The prang at the centre of old Suphan Buri, the crypt that gave Thailand one of its five most famous amulets, and a cloister full of broken sandstone Buddhas.
วัดพระศรีรัตนมหาธาตุ · Wat Phra Si Rattana Maha That
| Official name | วัดพระศรีรัตนมหาธาตุ — Wat Phra Si Rattana Maha That |
|---|---|
| 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 8 of the Suphan Buri section. Registration of the ordination hall revoked by Royal Gazette vol. 89, special part 163, p. 18, 1 November B.E. 2515 Two instruments, and they do not describe the same thing. The 1935 list, read on the page, registers วัดพระมหาธาตุ, Amphoe Tha Phi Liang, Tambon Rua Yai. The 1972 announcement recites that same registration as having been of พระอุโบสถวัดพระมหาธาตุ, the monastery's ordination hall, made under section 6 of the Act of B.E. 2477 on 25 February B.E. 2478, and then revokes it on the ground that the hall had decayed past being a monument at all. The department also records in that announcement that Amphoe Tha Phi Liang has since been renamed Amphoe Mueang Suphan Buri. The register still carries the monument as registered, so what the 1972 instrument removed was the ordination hall and not the prang. Whether the 1935 entry ever meant the hall alone is settled by neither document, and this page does not choose for them. Note also that the modern register files this monument under Tambon Tha Phi Liang while both gazette instruments say Tambon Rua Yai. |
| Coordinates | 14.480230, 100.113458 Fine Arts Department national monument register, record 0004884. The position sits in the old town on the west bank, about 800 metres north of Wat Phra Rup and about 800 metres south of Wat Khae, which matches the register's own description of Wat Khae as lying about a kilometre north of this monastery. |
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.
What exists here is the opposite of a founding date and is more useful than one. An inscription that says a prang was repaired proves there was a prang to repair. An inscription in another province that names this monastery as a place worth endowing proves it mattered before B.E. 1951. Neither says who built it or when.
In 1913 somebody opened the crypt inside the prang, and by then there was not much left to find. The Fine Arts Department register is blunt about the sequence: Chinese market gardeners had already been down there and taken what was worth taking, then local people went down several times more, and only when word reached the authorities was the crypt formally opened. What survived the looting were devotional images and the small votive tablets later called Phra Phong Suphan and Phra Kamphaeng Sok. The first of those is one of the five most sought-after amulets in Thailand. An entire market exists because a hole was dug in this tower.
The same opening produced the better evidence. A gold leaf inscribed in Pali in Khom script, catalogued as inscription 47, came out of the prang and describes the restoration of a prang that had decayed. A second inscription, number 58, found at Wat Song Khop in Chai Nat, records a town ruler named Khun Phetsan dedicating houses to Wat Phra Si Rattana Mahathat of Mueang Suphan Buri, and gives the year 770, which the department equates with B.E. 1951. That is not a date of foundation. It is a date by which the monastery was important enough for a ruler one province away to endow it.
Stand in front of the prang and you are looking at Ayutthaya work, by the department's own supposition rather than by any document. Brick laid in earth mortar throughout, plastered smooth from the lowest base up to the course that carries the finial, a square relic chamber above the alms-bowl base with a cell opening on the front and three blind niches on the other sides, and a tier of garudas above the niche arches. Two octagonal chedi stand in front of it in poor condition, of exactly the type found at Wat Phra Rup a kilometre south.
The part people remember is behind and beside it. In the niches of the vihara in front of the prang lie more than a hundred sandstone Buddha images, broken, formless, half buried in the earth. The register describes the sight in its own words as something like a graveyard of sandstone Buddhas, which is an unusually vivid line for a government database and an accurate one. Behind the prang stand two old vihara whose principal images face west in the Mon manner, and behind those four small halls rebuilt around B.E. 2469, some of them holding images of the U Thong school.
Its legal history has a twist worth knowing. The monastery went on the national register in 1935. Thirty-seven years later the Fine Arts Department published a one-page announcement striking the ordination hall off that register, on the ground that it had decayed so far that it was no longer a monument. The announcement describes the 1935 registration as having covered the hall. The 1935 list itself names the monastery. Both documents are in this guide's sources and they do not say the same thing.
The main prang: brick laid in earth mortar throughout, the outer face plastered smooth from the lowest base up to the course that carries the finial, with a square relic chamber above the alms-bowl base, a cell opening on the front and three blind niches on the other three sides, and a tier of garudas above the niche arches.
Two octagonal chedi in front of the prang, dilapidated, with no bell-throne but a carambola-petal moulding running up and a bell drawn in vertical lines. The same type stands at Wat Phra Rup.
More than a hundred sandstone Buddha images, broken and half buried in the earth in the niches of the vihara in front of the prang. The register compares the sight to a graveyard of sandstone Buddhas.
Two old vihara behind the prang whose principal images face west, which the register attributes to Mon practice rather than to the usual Thai orientation.
Four small halls behind those, rebuilt around B.E. 2469, some holding Buddha images of the U Thong school.
The old ordination hall, which the department struck off the monument register in 1972 because it had decayed past being a monument, and which the register still lists as unrestored.
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 with an archaeological site inside it. Cover shoulders and knees, and take your shoes off before entering any hall where people are at practice. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | In the old town on the west side of the Suphan Buri river, about a kilometre south of Wat Khae and a kilometre north of Wat Phra Rup. The three sit in a line along the same bank. |
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.
A votive tablet from the crypt of this prang, opened in B.E. 2456, and one of the five most sought-after amulets in Thailand. The Fine Arts Department register names it among the few things looters left behind.
No record says. Inscription 58 from Wat Song Khop in Chai Nat names this monastery in a dedication carrying the year 770, which the department equates with B.E. 1951, so it was standing before then.
Yes. The register carries it as registered. What the 1972 announcement revoked was the ordination hall, which the department said had decayed past being a monument.
The register describes more than a hundred sandstone images lying formless and half buried in the niches, and does not explain how they got that way. It compares the sight to a graveyard.
The register attributes the westward orientation of the principal images in the two old vihara behind the prang to Mon practice.
No official source consulted publishes any, so none is given 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 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.