A working temple in the middle of the old town of Chaiya whose modern wihan was built directly over an earlier brick structure nobody has been able to identify. Two of the most important dated objects in southern Thai history — the Grahi Buddha of B.E. 1726 and the Chandrabhanu inscription of B.E. 1773 — were found here or beside it.
วัดเวียง · Wat Wiang
| Official name | วัดเวียง — Wat Wiang |
|---|---|
| Where | Talat Chaiya, Chaiya, Surat Thani |
| 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. 53, p. 1532, 27 September B.E. 2479 Registered in the national ancient-monuments list of B.E. 2479, in the Surat Thani block, as วัดเวียง in อำเภอเมืองไชยา ตำบลเวียง — read from the department's mirrored scan in this run, where it stands immediately after วัดพระมหาธาตุ. The department's register carries the site at registration status 1 with no land-boundary row, so no monument boundary has ever been gazetted for it. The modern register row places it in ตำบลตลาดไชยา, where the 1936 instrument writes ตำบลเวียง. |
| Coordinates | 9.385363, 99.191793 Fine Arts Department register, monument 0005137 (approximate — the register flags this position ABOUT, not GPS) |
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 two inscriptions are the reason for caution about everything else. The Fine Arts Department states in its own text that both stones look as though they were brought from somewhere else and set up here — ดูเหมือนว่าจารึกทั้งสองหลักจะเอามาจากที่อื่นนำมาตั้งไว้. A dated stone found at a temple is not necessarily a dated stone from that temple, and this page does not use either inscription to date these buildings.
Wat Wiang stands in Tambon Talat Chaiya at the northern end of the Chaiya sand ridge, inside the line of the old town. The Fine Arts Department's survey describes that ridge precisely: about three metres above sea level, three kilometres north to south, five hundred metres wide, running from Ban Wiang in the north to the edge of Ban Kaeo in the south, standing a metre or two above the surrounding paddy, with the Chaiya canal cutting across it to the south-east and the coast about five kilometres away. The town's earthwork and brick walls, on a square plan, survive at the northern end of that ridge, mostly collapsed; the moat used the natural channels along the ridge and is now rice field.
What the temple itself preserves is a problem rather than a monument. The present wihan was built on top of an older brick structure, and it is not known what that structure was. The 8th Fine Arts Unit at Nakhon Si Thammarat test-excavated the footings around it in B.E. 2513 and could not determine the building type, because the wihan covers the older and smaller building entirely. It could be the base of a chedi or the base of a prasat. That the state investigated and came away without an answer is a better fact than a confident guess, and it is printed here as the answer.
The object that made this temple famous is no longer here. A bronze Buddha 160 centimetres high, seated under a seven-headed naga on three coils, was found at Wat Wiang. Its general form recalls Khmer naga-Buddhas but its details are strongly local, and one is decisive: it shows the earth-touching attitude, where Khmer naga-Buddhas almost always show meditation. The body is slender, the face square, the brows joined in a continuous curve, the eyes lowered, the mouth full and half smiling, the hair in large snail-shell curls, the ushnisha smooth and round with a bodhi leaf on it. On its base is the Khmer inscription recording the order of the king Śrīmat Trailokyarāja Maulibhūṣaṇavarmadeva to the governor of Grahi to have it cast — Mahasakarat 1105, which the department gives as B.E. 1726, on the third waxing day of Jyestha, a Wednesday.
Prince Damrong Rajanubhab had the image sent up to Bangkok in B.E. 2447. It was first placed at Wat Benchamabophit. In the reign of King Prajadhipok a thief took the Buddha and left the naga behind, because the two are not joined — which is why it has been suggested that image and naga were not cast together, though the department records that most opinion still holds they belong to each other. The Buddha is now displayed at the National Museum in Bangkok; a copy is at the Chaiya National Museum.
