Wat Phranang Sang

Wat Phranang Sang

Wat Phranang Sang is a Buddhist temple located in Thep Kasattri, Thalang district on Phuket island.

The Wat Phranang Sang (temple built by the lady) is the oldest temple in Phuket and is believed to be more more than 500 years old.
Although we cannot be sure of the temple age, one of the legend related to it is as follow: the wife of an important ruler in southern Thailand, Phra Nang Lüat Khao (lady with white blood), having been accused of a crime she did not commit, went on a pilgrimage in Sri Lanka before her execution and built this temple in honor of Buddha on her way back to face her destiny; when she was put to death she bled white blood which proved her innocence, thus the other name of the temple, Wat Lüat Khao (white blood temple).

The Wat Phranang Sang compound is very large and filled with historical artifacts!

One of them is a statue of the two heroine sisters Chan and Mook, renamed Thao Thep Kassatri and Thao Sri Sunthon by King Rama I for their valiant defense of Phuket, who led the resistance and gathered all the people on the ground of the Phra Nang Sang Temple when it was invaded by the Burmese in 1785.
Enshrined inside on of the holiest building (ubosot) on the compound, you can find “The Three Kings” (“Monks in the Belly” in local dialect): the oldest and largest Buddha statues made of tin in the world which were apparently forgotten for many years and only rediscovered in 1973 in the bellies of the three bigger statues.

Another building has its walls covered with historical paintings and murals depicting stories from the life of Buddha as well as drawings of beauty queens for each days of the week.

There are also several statues of mystic animals, giants and mythical creatures and one of a laying Buddha as well as the mummified body of an Abbot who died around fifty years ago.