Wat Khian, or the Monastery of the Writing (1), was located off the city island in the eastern area of Ayutthaya in the Hua Ro Sub-district.
Its historical background and period of construction are unknown.
No visible traces remain at ground level. The remnants of this temple disappeared probably during the construction of the Bangkok-Ayutthaya-Lopburi Railway and the adjacent road No 3053 at the end of the 19th century.
Wat Khian is shown in Kaempfer’s sketches and maps. Engelbert Kaempfer came to Ayutthaya in 1690 CE as a German physician to the Dutch East Indian Company (VOC) Embassy to the Emperor of Japan. Kaempfer added measures to his sketches. In a detail of his sketch, we can read he walked 300 paces or about 250 metres along the canal bank between Wat Pradu (defunct) and the junction of Khlong Pradu with an N-S running canal and a bridge over the latter. From this spot, he walked 350 paces or about 300 metres to the junction of Khlong Pradu with an N-running canal and near a temple, which must be Wat Khian. From the intersection to the Lam Khu Khue Na, he did 100 paces or 85 metres. The monastery stood on the north bank of Khlong Pradu.
The monastery is indicated on a 1993 CE Fine Arts Department map.
Wat Khian must have been approximately situated in geographical coordinates: 14° 21' 50.5" N, 100° 34' 57.4" E.
There are three other sites with a similar name in the Ayutthaya City District. One site is situated in the eastern area, on the Ayutthaya Provincial Sports Complex another site is on the city island along U-Thong Road, just west of the Hua Ro Market, and the third site is on the southern point of Ko Loi.
Footnotes:
(1) Khian (เขียน), translated meaning "writing", was sometimes given in Siam as a nickname for a person. Monasteries were often named after their establishers or sponsors. The monastery here could thus eventually have been named after its sponsor.
