Five brick towers on one laterite platform in Sikhoraphum district, carrying what is widely held to be the finest carved lintel in Thailand: Shiva dancing the tandava above a row of deities.
ปราสาทศีขรภูมิ · Prasat Sikhoraphum
| Official name | ปราสาทศีขรภูมิ — Prasat Sikhoraphum |
|---|---|
| Where | Ra-ngaeng, Sikhoraphum, Surin |
| 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 ราชกิจจานุเบกษา เล่มที่ ๕๒ หน้า ๓๗๑๒, ๘ มีนาคม ๒๔๗๘ (registration), and เล่ม ๙๘ ตอนที่ ๑๐๔ หน้า ๒๐๓๔, ๓๐ มิถุนายน ๒๕๒๔ (determination of the monument land boundary, ๑๐ ไร่ ๒ งาน ๒๗ ตารางวา) Both citations are as published by the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre's archaeological sites database. Neither gazette instrument was opened by this run — www.finearts.go.th returned HTTP 403 throughout and the Royal Gazette document service did not come back through a fetchable route. The 1935 citation is worth reading alongside the same run's Phum Pon entry, which the Surin Rajabhat register gives as page 3713 of the same volume: consecutive pages of what is evidently one registration announcement covering many monuments. Both give the day as 8 March, which is the reading the ONEP register has used throughout this guide and against which Royal Gazette index lines give 4 March and part 25. That conflict is recorded across three provinces now and is still unsettled. |
| Coordinates | 14.944567, 103.798322 Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre, archaeological sites database entry 578, which gives the coordinate against an address in บ้านปราสาท ตำบลระแงง อำเภอศีขรภูมิ — checked against Sikhoraphum district and Ra-ngaeng subdistrict before printing, and checked in particular against the coordinate of Surin town 34 km west, after the Buriram run found a provincial-capital default sitting in a state register's coordinate field |
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 seventeenth-century date is a stylistic attribution by two research bodies, not a documented one, and both say so. The building has at least two campaigns in it — a Shaivite sanctuary and a Buddhist addition several hundred years later — and any single founding year for it would be wrong at one end or the other.
Prasat Sikhoraphum stands on a single raised platform in the middle of Ban Prasat village, thirty-four kilometres east of Surin town, surrounded on three sides by a moat. Five brick towers rise from the platform — a tall central sanctuary with four smaller towers at the corners — and the arrangement, a quincunx, is the Khmer diagram of Mount Meru with its four subsidiary peaks. It was built as a Shaivite sanctuary. The Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre's archaeological register and Surin Rajabhat University's heritage database both place it in the seventeenth Buddhist century on the evidence of its carving, which mixes the Baphuon manner with the manner of Angkor Wat; neither claims a documented date, and neither should be read as giving one.
The reason people travel to it is the lintel over the eastern door of the central tower. It shows Shiva dancing the tandava, ten-armed, on a lotus pedestal, with Ganesha, Brahma, Vishnu and Uma carved beneath him and apsaras and makara worked into the arch above. The Surin Rajabhat database makes a specific claim about the apsara figures that is worth repeating carefully: that they are carved in a manner resembling those at Angkor Wat itself and not found on other Khmer monuments in Thailand. That is a judgement by a university department rather than a finding of a state register, and it is given here as such. What is not in dispute is the quality of the cutting, which is a long way beyond the provincial standard of the surrounding country.
Then the building has a second life, and the second life is the part most descriptions leave out. In the late Ayutthaya period — the twenty-second to twenty-third Buddhist centuries — a Buddhist structure was added at the rear of the sanctuary in a manner the Surin Rajabhat database describes as Lao, and an inscription was cut in Dhamma script, the script used for Pali and religious texts across Isan and Lan Xang rather than the Khmer script of the original builders. The inscription records that a group of senior monks and nobles restored the stone sanctuary of Ban Ra-ngaeng. A Hindu building had become a Buddhist one, and the people who made it so wrote down that they had done it.
That inscription is the most useful object on the site for a visitor trying to understand what they are looking at. It is a dated human act attached to the building, in contrast to the founding, which is an attribution on style. It also explains the monument's older name. Before the district of Sikhoraphum lent it the name it now carries, this was the prasat at Ban Ra-ngaeng, and Ra-ngaeng is still the subdistrict.
The eastern lintel of the central tower: Shiva dancing the tandava with ten arms on a lotus pedestal, with Ganesha, Brahma, Vishnu and Uma below him, and apsaras and makara in the arch above. It is the object the monument is known for and it is at eye level.
Five brick towers on one laterite platform in quincunx — a tall central sanctuary with four smaller towers at the corners — with the brickwork laid without mortar, the joints so close that the courses read almost as a single surface.
The moat on three sides of the platform, open on the east and west, which is the approach the builders intended and still the best way to see the group from outside.
The Buddhist addition at the rear of the sanctuary, in a manner the Surin Rajabhat database calls Lao, and the Dhamma-script inscription on the western subsidiary tower recording a restoration by senior monks and nobles in the late Ayutthaya period.
Sandstone colonnettes and door frames set into the brick, which is the standard Khmer combination and worth noticing because the carving is concentrated on them rather than spread over the walls.
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 | Daily, 07.30–18.00, as published by the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre's archaeological sites database. |
|---|---|
| Admission | Thai nationals: 10 baht. Foreign visitors: 50 baht. |
| Dress | A working archaeological site rather than an active monastery, so ordinary respectful dress is enough. The platform is reached by steps and the surface is uneven brick and laterite. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | About 34 km east of Surin town in Ban Prasat, Tambon Ra-ngaeng, Sikhoraphum district. The monument is in the middle of the village and signposted from the district road. |
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.
Shiva dancing the tandava, with ten arms, on a lotus pedestal. Ganesha, Brahma, Vishnu and Uma are carved beneath him, and apsaras and makara fill the arch above. It sits over the eastern door of the central tower and it is the reason most visitors make the trip.
Not established by any document. Two research bodies — the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre and Surin Rajabhat University — date it on style to the seventeenth Buddhist century, reading the carving as a mixture of the Baphuon and Angkor Wat manners, and both present that as an attribution rather than a record. The earliest dated act attached to the building is a late-Ayutthaya restoration recorded in the Dhamma-script inscription on the western subsidiary tower.
Both, in sequence, and the sequence is the interesting part. It was built as a Shaivite sanctuary, which the Shiva lintel makes plain. Several hundred years later a Buddhist structure was added at the rear and an inscription in Dhamma script recorded that senior monks and nobles had restored the place. Calling it simply one or the other loses the layer that makes it worth seeing.
The Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre publishes daily opening from 07.30 to 18.00, with admission of 10 baht for Thai visitors and 50 baht for foreign visitors. That dual rate is normal at registered monuments in Thailand and is stated here plainly. One caution: a 2566 ministerial regulation raised foreign admission at registered monuments nationwide, and this page could not read the schedule naming this monument, so the foreign figure may now be higher.
Because that was its name before the district's name attached to it. The Dhamma-script inscription on the monument calls it the stone sanctuary of Ban Ra-ngaeng, and Ra-ngaeng is still the subdistrict it stands in.
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 Surin’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.