About forty metres north-west of the temple, at the same spot as the Phra Mo shrine footings, two inscribed stones were found. Inscription no. 24 is the more important. Cœdès translated its opening as a salutation to the king who rules Tambralinga and acts for the benefit of the Buddha's teaching, descended from the illustrious Padmavamsa, handsome as Kama, wise in the science of law as Dharmasoka, head of his lineage, styled Sri Dharmaraja — and named, in the second part, Chandrabhanu Sri Dharmaraja, in the Kali Yuga year 4332, which the department's text gives as B.E. 1773. A second translation by Saeng Thongmanawithun, printed alongside in the same departmental entry, differs in wording and in one epithet — it renders the king as called Bhimasena — and both are given here because the department gives both. The companion stone, 24(a) or สฏ. 3, is a damaged slate slab 31 by 70 by 12 centimetres with fifteen lines of Khmer script in Pali, read by Cha-em Kaewklai of the National Library, whose surviving text is a fragmentary verse about groups of the faithful and the giving of alms.
The Phra Mo shrine itself is worth finding. Under a large samrong tree at the north-west of the compound there were once modest brick footings that villagers called San Phra Mo — the doctor's shrine — because a Buddha image kept there, understood to have been a Dvaravati stone image and later moved to the Chaiya National Museum, was held to heal anyone who made a vow to it. Seven Ayutthaya-period red sandstone Buddha images of the Chaiya school stood in the wihan and are now kept at the same museum.
The old mound is gone under the wihan, and what remains of the earlier building — parts of the base and a doorway — has been piled together in front of it. BAANLYY does not represent the temple and nothing here is religious or legal advice.
The wihan, built directly over an earlier brick structure that could not be identified when its footings were test-excavated in B.E. 2513 — the older building is smaller and is entirely covered.
The surviving pieces of that earlier building: parts of its base and a doorway, piled together in front of the wihan.
The site of the San Phra Mo at the north-west of the compound, under a large samrong tree, where the two inscribed stones were found and where villagers located what they called the city pillar.
The line of the old town's earth and brick walls at the northern end of the sand ridge, on a square plan and mostly collapsed, with the moat now under rice field.
A copy of the Grahi Buddha at the Chaiya National Museum; the original bronze, with its dated Khmer inscription, is at the National Museum in Bangkok.
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 temple in the middle of town, not a ticketed site. Shoulders and knees covered, shoes off before entering the wihan. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | Tambon Talat Chaiya, Amphoe Chaiya, at the northern end of the old town, a short walk from Wat Long and about a kilometre from Wat Phra Borommathat Chaiya. The Chaiya National Museum, which holds most of what was found here, is in the Borommathat's grounds. |
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 bronze Buddha 160 centimetres high, seated under a seven-headed naga, found at Wat Wiang in Chaiya. Its base carries an inscription in Khmer script and the Khmer language stating that the king styled Śrīmat Trailokyarāja Maulibhūṣaṇavarmadeva ordered the governor of the city of Grahi to have it made, in the year 1105 of the Mahasakarat era — read by George Cœdès and given by the Fine Arts Department as B.E. 1726. Prince Damrong Rajanubhab had it sent to Bangkok in B.E. 2447; it was placed at Wat Benchamabophit, the Buddha was stolen in the reign of King Prajadhipok leaving the naga behind, and it is now displayed at the National Museum in Bangkok. A copy stands at the Chaiya National Museum.
Inscription no. 24, a slate stele with sixteen lines of Khmer script in Sanskrit, salutes the ruler of Tambralinga as a patron of the Buddha's teaching, descended from the Padmavamsa lineage, wise in law as Dharmasoka, and styled Sri Dharmaraja — and names him Chandrabhanu Sri Dharmaraja, dating itself to the Kali Yuga year 4332, which the Fine Arts Department's text gives as B.E. 1773. The department prints two translations, by George Cœdès and by Saeng Thongmanawithun, which differ in wording and in one royal epithet, and this page follows it in giving both rather than choosing.
No, and the Fine Arts Department says why in its own register text: both stones look as though they were brought from elsewhere and set up at this spot. They are firmly dated objects; they are not evidence for the age of the buildings around them. What has been excavated here — by Amara Khantisit of the Fine Arts Department in B.E. 2524 — showed occupation of the seventeenth to eighteenth Buddhist centuries, with local stamped and painted earthenware, Song and Yuan Chinese glazed ware, brown-glazed Lopburi-type ware, glass and stone beads, grinding stones and fired clay shot.
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 Surat Thani’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.