing you stand on the ground. The department says it is believed to have been brought here from somewhere else, and it does not say from where.
The second reason to come is the chedi. It is octagonal with a round bell on top, and the register identifies that combination as a form specific to the art of Suphannaphum, the old name for this stretch of the Tha Chin, which is also called U Thong art. It dates it to about the nineteenth Buddhist century on the shape alone. The same type stands in front of the prang at Wat Phra Si Rattana Mahathat a kilometre north, and the register explicitly links the two. Two monasteries on one bank with the same unusual chedi is how a regional school gets identified.
The reclining Buddha is in a brick-and-stucco vihara on the river side of the compound. The register supposes the building goes back to the Suphannaphum period and has been repaired many times since, and calls the image an example of the Suphan Buri school. The Fine Arts Department's own visitor itinerary for this province sends people here for exactly that, along with the wooden footprint and the Ayutthaya stucco work.
Then there is a Chinese pavilion, which is not what you expect in a list of Ayutthaya-period monuments. The register dates it to about B.E. 2450, puts it on an earth mound raised about 50 centimetres, says it faces east, and names the man who built it: a Chinese resident called Sunchui, of the Heng family, the ancestor of the Nithayayon line. The source for that is the builder's own descendants, and the register says so. It is the only entry in this province where the department cites a family rather than a document, and it is more honest than quietly leaving the building unexplained.
The rest of the compound is unexcavated. The register lists several chedi that have never been cleared or restored, the remains of the pavilion, the vihara of the reclining Buddha, a mondop that once held the footprint, and a large quantity of other antiquities the temple keeps. Only some of it has been restored. This is a working monastery with an archaeological site inside it that nobody has finished reading.
The wooden Buddha footprint: about 60 centimetres wide and about 1.80 metres long, the 108 auspicious marks carved inside a roundel at the centre of the sole, and the defeat of Mara with the four guardian kings carved on the reverse.
The octagonal chedi with a round bell above it, north-west of the reclining-Buddha vihara, which the register dates to about the nineteenth Buddhist century and identifies as a Suphannaphum or U Thong form.
The vihara of the reclining Buddha: brick and stucco, which the register supposes was raised in the Suphannaphum period and repaired many times, holding an image the department assigns to the Suphan Buri school.
The Chinese pavilion, dated by the register to about B.E. 2450, standing on an earth mound about 50 centimetres high and facing east, built by a Chinese resident named Sunchui of the Heng family.
The mondop that once held the footprint, and several chedi that have never been cleared or restored at all.
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 monastery. Cover shoulders and knees, and take your shoes off before going into the vihara of the reclining Buddha. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | On the west bank of the Suphan Buri river, which is the Tha Chin, about 800 metres south of Wat Phra Si Rattana Mahathat. |
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.
The 108 auspicious marks in a roundel at the centre of the sole on the front, and the defeat of Mara with the four guardian kings of the directions on the back.
Because it belongs to a local form. The Fine Arts Department register identifies the octagonal body with a round bell as particular to Suphannaphum or U Thong art and dates it to about the nineteenth Buddhist century.
The register supposes the hall around it goes back to the Suphannaphum period and has been repaired repeatedly, and assigns the image itself to the Suphan Buri school. No dated document was found.
Because a Chinese resident built it. The register dates it to about B.E. 2450 and names the builder as Sunchui of the Heng family, on the testimony of his descendants.
No official source consulted publishes any.
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 Suphan Buri’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.