A city temple on Thanon Luang built around two buildings the state registered separately: a timber scripture library standing in the middle of a pond, and an ordination hall known as the Ho Phra Phutthabat. Both are the work of a monk-craftsman from Vientiane, and the fusion of central-Thai form with Lao decoration is the whole point of the place.
วัดทุ่งศรีเมือง · Wat Thung Si Mueang
| Official name | วัดทุ่งศรีเมือง — Wat Thung Si Mueang |
|---|---|
| Where | Nai Mueang, Mueang Ubon Ratchathani, Ubon Ratchathani |
| 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. 98, part 104, p. 2033, 30 June B.E. 2524 (the ho trai); and vol. 112, part 59 ง, p. 13, 25 July B.E. 2538 (the ubosot) Two separate instruments over two separate buildings, both downloaded from the Fine Arts Department's mirror and read by eye in this run. The first — ประกาศกรมศิลปากร เรื่อง ขึ้นทะเบียนโบราณสถาน, made under section 7 of the Act on Ancient Monuments, Objects of Art, Antiques and National Museums B.E. 2504, announced on 27 April B.E. 2524 by เดโช สวนานนท์ as Director-General and published at เล่ม ๙๘ ตอนที่ ๑๐๔ หน้า ๒๐๓๓ on 30 June — registers โบราณสถานหอไตร วัดทุ่งศรีเมือง, the scripture library, at ๒ ไร่ ๑ งาน ๔๘ ตารางวา. The second — ประกาศกรมศิลปากร เรื่อง ขึ้นทะเบียนและกำหนดเขตที่ดินโบราณสถาน, same section, announced on 28 June B.E. 2538 by ฐิติ บุรกรรมโกวิท, Deputy Director-General acting for the Director-General, and published at เล่ม ๑๑๒ ตอนที่ ๕๙ ง หน้า ๑๓ on 25 July — is a four-item instrument whose first three items are Bangkok monuments and whose fourth is โบราณสถานอุโบสถวัดทุ่งศรีเมือง at ๒ ไร่ ๓ งาน ๙๔ ตารางวา. The register's single land-parcel row carries 2-3-94, the later figure. The register codes the row at status 5, registered with a delimited boundary. |
| Coordinates | 15.230056, 104.861262 Fine Arts Department register, monument 0001914 |
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.
No founding year is documented by any instrument read in this run. What is dated is the chain of registrations from 1981 onward, and a series of dated repairs the department records by abbot. The two state sources disagree by a reign about the founding and this page prints the disagreement rather than averaging it.
Wat Thung Si Mueang stands on Thanon Luang in Tambon Nai Mueang, inside the Ubon Ratchathani municipality, and it exists because a senior monk liked to meditate in a field. The Fine Arts Department's register tells it plainly: เจ้าคุณพระอริยวงศาจารย์ญาณวิมล อุบลสังฆปาโมกข์ — Chao Khun Suy — was หลักคำ, the head of the Ubon sangha, and lived at Wat Mani Wanaram. He came regularly to the edge of the Thung Si Mueang field to sit. Disciples came with him, the number grew, a practice centre formed, and the centre became a temple named after the field.
What he built there is the reason the temple is registered. The department records that Chao Khun Suy initiated both the ho trai and the Ho Phra Phutthabat, and that the work was carried out by a monk called ญาครูช่าง — Ya Khru Chang, the craftsman-teacher — who had come from Vientiane and was staying at Wat Mani Wanaram to study doctrine and meditation under him. That is the source of the building's double character: a plan and a framing system out of central Thailand, carrying carving that is Lao work.
The ho trai stands in the middle of a pond, which is not decorative. A scripture library holds palm-leaf manuscripts, and water is a moat against insects and fire. The department describes it as a Thai timber house of the ฝาปะกน type on the central plan, with a doubled roof reducing in five tiers to each side, facing east, reached by a stair and bridge from the eastern edge of the pond. Inside the outer verandah is a raised rectangular room, its walls jointed close and finished in gold on lacquer, holding the Tripitaka, palm-leaf books and local philosophical texts.
The ordination hall is the other half. Its gable carries a figure of Indra riding the three-headed elephant Erawan, carved in foliate scrollwork and inlaid with glass; the base is a ฐานสิงห์ with a high waist standing between about 1.85 and 2.15 metres; the timber brackets have a naga's body and a thep phanom's head. Its other name, Ho Phra Phutthabat — the hall of the Buddha's footprint — records what the Tourism Authority says it was built to house.
