A laterite Khmer enclosure with its eastern gateway still standing, inside a working temple in the district that took its name, which the Fine Arts Department supposes was the chapel of a hospital and over which a Lao-style brick stupa and a village hall have since been built.
กู่แก้ว · Ku Kaeo
| Official name | กู่แก้ว — Ku Kaeo |
|---|---|
| Where | Ban Chit, Ku Kaeo, Udon Thani |
| 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. 52, part 75, p. 3716, 8 March B.E. 2478 (the listing); and vol. 99, part 172, special edition, p. 32, 18 November B.E. 2525 (the boundary, 1 rai 2 ngan) Both instruments read by eye from the department's mirror in this run. The 1935 national list carries it as item 3 of the Udon Thani block under the descriptive name วัดโบราณราษฎรเรียกว่ากู่ — the ancient temple the people call Ku — at อำเภอหนองหาร ตำบลบ้านจิด. The boundary order — ประกาศกรมศิลปากร เรื่อง กำหนดเขตที่ดินโบราณสถาน, made under section 7 of the Act B.E. 2504, announced ๒๓ กันยายน ๒๕๒๕ by ไพรัช ชุติกุล as Deputy Director-General acting for the Director-General and published at เล่ม ๙๙ ตอนที่ ๑๗๒ ฉบับพิเศษ หน้า ๓๒ on ๑๘ พฤศจิกายน ๒๕๒๕ — recites the 1935 listing as เล่ม ๕๒ ตอนที่ ๗๕, states that it set no land boundary, identifies the temple as ปัจจุบัน คือ วัดกู่แก้ว, and draws about ๑ ไร่ ๒ งาน. THREE PLACE-NAME FORMS, ALL OFFICIAL: the 1935 list prints ตำบลบ้านจิด, the 1982 order prints ตำบลจีต, and the modern subdistrict is บ้านจีต. Both instruments place it in อำเภอหนองหาร; Amphoe Ku Kaeo was created out of Nong Han afterwards and the monument stands in it today. |
| Coordinates | 17.177625, 103.153686 Fine Arts Department register, monument 0002702 |
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 arogayasala reading is the department's own supposition, marked สันนิษฐานว่า in its text, and no state source read in this run dates the sanctuary, names a reign or names a builder. This page does not supply any of the three.
Ku Kaeo stands inside the compound of Wat Ku Kaeo Rattanaram, in Tambon Ban Chit, in the small district of Amphoe Ku Kaeo — a district named after this monument. Villagers call the temple Wat Ku Kaeo and once called it simply Wat Ku, because of the ku standing in it: a laterite sanctuary old enough that nobody remembers who built it.
The state noticed it early. The first nationwide list of national ancient monuments, published on 8 March B.E. 2478, has only three entries for the whole of Udon Thani, and the third of them is this — listed not by a name but by a description, วัดโบราณราษฎรเรียกว่ากู่, the ancient temple the people call Ku, at อำเภอหนองหาร ตำบลบ้านจิด. Forty-seven years later the Fine Arts Department came back to draw a boundary it had never drawn, noted that the place was now called Wat Ku Kaeo, and fixed about one rai two ngan around it.
That boundary order is worth reading for what it accidentally records about administrative geography. Both instruments put the monument in Amphoe Nong Han. Amphoe Ku Kaeo was carved out of Nong Han later, so the district that now contains the monument is named after it and did not exist when either instrument was written. The subdistrict is spelled three different ways in three official forms — ตำบลบ้านจิด in 1935, ตำบลจีต in 1982, and ตำบลบ้านจีต today — which is exactly the sort of thing that makes a monument hard to find in its own register.
What survives is a rectangle of laterite. There is an enclosure wall, a kamphaeng kaeo, and on the eastern front a gopura, an arched gateway, also of laterite. The Fine Arts Department's reading is that this was an อโรคยศาล — the religious building attached to a hospital — a plan that normally sets a central prasat inside the enclosure with a small library, a bannalai, at the south-eastern corner. It marks that reading สันนิษฐานว่า, as a supposition, and it does not date the building or name who raised it. This page does not either.
The reason it can only suppose is stated in the same paragraph, and it is the most useful sentence in the record: the monument has been altered and disturbed for a very long time. An open pillared hall — a sala — was built directly on top of the original remains, and the central prasat and the bannalai behind it can no longer be traced. West of the hall a brick that in Lan Xang style stands over the monument, and its upper part has fallen. So there are three buildings here in one footprint, from three different centuries and two different religions, and the newest ones are sitting on the oldest.
The department's present-use field describes the site as a monument adapted into a hall and a place of local veneration inside the temple grounds. That is what a visitor finds: not a ruin behind a fence, but a working village temple with something much older underneath it. BAANLYY does not represent this temple and nothing here is legal or religious advice.
The laterite enclosure wall — the kamphaeng kaeo — which is the clearest surviving line of the Khmer plan.
The gopura on the eastern front: an arched gateway built of laterite, and the element the department lists second among the five it registered.
The open hall built on top of the original remains, which is why the central prasat and the corner library can no longer be made out. It is itself one of the five registered elements.
The brick that west of the hall — Lan Xang work raised over the older monument, with its top collapsed.
The temple around all of it, which received วิสุงคามสีมา on 1 May B.E. 2467.
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 | The monument stands inside a working village temple. Shoulders and knees covered; the hall over the remains is in use. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | Tambon Ban Chit, Amphoe Ku Kaeo, Udon Thani, about 90 kilometres south-east of the provincial town. The Fine Arts Department's register gives the monument's position as 17.177625 N, 103.153686 E. |
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.
Both, in layers, and the order matters. The oldest thing on the site is a Khmer laterite enclosure with an arched eastern gateway, which the Fine Arts Department supposes was the religious building of a hospital, an arogayasala. On top of the remains a pillared hall was later built, and west of that a brick stupa in Lan Xang style. Around all of it is a working Buddhist temple, Wat Ku Kaeo Rattanaram, which received its ordination boundary in B.E. 2467. No source read for this page states what religion the original sanctuary served.
Because the district came later. Both official instruments for this monument — the national list of 8 March B.E. 2478 and the boundary order of 18 November B.E. 2525 — place it in อำเภอหนองหาร. Amphoe Ku Kaeo was created out of Nong Han afterwards and takes its name from the monument. Anyone searching the old instruments under the modern district will find nothing.
The religious building attached to a hospital, of a type found across the Khmer world. The Fine Arts Department describes the standard plan — a central prasat inside a laterite enclosure with a small library at the south-eastern corner — and reads Ku Kaeo as one of them. It marks the reading as a supposition, and explains why: a hall was built directly over the original remains long ago, so neither the central prasat nor the library can be traced on the ground now.
The enclosure wall and the eastern gateway, both laterite, plus whatever is under the hall. The department registered five elements in B.E. 2478 and 2525: the brick chedi, the gopura, the enclosure wall, the remains of the monument, and the sala built over those remains. It describes the site as long disturbed and the stupa's upper part as collapsed.
Not established. The department gives no date, no reign and no builder, and this page does not supply one. What is dated is the paperwork: the listing of 8 March B.E. 2478, the boundary of about 1 rai 2 ngan drawn on 18 November B.E. 2525, and the temple's ordination boundary granted on 1 May B.E. 2467.
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 Udon Thani’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.