A working temple on the Phu Phra Bat escarpment in Ban Phue, built around a hollow in the rock venerated as a footprint of the Buddha and covered by a Lan Xang that modelled on the original Phra That Phanom. Its registered monument area of 3,430 rai is the ground the Phu Phra Bat Historical Park stands on.
วัดพระพุทธบาทบัวบก · Wat Phra Phutthabat Bua Bok
| Official name | วัดพระพุทธบาทบัวบก — Wat Phra Phutthabat Bua Bok |
|---|---|
| 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 listing); vol. 95, part 98, p. 3122, 19 September B.E. 2521 (the first boundary, 19,062 rai); and vol. 98, part 63, p. 1215, 28 April B.E. 2524 (the boundary corrected to 3,430 rai) Three instruments, all three downloaded from the Fine Arts Department's mirror and read by eye in this run. The first is ประกาศกรมศิลปากร เรื่อง การกำหนดจำนวนโบราณสถานสำหรับชาติ, the national list announced ๒๕ กุมภาพันธ์ ๒๔๗๗ over the signature of วิจิตรวาทการ as Director-General and published at เล่ม ๕๒ ตอนที่ ๗๕ หน้า ๓๗๑๖ on ๘ มีนาคม ๒๔๗๘; the Udon Thani block is province 43 and its item 1 is พระพุทธบาท "บัวบก" อำเภอบ้านผือ ตำบลเมืองพาน. The second — ประกาศกรมศิลปากร เรื่อง กำหนดเขตที่ดินโบราณสถาน, made under section 7 of the Act on Ancient Monuments B.E. 2504, announced ๒๒ สิงหาคม ๒๕๒๑ by เดโช สวนานนท์ and published at เล่ม ๙๕ ตอนที่ ๙๘ หน้า ๓๑๒๒ — recites that the 1935 listing set no land boundary, names seven neighbouring monuments found by survey and worth preserving (หอนางอุษา, วัดพ่อตา, วัดลูกเขย, ถ้ำคน, คอกม้า, โนนสาวเอ้ and ถ้ำเกิ้ง), and draws a boundary of about ๑๙,๐๖๒ ไร่ around โบราณสถานพระพุทธบาทบัวบก วัดพระพุทธบาทบัวบก ที่ภูพระบาท บ้านติ้ว. The third, announced ๔ มีนาคม ๒๕๒๔ by the same Director-General and published at เล่ม ๙๘ ตอนที่ ๖๓ หน้า ๑๒๑๕, states that the area ไม่ตรงกับข้อเท็จจริง — does not match the facts — and puts the true figure at about ๓,๔๓๐ ไร่. The register's land parcel carries 3,430 rai and codes the row at status 5, registered with a delimited boundary. |
| Coordinates | 17.720994, 102.360253 Fine Arts Department register, monument 0002528 |
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.
There is no documented founding date for this temple and none is asserted. The name is explained two ways by the Tourism Authority — bua bok, the pennywort that grows thickly where the footprint was found, or a contraction of บ่บก, meaning not parched — and neither reading is evidence of a date.
Wat Phra Phutthabat Bua Bok sits on the sandstone shelf of Phu Phra Bat, above Ban Tio in Tambon Mueang Phan, in Amphoe Ban Phue. The reason it exists is a hollow in the rock. The Tourism Authority of Thailand measures it: a depression about 60 centimetres deep in the stone floor, 1.93 metres long and 90 centimetres wide, shaped enough like a sole to have been venerated as a footprint of the Buddha for a very long time before anybody wrote about it.
The name is a small piece of local etymology that the Tourism Authority reports two ways. Bua bok — pennywort — grows thickly around the place where the footprint was found, which is one reading. The other is that บัวบก stands for บ่บก, not parched, a Lao turn of phrase for ground that does not dry out. Both are the Authority's; neither is evidence of anything but the name.
The building over the footprint is recent and the record is clear about it. The Fine Arts Department's register names พระอาจารย์สีทัตถ์ สุวรรณมาโจ, a monk who came upon the site on tudong, and says he replaced the small ubmong that had stood over the footprint with the that that is there now, working from B.E. 2463 to B.E. 2476. That is roughly 1920 to 1933, and it makes this one of the youngest major monuments in this guide. The Tourism Authority's page for the historical park says the same work ran from B.E. 2463 to B.E. 2477. The two figures are a year apart and this page prints both rather than choosing.
The state's interest in the place is older than that. The Royal Gazette list of 8 March B.E. 2478 — the first nationwide list of national ancient monuments, announced by Wichitwathakan as Director-General of the Fine Arts Department — carries a block for Udon Thani with only three entries, and Phra Phutthabat Bua Bok is the first of them. It set no land boundary. Forty-three years later a survey found that หอนางอุษา, วัดพ่อตา, วัดลูกเขย, ถ้ำคน, คอกม้า, โนนสาวเอ้ and ถ้ำเกิ้ง all lay close by and ought to be preserved with it, and the order of 19 September B.E. 2521 drew a boundary of about 19,062 rai around the lot. Three years after that the department published a second order saying plainly that the area did not match the facts, and the true figure was about 3,430 rai. Both were signed by the same Director-General. The corrected figure is the one the register carries.
