A hill temple in Ban Phue holding a plaster footprint laid over a natural one under a small Lan Xang that, and — a hundred metres up the slope — the group of Dvaravati sema stones that UNESCO inscribed in 2024 as one of the two component parts of the Phu Phrabat World Heritage property.
วัดพระพุทธบาทบัวบาน · Wat Phra Phutthabat Bua Ban
| Official name | วัดพระพุทธบาทบัวบาน — Wat Phra Phutthabat Bua Ban |
|---|---|
| Where | Mueang Phan, Ban Phue, 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 footprint); and vol. 122, special part 98 ง, p. 5, 22 September B.E. 2548 (the sema group, separately, at 6 rai 1 ngan 50 square wa) Two monuments at one temple, registered seventy years apart, and they are separate rows in the department's register. The footprint is monument 0002536, listed as item 2 of the Udon Thani block in the national list of ๘ มีนาคม ๒๔๗๘ — where the printed name is พระพุทธบาท "บัวบา", one syllable short of the modern form — and coded at status 1, registered with no delimited land boundary. The sema group is monument 0008771, กลุ่มใบเสมาบวชพระปู่, registered with a boundary of ๖ ไร่ ๑ งาน ๕๐ ตารางวา at บ้านไผ่ล้อม ตำบลเมืองพาน อำเภอบ้านผือ by ประกาศกรมศิลปากร เรื่อง ขึ้นทะเบียนและกำหนดเขตที่ดินโบราณสถาน, made under section 7 of the Act B.E. 2504, announced ๔ กรกฎาคม ๒๕๔๘ by อารักษ์ สังหิตกุล as Director-General and published at เล่ม ๑๒๒ ตอนพิเศษ ๙๘ ง หน้า ๕ on ๒๒ กันยายน ๒๕๔๘, as item 4 of a four-item instrument covering Maha Sarakham, Nong Bua Lamphu and Udon Thani. That instrument is the only one of the seven read in this run with a text layer, and its scan contradicts the register's own ROYAL_TOPIC field, which miscalls it a list of national antiquities. |
| World Heritage | Phu Phrabat, a testimony to the Sīma stone tradition of the Dvaravati period — component part 002, the Sīma cultural site at Wat Phra Phuthabat Buaban (1507) |
| Coordinates | 17.626489, 102.331129 Fine Arts Department register, monument 0002536; the sema group at 0008771 is 17.630733, 102.331866 |
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 chronicle account of the two footprints — that the Buddha subdued two naga brothers at Phu Kuwian and left a footprint here and another at Bua Bok — is the same Phra Chao Liap Lok tradition recorded on the Bua Bok page, and is tradition on both.
Wat Phra Phutthabat Bua Ban stands on a rise in Tambon Mueang Phan, in Amphoe Ban Phue, about twelve kilometres south of the Phu Phra Bat escarpment. It is the smaller and much less visited of the province's two footprint temples, and since July 2024 it has carried something the larger one does not: the ground a hundred-odd metres north of it is one of the two component parts of a World Heritage property.
The footprint first. The Fine Arts Department's description is unusually exact about what has happened to it. What was there originally was a hollow worn into the natural rock, shaped like a sole. At some later point a replica footprint was made in the likeness of the original and laid down on top of it — plaster, smooth-surfaced, painted gold, its edge cut as a straight line, 140 centimetres long, 65 centimetres across at the toe, 53 at the heel, with a plain sole carrying no design at all. Then a that was built over the replica. So a visitor sees a copy above an original, and the department says so.
The that itself is small: Lan Xang work, a redented square about 2 metres to a side and 6 metres high, with a single door facing east. The Tourism Authority calls the same structure a mondop. In a rock shelter close by the department records a wooden Buddha image in Lan Xang style and sandstone Buddhas carved as พระสี่ทิศ, the Buddhas of the four directions.
The sema group is the reason the world knows the place. Walk north and up the slope a little over a hundred metres and there is a large group of sandstone sema, known locally as บวชพระปู่. The Fine Arts Department describes them as set to the eight directions, three to each direction, stacked, of differing sizes; some carry narrative relief, some carry only a raised central ridge that reads like a stupa, and some carry nothing. More lie scattered nearby. When the department's archaeologists came in March B.E. 2535 the stones were lying down. They laid a grid 25 by 35 metres, dug one stone first to establish the soil sequence, worked round the rest, and stood all twenty-four back up.
The register also records what the stones had been through, and it is worth repeating because it is the most human paragraph in the department's whole Udon Thani file. About B.E. 2531 someone tried to drag a sema away using two elephants, and however hard they pulled it would not move. In B.E. 2532 someone came at night to chisel the carving off the face of a stone — the marks are still there — was seen, and more than a hundred villagers came up the hill, surrounded the thieves and handed one of them over for prosecution. The department notes that the stones are now looked after by the temple and by the historical park's staff together.
