The only royal monastery of the Maha Nikaya order in Ubon Ratchathani, and the town's own temple. Its principal image, Phra Chao Yai Inthaplaeng, is dated by an inscription behind it to an afternoon in April B.E. 2350 — one of seven inscriptions here, five of them on the bases of images made at the same time.
วัดมหาวนาราม (วัดป่าใหญ่) · Wat Maha Wanaram (Wat Pa Yai)
| Official name | วัดมหาวนาราม (วัดป่าใหญ่) — Wat Maha Wanaram (Wat Pa Yai) |
|---|---|
| Where | Nai Mueang, Mueang Ubon Ratchathani, Ubon Ratchathani |
| Royal temple class | Third class royal temple, Saman (ชั้นตรี ชนิดสามัญ) The Fine Arts Department's national monument register, whose written history for monument 0001912 states that the temple was raised to พระอารามหลวงชั้นตรีชนิดสามัญ on 31 May B.E. 2521 and is the only royal monastery of the Maha Nikaya order in Ubon Ratchathani province. The National Office of Buddhism's own register could not be read in this run. |
| Monastic order | Maha Nikaya |
| Ancient monument | Registered national ancient monument Royal Gazette vol. 53, part 34, p. 1533, item 2 of the Ubon Ratchathani block, 27 September B.E. 2479 The same 1936 national ancient-monuments list that carries Wat Supattanaram, read by eye in this run from the department's mirror. Item 2 of the Ubon Ratchathani block is วัดป่าใหญ่ อำเภอเมือง ตำบลในเมือง — the name this temple bore in 1936; the department's own history records the change to วัดมหาวนาราม in B.E. 2488, nine years after the registration. Anyone searching that instrument for the modern name will find nothing. The register codes the row at status 1, registered, with no land-boundary order attached. |
| Coordinates | 15.234641, 104.863177 Fine Arts Department register, monument 0001912 |
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 state sources read the same inscription differently on the single most consequential point. The Fine Arts Department reads it as dating the founding to B.E. 2335 and the image to B.E. 2350. The Tourism Authority of Thailand says the inscription gives the year the temple was founded as B.E. 2350. Nothing read in this run resolves that, and the inscription itself was not read at first hand.
Ubon Ratchathani calls this temple Wat Pa Yai — the great forest temple — and the Fine Arts Department records that the older names all say the same thing. It began as a monks' dwelling in a forest, and the forest is in every name it has had: วัดป่าหลวงมณีโชติศรีสวัสดี first, then วัดป่าใหญ่ or มหาวัน, then in B.E. 2488 the Pali-derived วัดมหาวนาราม, which means the same as the local name it replaced.
The department dates the beginning to B.E. 2335, thirteen years after the town of Ubon Ratchathani was constituted, and ties it to the second governor, พระพรหมวรราชสุริยวงศ์. That dating does not come from a chronicle. It comes from a stone inscription set into the platform behind the principal image, which the department transcribes and which carries three events in the Chulasakarat era: the founding in จ.ศ. 154, a wihan built in จ.ศ. 167 to house an image, and the making of the Inthaplaeng image itself in จ.ศ. 169.
The third of those is the most precisely dated thing in this guide's Ubon pages. The first abbot, พระมหาราชครูศรีสัทธรรมวงศา, with disciples and lay people, completed the image in April of B.E. 2350, at the full moon, on a Sunday, at three in the afternoon. The department gives that reading twice, in its history and again in its description of the object, and the second gives the image's measurements: brick and mortar, lacquered and gilded, about three metres across the lap and about five metres high.
The Tourism Authority of Thailand reads the same inscription and reports it as giving the founding year of the temple as B.E. 2350 — which is the department's date for the image, not for the temple. This page does not average those two readings. It records that two state bodies read one stone differently, and that neither reading was checked here against the stone.
There are seven inscriptions at this temple and the department describes them as a set. The first two are on fine black stone, the first larger than the second, both in Tham Isan script and the Thai language, giving the day, month, year and auspicious hour of the making of Phra Chao Yai Inthaplaeng together with matter on governance and the upkeep of the religion. The other five are on the bases of important images made at the same time — four cast in metal and one carved in stone under a naga hood — in Tham Isan script and Thai with Pali. All of them now stand beside the Inthaplaeng shrine.
The inscription also gives the temple a standing instruction, and the town still follows it. Whichever lord comes to rule here is to honour Phra Chao Yai Inthaplaeng with an offering and to hold a festival at the full moon of the fifth month, in April, each year. The Tourism Authority describes what that has become: alms-giving, the Mahachat sermon, and the bathing and gilding of the image.
