Phra That Na Dun

A modern Buddhist chedi over a Dvaravati-era reliquary discovered in the 1970s

About 65 kilometres south of Mahasarakham, the modern chedi of Phra That Na Dun rises over what archaeologists believe was a major Dvaravati-period reliquary deposit. The chedi itself is recent — built in the 1980s after the silver reliquary was discovered, plastered white and gilt, vaguely Lao in profile — but the site is genuinely old: surface finds and excavations have established that there was a substantial Mon-Dvaravati town here between the seventh and ninth centuries, contemporary with Si Thep and Nakhon Pathom.

The chedi is a working pilgrimage site, busy with merit-makers from Isan villages and quiet between bursts of activity. A small museum at the base displays the original reliquary, votive tablets, and pottery from the excavations. Get there by hired car or songthaew; the road south through Borabue and Na Dun district passes through some of the most rural country in Maha Sarakham province, and is worth the trip in itself.

things to do sight
A story
In 1979 a farmer near Na Dun unearthed an inscribed silver reliquary containing ash and fragments of bone, identified by historians as a major Dvaravati-period relic deposit. The modern chedi was raised over the find site, with the original reliquary now displayed in a small museum at the base. The discovery anchored Na Dun on the map of seventh- to ninth-century Mon-Dvaravati sites that also includes Si Thep and Nakhon Pathom.