Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand) Tourist Guide


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QUEEN CHAMADEVI MAKES AN APPEARANCE:
and changes history

by John Cadet

Queen Chamadevi is a shadowy figure in Southeast Asian history. She’s said to have come from the Mon kingdom of Lopburi between the 6th and 8th C. AD, founded the city of Haripunchai (modern Lamphun), and established a highly-developed culture that lost its autonomy only when it was conquered and assimilated by the southward-moving Tai under their leader (and founder of Chiang Mai) Jao Mengrai some 600 years later. But if historically Queen Chamadevi lacks definitive detail, the Northern Thai pongsawadan and dumnarn chronicles provide a fuller picture of this remarkable personage, while local legend and oral accounts are positively tabloid in the lurid way they treat her. Altogether less well known though is the fact that the Queen continues to make discreet appearances to her devotees right down to the present, keeping them up the mark in their observances of her ceremonies and the upkeep of her temples…and also on one occasion encouraged a radical rewriting of her history - as John Cadet relates in the translation and commentary that follow.

Regal Presence

The chi-pha-khau’s Story

On the 14th February 1965 a native of Sukhothai by the name of Suthawari Sowanapak, living in Chiang Mai and farming a piece of land at the foot of Doi Kham, had a strange experience. A few months before, he’d received a letter from the head monk of the amphoe asking him to check whether robbers had been digging into the reliquary of the deserted temple at the top of the mountain (5 kms. to the south of Chiang Mai city, later restored under the name of Wat Phrathat Doi Kham). He found no trace of damage, but intrigued by what he’d seen, he persuaded some farmer-friends to help raise funds to rebuild the temple by publishing its history and improving the road Khru Ba Srivichai had made to it some years before. In the succeeding months, though, Suthawari failed to find any records of Wat Phrathat Doi Kham, but on his way to consult the abbot of a temple at the foot of Doi Suthep, he saw the statue of Khru Ba Srivichai and went to pay his respects there, explaining what he was trying to do and asking the spirit of the charismatic monk for help. The following day he went up to the ruined temple, and this was where he had his strange experience.

I heard a voice in the middle of the night,” he tells us in the preface to his prarachachiwa prawat pramaejao chamadevi (History of Queen Chamadevi). “The voice said, ‘My dear child, wake up!’ When I opened my eyes sleepily, my heart almost stopped beating. It was a ghost! I couldn’t run away. I was alone in the vihara. O-ho, there was the figure of a lady, very tall, big, smiling. She didn’t look fierce like a ghost in a book. She was wearing clothes of white which came down to her feet, with a crown on her head like an actor in a dance drama, and around her neck was a royal necklace. In a sharp, swift, low voice she said, ‘I am the ruler of Haripunchai. If you want the history [of the Doi Kham temple] you have to go to Haripunchai [modern Lamphun].’

Warrior Queen

Early the next morning, I went to Lamphun by bicycle but although I asked a lot of people, I didn’t get any information. I turned back, with his eyes closed in front of an altar. The smell of the Indian incense sticks filled the gloomy cave with its fragrance. The deep silence of the cave was like the lonely emptiness of some royal hall. The sound of phi naan Ta’s voice echoed. This atmosphere made us feel as if we were the humans of a thousand years ago. That night we stopped at eleven o’clock. The father hermit told us to stop and said, ‘My son, you will make this story for Mother Princess, and you’ll get the money to build a memorial to her. But you must be very careful. You may face danger to your life, because Mother Princess and her enemies are still contending. You will have to take care of yourself.’ Then we rested. Because I was weary from my journey, I slept deeply until phi naan Ta woke me at gone seven o’clock. That day, the whole day, we continued translating. We didn’t stop from morning to night. It took four days to finish. Then we made our farewells to the hermit and left.”

Suthawari says he informed important monks in Chiang Mai about his task and its dangers, and received their blessing, at the same time ‘accepting the five rules’ binding upon laymen in exceptional circumstances. And his account continues:

“On the 7th April I received the bad news that the father hermit was ill, and wished to see me. I, phi naan Ta and his little daughter hurried to the cave. When we reached it we found some of the father hermit’s disciples there - one from Roi Et, two from Mahasarakham, and the three from our party making seven, if we include the father hermit. When we were together he gave me parting instructions concerning my work and told phi naan Ta to ordain as a chi-pha-khau, so as to help protect me through wipassana [meditation].

Wat Doi Kham

Then on the evening of the 9th April, the father hermit said his last words, ‘The time has come.’ He reached the end of his life peacefully. All of us performed the ceremony helping his soul pass into heaven, and we buried him in a secret cave where eventually leaves and grass would cover his grave. Then we parted sorrowfully, having divided up his important belongings, each of us taking two items. (When I met him, I asked why, if father hermit knew I had come to Chiang Mai long before, he hadn’t sent his disciple to find me sooner. He answered that the time hadn’t come. When he died, I knew that his words, ‘The time hadn’t come,’ meant that he was still alive). After that I hurried to separate the history of Doi Kham from the part involving the biography of the Princess Mother Chamadevi, and also busied myself revising her history, until, as predicted, I was attacked.

The mutability of human life causes me to end my short [preface to this] history at this point. I wish my readers all good fortune.”

By the ’80s, Sutawari himself had ordained as chi-pha-khau and opened a small establishment, half ashram, half museum, to the south of Chiang Mai town, and it was at this time, his revisionary studies of the history of Doi Kham and the life of Chamadevi completed, that a lecturer at Chiang Mai university who’d also had a visitation from the Queen, was able to make a financial donation to help with publication of the work. Since then, a group of well-to-do ladies, most from Bangkok and including members of the film community, have raised money to install a bronze statue of Chamadevi in the forecourt of Wat Phrathat Doi Kham, where small ceremonies honouring her are held from time to time. In the courtyard itself, the figures of the ancestral guardian-spirits of Chiang Mai, Bu Se, Ya Se, their son Hermit Suthep, the Lua chieftain Viranga, with other images of Queen Chamadevi - one representing her legendary lotus-birth - have also been assembled, grouped around the reliquary said to contain a lock of the Buddha’s hair.

What the connection between the Buddha, the once and present Queen of Haripunchai, and the guardian spirits is, makes for a long and somewhat complicated story which deserves to be better known, but even without knowing it, the remoteness, beauty and unusual atmosphere of the temple’s location - not to speak of Sutawari’s remarkable history - make it well worth visiting.