The first Dhammayuttika temple in Ubon Ratchathani, built at a landing on the Mun river on the command of King Mongkut and declared in B.E. 2396. Its ordination hall is a deliberate three-part hybrid — a Thai roof, a European middle and an ancient Khmer base — built by Chinese and Vietnamese craftsmen, and it has no windows at all.
วัดสุปัฏนารามวรวิหาร · Wat Supattanaram Worawihan
| Official name | วัดสุปัฏนารามวรวิหาร — Wat Supattanaram Worawihan |
|---|---|
| Where | Nai Mueang, Mueang Ubon Ratchathani, Ubon Ratchathani |
| Royal temple class | Third class royal temple, Worawihan (ชั้นตรี ชนิดวรวิหาร) The Fine Arts Department's national monument register, whose written history for monument 0001913 opens by stating the temple is พระอารามหลวงชั้นตรีชนิดวรวิหาร. The National Office of Buddhism's own register could not be read in this run. |
| Monastic order | Dhammayuttika Nikaya |
| Ancient monument | Registered national ancient monument Royal Gazette vol. 53, part 34, p. 1533, item 3 of the Ubon Ratchathani block, 27 September B.E. 2479 ประกาศกรมศิลปากร เรื่อง การกำหนดจำนวนโบราณสถานสำหรับชาติ of 27 September B.E. 2479, made under section 6 of the Act on Ancient Monuments, Objects of Art, Antiques and National Museums B.E. 2477, downloaded from the department's mirror and read by eye in this run. The Ubon Ratchathani block is section 10 of the instrument and begins on page 1533; item 1 is วัดใต้เพิง, item 2 is วัดป่าใหญ่ and item 3 is วัดสุปัฏน์ — the short form of this temple's name — each given as อำเภอเมือง ตำบลในเมือง. The running head of the 1936 instrument carries only เล่ม ๕๓ and a page number and no part; the part number 34 used here comes from the recital inside the department's own 1981 boundary order for Prasat Ban Ben, which was read by eye in this same run. The register codes this row at status 1, registered, and carries no land-boundary order for it. |
| Coordinates | 15.225560, 104.853448 Fine Arts Department register, monument 0001913 |
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 agree on 2393 and 2396 for the building and the declaration. They disagree about the reach of the Dhammayut claim and about the dates of the ordination hall, and both disagreements are set out below.
Wat Supattanaram stands on the bank of the Mun river south of the provincial hall, inside the Ubon Ratchathani municipality, and it was built to a royal instruction. The Fine Arts Department's register records that King Mongkut, Rama IV, directed the Ubon city officers to choose a site and build; that พระพรหมราชวงศา, the third governor of the town, presided over the choosing and the building; that the site was the boat landing between Ban Bung Kasaew, now Bung Kathaew, chosen because it was quiet enough for practice and convenient for the alms round; that work began in B.E. 2393; and that the temple was declared in B.E. 2396.
The name is the King's and the department records what it was meant to carry. Supattanaram means a temple with a good landing — a place easy to come and go from, which on this stretch of the Mun was a practical description. It also means a sacred place understood as a good harbour, one that helps people across the flood of samsara. Both readings are in the register, and the second is the reason the first was chosen.
The sect matters more here than at any other temple in this guide's Ubon pages. The Fine Arts Department states that this was the first Dhammayut temple in Ubon Ratchathani. The Tourism Authority of Thailand makes the larger claim — that it was the first Dhammayuttika temple in the whole northeastern region. This page carries the department's narrower statement as the record and the Authority's wider one as a claim by another state body, because nothing read here tests it against the other northeastern provinces.
The building people come for is the ordination hall, and it is a hybrid on purpose. The department describes an architecture of several schools at once — capital, Western, Vietnamese and Chinese — built by Chinese and Vietnamese craftsmen, large, in the manner favoured in the third reign. Between the columns the brickwork is turned into arched jewelled-house forms in the French Gothic manner. The front gable is flat and flush with the columns, which the department reads as Chinese. The stucco is in Thai patterns but by Vietnamese hands, and includes a crouching, smiling lion in the Vietnamese style.
The department's own summary of it is a three-part division that has become the standard description: the roof is Thai, the middle is European — German, it says — and the base is ancient Khmer. Its most striking single feature is negative. The hall has no windows. It is doored the whole way round instead.
The two state sources give different dates for building it. The Fine Arts Department says B.E. 2459 to 2473; the Tourism Authority says B.E. 2460 to 2479. Both name the same designer, though they spell him differently — หลวงสถิตถ์นิมานการ in the register and หลวงสถิตย์นิมานกาล in the Authority's page, both giving his personal name as ชวน สุปิยพันธ์, and the Authority adding that he was a highways engineer. The Authority gives the hall as 20 metres wide, 34 long and 22 high.