One thing here no longer exists and the department is careful about it. The sim — the ordination hall — has been demolished. What the department can say about it comes from photographs: an open sim in genuinely Thai-Isan hands, rectangular, on a base of the ew khan pak phan form with the wall behind the principal image built up higher than the rest; walls of clay brick plastered with prathai, which is lime mixed with sand and bong resin; a single-tier gable roof under timber shingles on a hardwood frame with the ceiling left open; plain gable boards; and no cho fa, no naga sadung and no hang hong at all. That last sentence is a description of restraint, and it is why the building mattered.
The temple was raised to a royal monastery on 31 May B.E. 2521 and is, on the department's own statement, the only royal monastery of the Maha Nikaya order in this province — which is the fact that places it against Wat Supattanaram, the Dhammayut royal monastery a kilometre away on the river. BAANLYY does not represent this temple and nothing here is legal or religious advice.
Phra Chao Yai Inthaplaeng — brick and mortar, lacquered and gilded, about 3 metres across the lap and about 5 metres high, in the mara-vichai attitude, which the Tourism Authority reads as Lao in style.
The stone inscription set into the platform behind the shrine — the one that dates the image to a Sunday afternoon in April B.E. 2350 and carries the instruction to hold a festival at each fifth-month full moon.
The other six inscriptions, now standing beside the Inthaplaeng shrine: one more on black stone in Tham Isan script, and five on the bases of images made at the same time as Inthaplaeng — four metal and one of stone under a naga hood.
The wihan, which the Fine Arts Department dates to about the twenty-third Buddhist century.
What is not there: the old sim was demolished and survives only in photographs. It had no cho fa, no naga sadung and no hang hong, which is the opposite of what a visitor expects an Isan ordination hall to look like.
The temple grounds — 18 rai 2 ngan and a little over 95 square wa on the department's figure, on Thanon Luang in the middle of the city.
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 town's principal devotional temple. Shoulders and knees covered, shoes off before the shrine of Phra Chao Yai Inthaplaeng, and the fifth-month festival in April is the busiest day of its year. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | 183 Thanon Luang, Tambon Nai Mueang, Amphoe Mueang Ubon Ratchathani, per the Fine Arts Department register; the Tourism Authority gives the street as Thanon Sapphasit. Parking and toilets are listed on the Authority's page. |
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 Fine Arts Department reads the inscription behind the shrine as dating the image to จุลศักราช 169, B.E. 2350, finished in April at the full moon on a Sunday at three in the afternoon, made by the first abbot พระมหาราชครูศรีสัทธรรมวงศา with disciples and lay people. That is one of the most precisely dated objects in this guide. It is a date for the image; the same inscription, on the department's reading, dates the founding of the place fifteen years earlier.
Two state bodies read the same stone differently. The Fine Arts Department reads it as B.E. 2335, thirteen years after the town of Ubon Ratchathani was constituted, under the second governor พระพรหมวรราชสุริยวงศ์. The Tourism Authority of Thailand says the inscription gives the founding year as B.E. 2350 — which is the department's date for the principal image. Neither reading was checked against the stone for this page, and this page prints both.
Because Wat Pa Yai is the older name and both mean the same thing. It began as a monks' dwelling in a forest, and the Fine Arts Department records the sequence: วัดป่าหลวงมณีโชติศรีสวัสดี first, then วัดป่าใหญ่ or มหาวัน after the forest, then วัดมหาวนาราม in B.E. 2488 — the Pali-derived form of the local name. The 1936 national monuments list registers it under วัดป่าใหญ่, so a search of that instrument for the modern name finds nothing.
Yes, and it is the only one of its kind here. The Fine Arts Department's register states that the temple was raised to พระอารามหลวงชั้นตรีชนิดสามัญ — a third-class royal monastery of the ordinary kind — on 31 May B.E. 2521, and that it is the only royal monastery of the Maha Nikaya order in Ubon Ratchathani province. The province's other royal monastery on this guide, Wat Supattanaram, is Dhammayuttika.
No. The Fine Arts Department records that the sim has been demolished and describes it from photographs: an open sim in Thai-Isan hands, rectangular, walls of clay brick plastered with lime, sand and bong resin, a single-tier gable roof under timber shingles, the ceiling left open, plain gable boards — and no cho fa, no naga sadung and no hang hong. The absence of those three ornaments is the point of the description, and the reason the building was worth recording.
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 Ubon Ratchathani’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.