Clipping of Luang Por Yai’s Jiwon (outer monk’s robe) 

Cotton fabric coloured with dye derived from jackfruit tree bark

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During the first half of the 20th century, the nascent Thai state worked to codify a version of Theravada Buddhism that would cohere with its vision of a modern nation. Concurrent with a unified Thailand, doctrines endorsed by Siamese royalty were employed to standardize the plethora of hyperlocal traditions that had evolved across what had been the Kingdom of Siam and its vassal states. While giving rise to some of the world’s most recognized contemporary scholar-monks and meditation practitioners, this national Thai Buddhism has been marked by a patriarchal conservativism enshrined by the governance of the Sangha Supreme Council. An often-debated example of this is the illegalization of women as full monastics (bhikkhuni), relegating woman-monastics to the decidedly inferior office of mae chee (nun). But the state standardization of Buddhism was never fully realized. Local traditions and charismatic figures operating outside of its orthodoxy have consistently found alternative pathways to religious recognition. 

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Luang Por Yai (1910-1970) was one such figure, and the monastic community settled to practice her teachings at Wat Thamkrabok in northern Saraburi remains an example of the lived diversity extant within the ecosystem of Buddhism in Thailand. A radical female monastic and founder of sajja-tham (lit. truth teaching), an experiential approach to Theravada Buddhism, Luang Por Yai remains revered at Wat Thamkrabok as a figure with supreme insight into Buddhism’s fundamental religious truths. Although Wat Thamkrabok gained fame and acceptance since the 1960s for its Buddhist-informed addiction therapy, its monastic community remains fundamentally oriented towards the preservation of her teachings. 

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Born Mian Panchand in 1910, the early chapters of Laung Por Yai’s life were defined by destitute poverty. Living in Bangkok’s notorious Khlong Teuy slum as an illiterate householder, she developed an extreme alcohol addiction and was deserted by her family. In 1949, she had a sudden transcendent experience in which she remembered her past lives and gained insight into Gautama Buddha’s methods for attaining nibbana. Seeing it as her destiny to teach monks what she called the “habits of the Buddha,” Mian renounced alcohol forever, promptly ordained as a mae chee (nun), and proffered and developed her sajja-tham teaching. By the mid-1950s, Mae Chee (nun) Mian had garnered a following of dozens of male monks, an astounding rarity in Thailand’s then especially conservative religious climate. She led these monks on wandering pilgrimages, called thudong, across the Thai countryside. In 1957, they founded Wat Thamkrabok in northern Saraburi province as a place to practice her teachings.

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The holy figurehead she became at Wat Thamkrabok was significantly styled by her male followers, who gave her the title Luang Por (“venerable father,” an honourific for abbots) Yai (great/large). It was at their request, also, that she replaced her white nun’s robes with the same brown monk’s robes they wore. Although she never attested to having ordained as a monk, she was arrested on at least one occasion for impersonating one. Visitors to the temple were struck to see male monks prostrate to her, an act of near heresy. In the 1960s, a Thai reporter asked her why she encouraged such behavior. “That is a decision the monks make,” she replied, “you will have to ask them why they do it.” The reporter did. “If you find someone who can really show you the way out of suffering, will you stop to worry about their gender?” they replied. 

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The clippings displayed here were collected from her outer monk’s robe (jiwon) after her death in 1970 and are a profoundly holy artifact. They were given to me by a layperson – my “grandmother” – in recognition of our especially close relationship, and to keep me connected to Wat Thamkrabok’s holy power after the conclusion of my ethnographic research there in 2023. Laung Por Yai remains one of earliest and most significant examples of a female monastic teacher in contemporary Thai Buddhism, and the legacy of her teachings and story exemplifies the potential for local innovation and radical change in a national religious culture some scholars describe as “captured” by political power. 

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Contributor: Alastair Parsons