What UNESCO inscribed in 2024 is precisely this: ONEP and ICOMOS both name the second component part as the sīma cultural site at Wat Phra Phutthabat Bua Ban, and ICOMOS describes it as two groups — twelve sema set irregularly around a rock shelter with rock paintings, and twenty-four sema arranged as triple concentric circles facing the eight cardinal directions around a rectangular sacred space with its long axis east–west. That second group is the one the Fine Arts Department calls Buat Phra Pu; the coordinate ONEP publishes for the component falls within a few tens of metres of the department's coordinate for it. The component is the sīma site. It is not the temple's footprint and it is not the that, and this page keeps the two apart. BAANLYY does not represent this temple and nothing here is legal or religious advice.
The replica footprint over the natural one: plaster, smooth, painted gold, edged with a straight line, 140 cm long, 65 cm wide at the toe and 53 cm at the heel, the sole left plain.
The that over it — Lan Xang, a redented square about 2 metres to a side and about 6 metres high, entered by one door on the east side. The Tourism Authority calls this a mondop rather than a that.
A wooden Buddha image in Lan Xang style, and sandstone Buddhas carved as the Buddhas of the four directions, in the rock shelter beside it.
The Buat Phra Pu sema group, a little over a hundred metres north and up the slope: sandstone stones set to the eight directions, three deep, with narrative carving on some faces, a raised stupa-like ridge on others, and nothing at all on others. A shelter built with B.E. 2541 department funding stands over them.
The chisel marks on one stone, left by the attempted theft of B.E. 2532, which the register records and which have not been made good.
The rock shelter with rock paintings that ICOMOS describes as the focus of the second, smaller group of twelve sema.
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 with an archaeological site above it. Shoulders and knees covered; the sema stand in what is treated as consecrated ground and are not something to sit or climb on. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | Tambon Mueang Phan, Amphoe Ban Phue, Udon Thani 41160. The Tourism Authority's route is Udon Thani to Ban Tio, 64 km; Ban Tio to Ban Phai Lom, 14 km; then about 2 km on foot. It gives a contact number for its Udon Thani office of 0 4232 5406-7, and the Fine Arts Department notes that the path up from the temple to the sema group is easy and shaded. |
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 sīma cultural site, not the temple. Phu Phrabat was inscribed in 2024 under criteria (iii) and (v) as a serial property of two component parts totalling 585.955 hectares, and ONEP names them as อุทยานประวัติศาสตร์ภูพระบาท and แหล่งวัฒนธรรมสีมา วัดพระพุทธบาทบัวบาน. ICOMOS describes this second component as two groups of sema-marked sacred sites: twelve stones around a painted rock shelter, and twenty-four arranged as triple concentric circles facing the eight cardinal directions. The footprint, the replica over it and the small that are the temple's own registered monument from 1935 and are a separate thing.
It is a replica laid over a natural feature, and the Fine Arts Department says so plainly. The original was a hollow worn into the rock shaped like a sole. A copy made in its likeness — plaster, smooth, painted gold, straight-edged, 140 centimetres long — was later placed on top of it, and a that was built over the copy. Whether the underlying hollow was ever worked by hand is not addressed by any source read for this page.
Nobody official agrees, and the disagreement is worth knowing before you count. The Fine Arts Department describes eight directions with three stones to each and records that its 1992 excavation raised twenty-four. ICOMOS counts twenty-four in that group plus twelve more around a painted rock shelter. The Tourism Authority of Thailand says the stones stand two deep to the eight directions and that there are thirty-one altogether. The department also notes further stones scattered around the group, which may be what the higher counts are picking up.
The Fine Arts Department's Archaeology Division, between 2 and 7 March B.E. 2535, in a dig the register describes in unusual detail. It names the two archaeologists sent — นายเมธา วิจักขณะ and นางมนจันทร์ วงศ์จตุรภัทร — the grid of 25 metres north-south by 35 east-west, and four stated aims: to free every stone down to its original planted level, to read the soil layers for a date, to study the carving as archaeology and art history, and to make the ground fit to visit. The stones had been lying down and were stood back up.
It was attempted twice and the department records both attempts. About B.E. 2531 someone tried to move a sema with two elephants and could not shift it. In B.E. 2532 someone came at night and chiselled the carving from a stone face; the marks remain. They were seen, more than a hundred villagers came up and surrounded them, and one person was handed over for prosecution. The department funded a protective shelter over the group in the B.E. 2541 budget year.
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.