Rare Buddhist Amulets of Revered Monks Displayed
A rare collection of Buddhist amulets honoring three revered Northeast Thai monks—including a prized medal with a deliberately missing yantra—is being displayed, with pieces cast decades after the monks' deaths to commemorate their legacies
A collection of rare Buddhist amulets honoring three respected monks is presented, beginning with a Buddhist principle that shame prevents wrongdoing and gives rise to wisdom. Luang Pu Thong Thammachoto, the late abbot of Ban Yang Temple in Bor Bua District, Maha Sarakham Province, was commemorated with medals cast eighteen years after his death in 1969 by his disciples and villagers. The oval-shaped medals, produced in no more than 3,000 copper pieces with blackened finish and a limited number in silver, feature his half-length image on the obverse with protective mantras inscribed around the edges, and a meditation Buddha image with covered face on the reverse. Luang Pu Chan Khemyo, a former provincial sangha leader in Nakhon Phanom and abbot of Sri Thep Pradis Temple, is honored with a particularly prized medal created the year before his death in 1973. This oval amulet bears his likeness on the front and features an eight-directional yantra protected by five deities on the back; one of the yantras is deliberately missing, a detail collectors refer to as the "missing U." The medal was blessed on November 28, 1975. Luang Por Khun Parisutto of Ban Rai Temple in Khon Kaen Province, who undertook the monastic residence at Sarakaew Temple in Nakhon Ratchasima between 1970 and 1984, created medals to fund the construction of two large monastic buildings. His amulets, bearing his half-length image and his abbreviated name "Parisutto" on the obverse and text commemorating the temple buildings on the reverse, are now considered rare collectibles.