Inside is Phra Sapphanyu Chao, the principal image. The department dates its making to B.E. 2459 and describes it as cast metal, polished. The Tourism Authority adds that it is bronze, in the mara-vichai attitude, with a lap 150 centimetres wide and a height of 250 centimetres, polished and deliberately not gilded, modelled on Phra Phuttha Chinnarat, with relics enshrined in the ushnisha, seated on a curved lion-leg base.
The temple also keeps a museum, the Ho Sinlapa Watthanatham, built in B.E. 2535, and in it three inscriptions that are much older than anything else here. The department describes them: the first is sandstone shaped somewhat like a sema, in Pallava script and Sanskrit, one face and six lines, with the same text and letter forms as the Pak Mun inscription, about the twelfth Buddhist century. The second is in the Old Khmer script that developed out of Pallava, in the Khmer language, carrying the title kamrateng. The third is in Devanagari, in Sanskrit and Khmer. BAANLYY does not represent this temple and nothing here is legal or religious advice.
The ordination hall, 20 by 34 metres and 22 high on the Tourism Authority's figures, with no windows anywhere — doors run the whole way round instead.
Its three-part architecture, which is the department's own reading: a Thai roof, a European middle and a base in the ancient Khmer manner.
The arcading between the columns, built as jewelled-house arches in what the register calls the French Gothic form, and a front gable left flat and flush with the columns in the Chinese manner.
The stucco: Thai patterns executed by Vietnamese craftsmen, including a crouching, smiling lion that is Vietnamese rather than Thai in feeling.
Phra Sapphanyu Chao, the principal image — polished metal, undertaken in B.E. 2459, never gilded. The Tourism Authority gives a lap of 150 centimetres and a height of 250, modelled on Phra Phuttha Chinnarat, with relics in the ushnisha.
The Ho Sinlapa Watthanatham, the temple's museum, built B.E. 2535, holding lintels, inscriptions, deity and Buddha images, a lai-rot-nam scripture cabinet, ceramics — and the ashes of old Ubon Ratchathani families.
Three inscriptions in that museum, in three different scripts: Pallava in Sanskrit, Old Khmer in Khmer, and Devanagari in Sanskrit and Khmer.
The river frontage itself. This was the landing, and the temple's name is about it.
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 of the Dhammayuttika order. Shoulders and knees covered, shoes off before the ordination hall, and the Dhammayut observance here is stricter in manner than at the town's Maha Nikaya temples. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | Tambon Nai Mueang, Amphoe Mueang Ubon Ratchathani, on the north bank of the Mun south of the provincial hall. The Tourism Authority's page gives the street as Thanon Supat in its body and Thanon Somdet in its opening line, and lists parking on site. |
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.
That is what the Fine Arts Department records as its distinguishing feature — ไม่มีหน้าต่าง แต่เป็นประตูโดยรอบ, no windows, doors all the way round instead. The department does not give a reason for it, and this page does not invent one. What it does give is the building's mixed parentage: an architecture of capital, Western, Vietnamese and Chinese schools at once, built by Chinese and Vietnamese craftsmen, with the roof Thai, the middle European and the base in the ancient Khmer manner.
Yes. The Fine Arts Department's register states in its own words that it is พระอารามหลวงชั้นตรีชนิดวรวิหาร — a third-class royal monastery of the Worawihan rank. That grade is carried here on the department's authority; the National Office of Buddhism's own register, which is the primary source for royal grades, could not be read in this run.
Two state bodies make two different claims and this page keeps them apart. The Fine Arts Department says it was the first Dhammayut temple in Ubon Ratchathani. The Tourism Authority of Thailand says it was the first Dhammayuttika temple in the whole northeastern region. Nothing read for this page tests the wider claim against the other northeastern provinces, so the narrower one is the one stated as record.
The building began in B.E. 2393 and the temple was declared in B.E. 2396, and both state sources agree on those two years. The Fine Arts Department records that King Mongkut gave the command, that the third governor of Ubon Ratchathani presided over choosing the site and building it, and that the site chosen was the boat landing between Ban Bung Kasaew — now Bung Kathaew — because it was quiet enough for practice and convenient for the alms round.
The temple is named in the national ancient-monuments list of 27 September B.E. 2479, published at Royal Gazette vol. 53, page 1533, as item 3 of the Ubon Ratchathani block — under the older short name วัดสุปัฏน์. That instrument was read from the scan for this page. The register codes the row as registered and carries no land-boundary order for it, which means the protected extent of this monument has never been drawn.
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.