Wat Phra Mahathat
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How it came to be
Wat Phra Mahathat Woramahawihan is a monastery in Nakhon Si Thammarat Province, on the narrow ridge of the Malay Peninsula between the Pacific and Indian oceans. Since its founding in the 8th century it has been the main Buddhist centre of the region. Transoceanic trade carried in influences from northeastern India, central Java, Sri Lanka and the Mon lands of southern Myanmar: Brahmanism, Hinduism, Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism.
The great stupa, Phra Borommathat Chedi, was built in the bell-shaped Sri Lankan style in the early 13th century by a ruler who called himself Sri Dhammasokaraja, and it became a symbol of Theravada Buddhism. Inscriptions of the Sukhothai kingdom record the role of the town and its stupa in spreading Theravada. The stupa was restored many times, beginning in 1612–1616.
For more than 1,500 years the monastery has kept up the Nakhon Si Thammarat chronicle tradition, an annual ceremony of wrapping the Great Reliquary in cloth, and the Nora dance drama. It entered Thailand's Tentative List in 2012 and was inscribed on 25 July 2026 at the 48th session of the World Heritage Committee in Busan, South Korea. It is the first World Heritage site in southern Thailand.
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