That 3,430 rai is the ground on which the Fine Arts Department built the Phu Phra Bat Historical Park between B.E. 2532 and 2535 — landscaping, an office, an information centre. And in July 2024 UNESCO inscribed Phu Phrabat on the World Heritage List as a testimony to the sīma stone tradition of the Dvaravati period, in two component parts. Neither part is this temple. The first is the historical park; the second is the sīma cultural site at Wat Phra Phutthabat Bua Ban, twelve kilometres south. ICOMOS's evaluation mentions Phra Phutthabat Bua Bok exactly once, as an example of the later turn from sīma stones towards the veneration of Buddha footprints, and does not place it inside a boundary. The Tourism Authority does list the footprint among the things to see inside the park. This page does not carry a World Heritage badge, because a chain of four inferences is not a citation, and putting the badge on the most photographed monument in the province would have been easy and unproven.
The temple is a living one, and the yearly focus of it is the festival of homage to the footprint on the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth waxing days of the third lunar month, which the Tourism Authority records. BAANLYY does not represent this temple and nothing here is legal or religious advice.
The that over the footprint — square in plan, 8.50 metres to a side at the base and about 45 metres high, in Lan Xang form, which the Fine Arts Department describes as a copy of the original Phra That Phanom.
The chamber built into its lower storey, which you can enter to pay respects to the footprint itself. The department describes the spire above as a tall slender square-lotus form finished with a nine-tier chatra, with relics found in the original footprint enshrined in the top.
The footprint: a hollow about 60 centimetres deep in the rock floor, 1.93 metres long and 90 centimetres wide, per the Tourism Authority of Thailand.
A second, much smaller that beside it, modelled on the large one. The department records that it holds the ashes of หลวงปู่บุญ, a companion in the Dhamma of Luang Pu Man Phurithatto and Luang Pu Sao Kantasilo, who died on Phu Phra Bat; his disciples built it for him.
Phra Phutthabat Lang Tao, south of here — a second footprint, this one carved 25 centimetres into the rock with a raised pointed-petal lotus clearly cut at its centre, named for a natural rock shelter nearby shaped like a turtle.
The seven monuments the 1978 boundary order names as lying alongside it: Ho Nang Usa, Wat Pho Ta, Wat Luk Khoei, Tham Khon, Kok Ma, Non Sao E and Tham Koeng. The Tourism Authority reports Dvaravati-style carved sandstone Buddha images and pieces of sema at the Wat Pho Ta and Wat Luk Khoei shelters.
The Non Sao E stone terrace and the rock shelters across the escarpment, which the Tourism Authority describes as walkable in short stages and which carry the prehistoric paintings the department records for the range.
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 | The Phu Phra Bat Historical Park is open daily 08.30–16.30, per the Tourism Authority of Thailand. No separate hours are published for the temple itself. |
|---|---|
| Admission | Thai nationals: 20 baht. Foreign visitors: 100 baht. |
| Dress | A working temple as well as a monument. Shoulders and knees covered, shoes off before entering the chamber under the that, and the footprint is a place of veneration rather than an exhibit. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | Tambon Mueang Phan, Amphoe Ban Phue, Udon Thani 41160, on the Phu Phra Bat escarpment above Ban Tio. The Tourism Authority gives the park's telephone number as 0 4221 9837-38 and lists parking and toilets 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.
Not as a named component, and this page will not say that it is. UNESCO inscribed Phu Phrabat in 2024 as a serial property of two parts: อุทยานประวัติศาสตร์ภูพระบาท, the historical park, and แหล่งวัฒนธรรมสีมา วัดพระพุทธบาทบัวบาน, the sīma cultural site at a different temple twelve kilometres away. ICOMOS's evaluation names Phra Phuthabat Bua Bok once, as an example of the later turn to footprint veneration, and does not place it inside a boundary. What is documented is that the registered monument called พระพุทธบาทบัวบก covers about 3,430 rai at Phu Phra Bat, that the Fine Arts Department built the historical park on that ground between B.E. 2532 and 2535, and that the Tourism Authority lists the footprint among the things to see inside the park. That is a chain of inferences, not a citation, so the field stays empty.
About a century, and this is the fact most accounts of the place get wrong by centuries. The Fine Arts Department's register says the present that was built by Phra Ajarn Sithat Suwannamacho between B.E. 2463 and B.E. 2476 — roughly 1920 to 1933 — replacing a small mondop that had covered the footprint before. The Tourism Authority of Thailand gives the same work as B.E. 2463–2477. The footprint itself is a natural hollow in the rock and is not dated by any source read for this page.
Because it was built to. The Fine Arts Department describes the that as Lan Xang work made as a copy of the original Phra That Phanom: square in plan, 8.50 metres to a side at the base, about 45 metres high, with a chamber in the lower storey you can enter to venerate the footprint and a tall slender square-lotus spire above carrying a nine-tier chatra. Relics found in the original footprint are enshrined in the top.
They are two temples about twelve kilometres apart, and the confusion is old enough to be in the record. Both were listed as national ancient monuments by the same instrument in 1935 — items 1 and 2 of the Udon Thani block — and the chronicle account explains them as the two footprints the Buddha left at the request of the naga brothers he had subdued. Physically they are nothing alike: a 45-metre that over a natural hollow here, and at Bua Ban a that of about 6 metres over a plaster replica footprint 140 centimetres long, beside a group of Dvaravati sema stones that is now half of a World Heritage property.
The Tourism Authority publishes 08.30–16.30 daily for the Phu Phra Bat Historical Park, with admission of 20 baht for Thai nationals and 100 baht for foreign visitors, and a park telephone number of 0 4221 9837-38. Those are the park's figures. No state source read for this page publishes separate hours or a separate charge for the temple, and none is asserted here.
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.