Phimai or Phanom Rung: Thailand's two Khmer sanctuary parks compared

The short answer

Phimai and Phanom Rung are both Khmer stone sanctuaries in north-eastern Thailand, and the Fine Arts Department runs each as a historical park. They answer different interests. Phimai is a Mahayana Buddhist sanctuary at the centre of an old walled and moated town on the plain.[3][1] Phanom Rung is a sanctuary to Shiva on the top of an extinct volcano.[7] One is a temple town; the other is a temple on a mountain built to stand for Shiva's Mount Kailash.

They are in different provinces: Phimai in Phimai district of Nakhon Ratchasima, Phanom Rung in Chaloem Phra Kiat district of Buriram.[7][1] Neither is in a town that XTOUR treats as a destination, and XTOUR gives no travel time to either. Quotations from Thai-language pages below are XTOUR's translations.

Phimai: a Buddhist sanctuary inside a town

The department's history page describes Phimai Historical Park as about 2,658 rai of the old town of Phimai, bounded by the Mun river on the north and east, the Lam Chakkarat on the west and the old reservoir (baray) on the south. The town itself is a rectangle of 565 by 1,030 metres inside walls and a moat, and Prasat Hin Phimai stands at its centre.[3] The same page places the park about 60 kilometres north-east of Nakhon Ratchasima town; that is the department's figure, not a route XTOUR has checked.[1]

The department describes the sanctuary as a Mahayana Buddhist shrine about 1,000 years old.[1] The name itself comes from an inscription: a Khmer text on a door frame of the cloister names "Kamraten Jagat Vimaya" and records an image set up in B.E. 1651 (1108 CE), and the department reads "Phimai" as the same word as "Vimaya".[1]

Two details on the department's English pages explain why Phimai matters to Khmer history. The sanctuary faces south where others face east, which the department presumes was to face Angkor or followed a religious tradition still unknown; and it was built before Angkor Wat, which the department presumes took Phimai's roof as a prototype. The same page cites the Preah Khan inscription in Cambodia for Jayavarman VII's 17 stopping places for travellers on the road from his capital to Phimai.[3]

Phanom Rung: a Shiva sanctuary on a volcano

Prasat Phanom Rung stands on the summit of Phanom Rung mountain, which the department describes as an extinct volcano in Ta Pek subdistrict.[7] Its knowledge page gives the summit as about 386 metres above sea level and places the sanctuary on the southern side of the crater, with a Royal Thai Air Force reporting station on the northern rim and seven ancient ponds dug into the crater north-east of the temple. The department puts Phanom Rung about 60 kilometres from Buriram town, again its own figure.[10]

The sanctuary was built for Shiva, and the department's English history page assigns it to a sect of Shaivism it spells "Supata", the Pasupata, citing inscriptions found on site.[8] It was not built at once. Two early brick towers date from around the 15th Buddhist century; the main sanctuary, around the 17th, is attributed to Narendraditya, whom the page describes as a governor under the Mahidharapura dynasty; and some later buildings were enlarged under Jayavarman VII, who was a Mahayana Buddhist.[8] The front page sums this up as construction across the 15th to 18th Buddhist centuries.[7]

The head of the park has given a Facebook Live talk on the sun shining through the sanctuary's doorways; the notice gives no dates for the phenomenon, and XTOUR does not publish any.[13]

How the department restored and opened them

Both sanctuaries were rebuilt by anastylosis, taking fallen stones and setting them back in their original positions.[8][1]

At Phimai, the department dates the major restoration to B.E. 2507-2512 (1964-1969), carried out with the French government.[1] Its English history page adds that French support came through the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization and that the work was directed by the French archaeologist Bernard Philippe Groslier with M.C. Yachai Chitrabongs. The park opened officially on 12 April 1989.[1][3]

At Phanom Rung, reconstruction ran from B.E. 2514 to 2531 (1971-1988), an area of 451 rai was specified as the historical site in 1976, and the park opened officially on 21 May 1988.[7]

The road that links them

The department's Phanom Rung pages give a reason to think of the two together. A knowledge page on Prasat Ban Bu cites the Preah Khan inscription: Jayavarman VII had 121 rest houses built along routes from Angkor, 17 of them on the road to Phimai. The page says all 17 have now been found, 8 in Cambodia and 9 in Thailand, ending at Prasat Phimai, and that one of them, Prasat Ban Bu, stands about 2 kilometres east of the foot of Phanom Rung hill.[12] The Phanom Rung history page names further sites near the mountain from the same reign.[8]

XTOUR's reading is that this is a historical connection, not a suggested itinerary. XTOUR does not say the two parks belong in the same trip or the same day.

What the parks' own pages say about entry and conduct

Each park has an English "Map" page on the department's Virtual Historical Park site listing daily hours and admission fees.[9] Phimai's map page lists its admission fees, which differ for Thai and foreign visitors.[4] Phanom Rung's lists fees by nationality with separate retail and charter rates, a vehicle fee for entering by gate 3 at the back of the sanctuary, and eleven exempt groups, among them monks, novices and priests of other religions.[9] Neither page carries a date. XTOUR does not repeat the figures; ask the park before relying on them.

On conduct, the clearest rule XTOUR found is Phanom Rung's. A 2022 Songkran page from the park, inviting visitors to pay respects to the sacred objects in the sanctuary, says garlands, flowers, incense, candles and scented water may not be brought in for worship, that only a wai is allowed inside the monument area, and that ceremonies with offerings need the park office's permission and a place the park provides. The same page lists the objects visitors honour, starting with the Shiva linga in the central sanctuary.[11] XTOUR found no equivalent conduct page for Phimai, and states no dress rule for either park.

At Phimai, an undated park news item (its images are filed under October 2023) announced a coming "Night Light Up" that would open the innermost area at night for the first time, with the sanctuary, the Naga bridge, Meru Phromathat and the Pratu Chai gate lit, and with visitors invited to pay respects to the presiding image "Phra Kamraten Jagat Vimaya", a Naga-protected Buddha and a sculpture of Jayavarman VII.[5] That is an old announcement. XTOUR has not found a current programme and does not say night visits run now.

Where the department's pages disagree

The department's pages do not always agree with one another, and XTOUR does not reconcile them.

• Phimai's restoration ends in 1969 on the unit's history page and on the English history page, but in 1968 on the English front page.[2][3][1]
• Phimai's construction date is given two ways. The English front page says around the middle of the 16th Buddhist century.[2] The English history page repeats that, but also suggests that building began in the late 16th to 17th Buddhist century and continued in the 18th.[3]
• Phanom Rung's unit site has no history text at all: its history page reads "no data".[6] Its history here comes from the department's Virtual Historical Park pages and the unit's knowledge pages.

What XTOUR does not tell you

XTOUR does not publish opening hours, fees, entrance locations, accessibility, dress rules or travel times for either park, and does not say whether either sanctuary counts as a place of active worship. The Fine Arts Department runs both. At Phimai its English page names the 10th Regional Office of Fine Arts, Nakhon Ratchasima, as the body responsible.[3] The unit sites are where to check.

For Thailand's other historical parks, see Sukhothai or Ayutthaya, and for a Khmer-period park in the west, Mueang Sing Historical Park. The Thailand country page lists XTOUR's coverage.