The repair history is precise and it is what the register is really a record of. Under พระครูวิโรจน์รัตโนบล (บุญรอด นันตโร), abbot from the late nineteenth century into the 1940s, both buildings were found decayed and repaired by public subscription. Under พระราชรัตโนบล (พิมพ์ นารโท), about B.E. 2503, the ordination hall's cho fa, bai raka and roof covering were renewed with round-tailed clay tile ordered from Chonburi, split walls filled, and the old polished sand-and-earth floor replaced with stone-chip tile. About B.E. 2517 the ho trai's zinc roof was replaced with flat concrete sheet and all its posts were cased in cement. About B.E. 2524 — the year of the first registration — the Fine Arts Department's own Architecture Division restored the ho trai again.
That last restoration is described by the department in a way worth quoting for its method rather than its result: badly decayed timber was replaced outright and sound members kept; the bridge, which had run right up against the library, was moved back so that insects could no longer walk across into it; and the grounds were reordered, with a brick-filled that relocated, the lawn made good, trees planted and a car park laid. BAANLYY does not represent this temple and nothing here is legal or religious advice.
The ho trai in the middle of its pond — a four-room timber building of ฝาปะกน panelling, facing east, reached by a stair and a bridge from the eastern bank. The bridge no longer touches it.
Its carving, which is the Vientiane hand: the gable, the khan thuai brackets worked as thep phanom and as naga, and — around the skirt of the panelling — animals set inside rectangular frames. The Tourism Authority reads those as the animals of the zodiac.
The doubled roof of the library, reducing in five tiers to each side. The Tourism Authority reads the stacking as Burmese influence carried into Lao work rather than as a Thai form.
The ordination hall, the Ho Phra Phutthabat: brick and lime mortar, a front porch on four plastered columns cut back on the twelve-indented plan, with stucco lotus capitals inlaid with glass.
Its gable — carved foliate scrollwork inlaid with glass, with Indra on the three-headed Erawan at the centre, and saray and honeycomb motifs flanking the columns inside the mondop.
The base of the ordination hall, a ฐานสิงห์ whose waist stands roughly 1.85 to 2.15 metres, with stucco pilasters and glass-inlaid capitals along the walls.
The roof of the ordination hall: two layers of round-tailed clay tile bought from Chonburi in B.E. 2503, and cho fa, ruay raka and hang hong in stucco with glass inlay, remade in the same year.
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 the city. Shoulders and knees covered, shoes off before entering the ordination hall, and the ho trai is a store of manuscripts rather than a room to walk through. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | 95 Thanon Luang, Tambon Nai Mueang, Amphoe Mueang Ubon Ratchathani 34000, per the Tourism Authority's address block. The Authority gives a telephone number of +66 4524 6060 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.
It is the ho trai, the temple's scripture library, and the water is the point of it. A library of palm-leaf manuscripts has two enemies, insects and fire, and a pond answers both. The Fine Arts Department describes it as a timber building of the central-Thai ฝาปะกน panelled type, facing east, reached by a stair and bridge from the eastern bank, with an outer verandah around a raised inner room whose walls are finished in gold on lacquer. When the department restored it about B.E. 2524 it moved the bridge back from the building so that insects could no longer cross into it.
Two of its buildings were, in two separate acts fifteen years apart, and this is the thing most accounts get wrong. The instrument of 1981 — Royal Gazette vol. 98, part 104, p. 2033, 30 June B.E. 2524 — registers the ho trai at 2 rai 1 ngan 48 square wa. The instrument of 1995 — vol. 112, part 59 ง, p. 13, 25 July B.E. 2538 — registers the ordination hall at 2 rai 3 ngan 94 square wa. Both were read from the scans for this page. The register's land parcel carries the later figure only.
Not established, and the two state sources disagree by a reign. The Fine Arts Department's register gives about B.E. 2385, in the third reign, tied to the second governor of Ubon Ratchathani. The Tourism Authority of Thailand's page says the third reign in its opening line and then supposes the second reign in its main body. No gazette instrument, inscription or excavation report read in this run dates the foundation, so this page reports both readings and settles neither.
The Fine Arts Department names the initiator and the builder separately. Chao Khun Suy — เจ้าคุณพระอริยวงศาจารย์ญาณวิมล อุบลสังฆปาโมกข์, head of the Ubon sangha and the temple's first abbot — began both. The work was carried out by a monk called Ya Khru Chang, who had come from Vientiane and was studying under him at Wat Mani Wanaram. That is why the buildings read as central-Thai in plan and framing and Lao in their carving, and it is the most useful single fact about them.
Neither could be confirmed from an official source and this page does not print a figure for either. The Tourism Authority's opening-hours field on this page is a live open-or-closed widget that carries no times, and the page's body text has no opening line in it. The Fine Arts Department publishes visiting information only for monuments inside its historical parks, and this is not one. The Authority does give an address of 95 Thanon Luang and a telephone number of +66 4524 6060, which is the way to check before travelling.
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.