This is the astonishing moment a wild elephant walked into a Buddhist temple in Thailand.

CCTV footage shows the jumbo sauntering into the Wat Tham Sarika temple while monks were busy with morning prayers in Nakhon Nayok province at 4:54 am on December 26.

Their chants were interrupted when the pachyderm approached the shrine.

Temple monk Phra Abbasit, one of the monks seen in the video, said: 'The elephants usually stay around the temple, but it's the first time one has entered.

'They sometimes come to listen to the chanting. They are peaceful and not aggressive, so it was a great blessing to have one join us for morning prayers.'

Wat Tham Sarika temple is located in Nakhon Nayok province near the Khao Yai National Park wildlife sanctuary. 

It holds religious significance as the place where Luang Pu Man, a revered Thai monk, lived and meditated between 1907 and 1910.

Thailand has up to 3,500 elephants in the wild. The population has been increasing in recent years, but it is still a fraction of the estimated 300,000 wild elephants that lived in the country at the beginning of the 20th century.

The main threats to wild elephants in Thailand are habitat loss and fragmentation, poaching, and conflict with humans.