Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand) Tourist Guide


	S.P. Publishing Group Co., Ltd. 11/1 Soi 3 Bamrungburi Rd., T. Prasingh, A. Muang., Chiang Mai 50200 Tel. 053 - 814 455-6 Fax. 053 - 814 457 E-mail: guidelin@loxinfo.co.th

Chiang Mai Hero: Khruba Si Wichai
Religious father of the north

Text: Sjon Hauser
Images: SP

Khruba with followers on completion of road, 1935.

One evening some years back, a crowd had gathered at the new Tha Phae Gate in front of a meditating monk. Other monks were selling his portraits and amulets and many visitors were offering candles and incense. This monk, I realized with excitement, was no-one less than Khruba Si Wichai. A friend of mine, who was a dealer in amulets, had always praised highly this greatest of all northern monks. He had told me that Khruba Si Wichai possessed all kinds of supernatural powers, like mind-reading and enduring fierce sunshine without showing any signs of perspiration.

Joining the crowd, I noticed the monk's extraordinary concentration. He was sitting with crossed legs, hands in his lap, and his friendly stare seemed to ignore his admirers completely. I couldn't even see him breathing. When one of his accompanying monks carefully rearranged the cloth draped over his right shoulder, the abbot did not react in any way. An hour or so later, when I came back to the spot again, Khruba Si Wichai was still sitting in the same position, like a statue of serenity. I was deeply impressed by these spiritual powers. The mystery of his immovable serenity wasn't hard to solve, of course. What I was looking at was not the revered monk himself, but a wax life-sized image!

Since that evening I have retained a keen interest in this legendary monk. After all, I am one of the few foreigners who has met the living saint.

He was born in 1878, during a tempest with torrential rains, when the earth started to shake, in the northern Thai village of Ban Pang. Named Big Shock, he grew up in an unremarkable way. However, at the age of seventeen, when he became a novice in the temple, the villagers admired him for his strict discipline, as for instance in eating only one vegetarian meal a day, and they loved him for his kindness. In 1904, a few years after he was ordained a monk, he became the abbot of the temple. Because of his strong personality and reputed supernatural powers his fame spread rapidly all over the North of Thailand. He was referred to as Khruba Si Wichai - Khruba meaning 'teacher'. Over the next three decades, he succeeded in mobilizing thousands of people in the North to renovate more than one hundred temples.

Much-visited image

Furthermore, he revised the Yuan (northern Thai) version of the Traipitaka, one of the most important Buddhist texts. Nowadays, he is probably best remembered for the construction of the twelve kilometre long road up to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, at an altitude of 1053 metres on the mountain west of Chiang Mai. The gilded chedi of this beautiful and holy temple is said to contain a fragment of the skull of the Buddha. Thanks to the new road, more people could pay their respects to this relic of the Great Teacher. The temple has become a major tourist attraction, as have Wat Phra Singh and Wat Suan Dok in Chiang Mai, Wat Hariphunchai in Lamphun, and Wat Phra That Doi Tung in Chiang Rai, also renovated under Khruba Si Wichai's leadership.

When the monk died in 1938, sixty years old, and after his cremation, eight years later, thousands of followers milled in a frenzy to grab some of his ashes or a piece of bone to make protective amulets.

Still today, amulets with his portrait are as popular as ever, while numerous statues and images of the monk continue to bear witness to his fame in the North. Best known of these monuments is probably the large bronze statue in the shrine near the Huai Kaeo waterfall. Here the road to the famous temple on Doi Suthep begins its course up the mountain. Daily, hundreds of devout visitors respectfully kneel and make a wai in front of the statue.

The wax statue I once thought to be the venerated monk in person is now on display in the wihan of Wat Si Bun Ruang, a temple near the Wiang Kum Kam ruins just south of town. Its realistic craftmanship is still impressive.

Paying respects

However, maybe the most interesting place to learn about Khruba Si Wichai is Ban Pang, about 100 kilometres south of Chiang Mai along the road to the district town of Li in Lamphun province. Ban Pang's village temple, of which Khruba Si Wichai was the abbot for many years, is on the top of a hill and surrounded by paddy fields and orchards. Beside the traditional temple buildings, a new marble construction has arisen, its tower decorated with thousands of fragments of mirrors. The entrance to this 'museum' is protected by two statues of a tiger, as Khruba Si Wichai was born in the year of the tiger. Additionally, the tiger symbolizes the wild and fearsome powers of nature. Many meditation masters who used to wander deep in the forests are said to have been threatened by wild tigers, but the spiritual power radiating from these monks subdued the animal. Maybe the tiger is even the symbol of the 'wild' inside us that has to be subdued on the path to becoming enlightened.

A large collection of paraphernalia is exhibited, along with numerous amulets and photographs about Si Wichai's life. The show piece is the old classic car that was used to inaugurate the Doi Suthep road in 1935.

One aspect of this famous monk, however, is less explicitly present than his religious activities. Khruba Si Wichai was also seen as a rebel, the spiritual leader of northern patriotism, a kind of Mahatma Gandhi, who fuelled the resistance to colonization by Bangkok.

Khruba Si Wichai's followers, including at least 2,000 monks and novices from ninety temples in the North, refused to be part of the Bangkok sangha hierarchy. Modern state Buddhism was openly protested against, and many people even refused to take up modern education. The anti-Thai language feeling became widespread, while in some government schools furniture was either burned or thrown into the forest.

And the spiritual leader of this 'anti-colonial' protest was Khruba Si Wichai. The crisis came to a climax when he was summoned to Bangkok in November 1935 and detained at a prestigious temple for over six months. Eventually a compromise was reached, and when he returned to Chiang Mai, the monk received a hero's welcome at the railway station. A crowd of eight thousand was awaiting him.

Reforms after the Second World War have further integrated the North into the Thai nation-state, politically as well as culturally. Ardent regionalism is a thing of the past. However, during the turn of the century a remarkable interest in their regional past has been kindling among the peoples of the North. At the entrances of numerous temples, a sign board with the temple's name in the traditional northern script has been erected besides the sign in standard Thai. And in department stores, paraphernalia of former days have become hot items, as for instance products made from the traditional northern sa paper and photographs of Old Chiang Mai - with among the latter many pictures of Khruba Si Wichai and his activities.

To get to Wat Ban Pang by public transportation, take a local bus to Lamphun from the east bank of the Ping River near the Nawarat Bridge. In the centre of Lamphun take a blue song thaeo (pick-up truck) heading for Li. Get off at Ban Pang about 70 kms south of Lamphun. Wat Ban Pang and the Khruba Si Wichai museum are on top of a small hill, about 1 km west of the main road.