Trang town's royal monastery, where what is actually registered is a small wooden-posted ordination hall of local workmanship — and where three state accounts cannot agree on where its Buddha image came from.
วัดกะพังสุรินทร์ · Wat Kaphang Surin
By the BAANLYY Editorial Team · Last checked 5 November 2026
| Official name | วัดกะพังสุรินทร์ — Wat Kaphang Surin |
|---|---|
| Where | Thap Thiang, Mueang Trang, Trang |
| Royal temple class | Third class royal temple, Saman (ชั้นตรี ชนิดสามัญ) The Fine Arts Department's Trang archives states that the monastery was raised to a royal monastery of the third class in B.E. 2547. The Trang Provincial Office of Buddhism states the same grade, adds the sub-rank ชนิดสามัญ, and gives the effective date as 23 June B.E. 2549. The grade is common to both bodies and is published; the two differ by two years on the date, and the proclamation itself was not located, so no date is stated. |
| Monastic order | Not recorded in any register we could read. |
| Ancient monument | Registered national ancient monument Royal Gazette vol. 116, special part 17 ง, 17 March B.E. 2542, page 3, item 1 — โบราณสถานวัดกะพังสุรินทร์, number 28, Wiang Kaphang Road, Thap Thiang, Mueang Trang, with a monument area of about 1 งาน 95 ตารางวา Read at source. The instrument is made under section 7 of the Act of B.E. 2504 and registers three Trang monasteries in one announcement, this one first, with the others Wat Chom Trai and Wat Nikhom Prathip. It was signed by Nikhom Musikakhama, Director-General, more than six months before it was published. The boundary plan attached to the gazette was checked and is the right drawing for this monastery: it fences the ordination hall alone, about 30 by 22 meters, at military grid reference 47PMS 692369, and its stated area matches the register to the square wa. What is registered is the old ordination hall, not the twenty-four-rai monastery around it. |
| Coordinates | 7.572391, 99.624731 Fine Arts Department national monument register, GPS point for monument 0005176; checked against the register's own subdistrict polygon layer, which returned Thap Thiang, the subdistrict the gazette instrument states |
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 Fine Arts Department's register and its Trang archives both assert B.E. 2440 flatly, with no marker. The Trang Provincial Office of Buddhism, which is the less senior body, is the one that labels the same year as word of mouth and says the evidence is not clear. As in Saraburi, the more careful account comes from the junior office, and this page follows it. The provincial office also credits its article to a commercial book series rather than to a state file.
Trang has two royal monasteries and this is the one in the middle of town, on the ring road around the Kaphang pond that gives both of them their name. The pond came first. It was a natural water hole on the edge of a low wooded rise, and when Phraya Surintharacha, the Superintendent Commissioner of Monthon Phuket, decided the ground around it had the makings of something better than scrub, he had a road laid round it and turned it into a place for the townspeople to sit. The pond became Sa Kaphang Surin after him, and in B.E. 2483 the monastery beside it took the name too, because by then having a Wat Kaphang next to a Sa Kaphang Surin was simply confusing.
Before any of that, a man named Chao Se gave the land. The Fine Arts Department calls him a local man of means; the provincial Buddhism office says he was Chinese, which in Trang is not incidental — the town's commercial life was Hokkien Chinese and still shows it. When the monastery was founded is the part nobody can prove. The register says B.E. 2440 and says it as fact. The provincial Buddhism office says the same year and says, in as many words, that there is no clear evidence for it and that this is what has been handed down. That office is junior to the department and it is the one being careful, which is a pattern this guide has now met in two provinces running.
What the state did register, in March 1999, is one building: the old ordination hall. The gazette's boundary plan fences roughly thirty meters by twenty-two around it and nothing else, about one ngan ninety-five square wa, inside a monastery of twenty-four rai. It is a modest thing and the department describes it as local workmanship — hardwood posts carrying the load, brick walls rendered in plaster between them, a roof in tiers. How many tiers depends who you ask: the register says three, the department's Trang archives says two, and the provincial office's account of the same building says two. The hall was restored in B.E. 2525 keeping its shape, with the roof retiled, and it now serves as a vihara for evening chanting rather than as the ordination hall.
The principal image inside it is the sharpest disagreement in this province. The register says only that it is a Maravijaya image. The department's Trang archives says it was brought from Bodh Gaya in India in B.E. 2509. The provincial Buddhism office says it is stucco, by a craftsman named Chang Nu from Phatthalung, flanked by two crowned stucco figures in robes patterned with pudtan flowers. A stucco image made in Phatthalung and an image carried from Bihar are not the same object, and no source reconciles them. Meanwhile the monastery around the registered hall has grown into something else entirely: a Pali school opened in B.E. 2499, a Sunday school in B.E. 2519, a new ordination hall on a four-porch plan with a prang finial, and the seat of the Chief Monk of the Southern Region, whose jurisdiction reaches into the Malaysian sangha.
The registered ordination hall: hardwood posts, brick walls rendered in plaster, a tiered roof, and a plan of about 9.5 by 15.4 meters according to the provincial Buddhism office. It is now used for evening chanting.
The principal image inside it, which the Fine Arts Department register calls a Maravijaya image and which three state accounts place variously in stucco by a Phatthalung craftsman or carried from Bodh Gaya.
Two crowned stucco attendant images flanking it, in robes patterned with pudtan flowers, recorded by the provincial Buddhism office.
The new ordination hall to the south, built on a four-porch plan with a prang finial, a surrounding gallery and a naga staircase on the east side; its cast metal principal image was named พระพุทธสิหิงค์ศรีตรังพรหมประชามหาโชค.
Sa Kaphang Surin itself, the pond across the road, laid out as a public park by Phraya Surintharacha and recorded as a stop on King Prajadhipok's progress through Monthon Phuket in February B.E. 2471.
The Pali school building of B.E. 2515, which the abbot's own account says the monks and novices largely built themselves for about 400,000 baht.
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 royal monastery and the seat of the Chief Monk of the Southern Region. Cover shoulders and knees; remove shoes before entering either ordination hall. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | Number 28, Wiang Kaphang Road, Thap Thiang, Mueang Trang, on the ring road around Sa Kaphang Surin, a few minutes from the town center. |
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.
Yes, of the third class. The Fine Arts Department and the Trang Provincial Office of Buddhism agree on the grade; the provincial office adds the sub-rank ชนิดสามัญ.
Only the old ordination hall. The gazette instrument of 17 March B.E. 2542 declares a monument area of about one ngan ninety-five square wa, and the attached plan fences roughly thirty meters by twenty-two around that one building inside a monastery of twenty-four rai.
No source agrees. The department's Trang archives says Bodh Gaya in B.E. 2509; the provincial Buddhism office says it is stucco by a craftsman from Phatthalung. The page states both rather than choosing.
After the pond across the road, which Phraya Surintharacha laid out as a public park. The monastery took the pond's name in B.E. 2483 to avoid the confusion of two nearly identical names side by side.
No official source states one. The field is left blank rather than filled with a figure from a travel site.
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 Trang’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.
Last checked 5 November 2026
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.