Prasat Khon Buri

Prasat Khon Buri is in the Khon Buri District of Nakhon Ratchasima Province. The ruin is located within the Ban Khon Buri Nakhon Thammakosit School. The Khmer structure was an arogayasala. Renovation of the site started in 2015 and is now completely restored.

According to an inscription discovered at the Ta Prohm sanctuary in Angkor (Cambodia), the Mahayana Buddhist Khmer emperor Jayavarman VII (1181–1218 CE) built 102 'arogayasalas' or medical stations; herbal treatment facilities made of wood spread throughout the Khmer empire along the main roads. It is believed that Kuti Rishi or Kuti Ruesi (literally cells of ascetics) were chapels located near these medical stations. Many inscriptions in Khmer and Sanskrit were found near these arogayasalas concerning these treatment facilities.

The chapel of the arogayasala was an enclosure with a redented tower made of sandstone and laterite on a square-shaped base with a porch, built in the Bayon style of the late 12th to early 13th centuries and facing east or southeast. The ‘banalai’, or library, stood south (left when entering the gopura). A rectangular laterite wall surrounded all these buildings. The enclosure was entered via a single eastern gopura. Northeast of the enclosure was a pond made of laterite.

There are 30 arogayasalas in Thailand, spread over eight northeastern provinces, Khon Kaen, Maha Sarakham, Chaiyaphum, Roi Et, Buriram, Nakhon Ratchasima, Surin, Sisaket, and one eastern province, Prachinburi.

Ayutthaya Historical Research