Wat Chonprathan Rangsarit

Wat Chonprathan Rangsarit stands on Tiwanon Road in Pak Kret, Nonthaburi, north of Bangkok. It is a third-class royal temple of the Mahā Nikāya order. Its name means “the temple built by the Irrigation Department”. When the department began building the Chao Phraya Dam in 1953 and wanted to expand its riverside dock, two older temples, Wat Choeng Tha and Wat Na Bot, stood in the way. They were moved and merged into one new temple east of Tiwanon Road, between 1956 and 1959.

The temple opened on 20 May 1960. At the ceremony Panyananda Bhikkhu was appointed abbot. The temple says he made it a centre for teaching: monastic education in Dhamma and Pali from 1960, a Sunday Buddhist school from 1969, and a weekly Dhamma lecture on Sundays that the temple describes as the first in Thailand. His reasoning, as the temple tells it, was that Buddhist observance days are not public holidays, so a Sunday gave working people a day to come. The temple also holds talks on observance days and during funeral chanting.

Practice is part of the programme. The temple keeps a training space for meditation at weekends and on holy days, and its activity page lists a programme, “Buddhist disciples”, on the threefold training (ethics, concentration, wisdom) for Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays or public holidays. New monks are ordained in monthly batches, a practice the Kasetsart University biography of Panyananda dates to 1981.

All of this is in Thai, and the temple’s site is Thai only. A visitor who reads no Thai will find more to see than to learn. Contact the temple through its site before planning a stay.