Thai Amulets

Thai amulets is a kind of Thai Buddhist blessed items. It is used for raising fund in order to help the temple producing the amulets. Worshippers can obtain a amulets or Thai Buddhist monk blessing by simply donating money or offering oil to the temple. After the donation, Thai Buddhist monk will give amulet as a gift to them. With the change of time, amulet no longer simply means as a "gift" , but a kind of tool to help enhance luck in different aspects, some people use amulets to improve marriage, wealth, health, love and people relationship.
It is also a tradition to place Thai amulets under stupa or other temple structure when it is built. When the structure collapses, many amulets are found. Some can be dated back over a century.
Almost every Thai Buddhist has at least one Thai amulets. They have great respect for the Buddha. It is common to see young or elderly people wear amulets, or packaged by amulets around the neck in order to get closer to the Buddha.
Amulets are made using the Buddha image, image of famous monk, or even image of the monks who made the amulets themselves and let believers wear on for security and peace. Amulets have different kind of sizes, different shapes and different materials such as plaster, bone, wood, metal. It may include ash from incenses or old temple structure, hair from famous monk, to add protection power to the amulets.
After the amulets were made, the maker will then ask the monks who live in temples or monks from other temples join together and practice will, chant, pray and bless the amulets, this process may need at least one week more than three years.
When a new amulet freshly made, its plaster appearance may not be attractive or gorgeous. By adding packaging, a common amulet becomes a beautiful, stylish amulets and at the same time protect the amulet inside. The price of an amulets not only depends on it's appearance, but also on it's scarcity, maker (which monk or magician), year of made and the magic classes as well.
Famous Thai Amulets
Benja Phakhi
The most famous of Thai amulets are the set of 5 rarest and highly sought after amulets Phra Somdej Wat Rakhang (), Phra Rod(), Phra Nang Phaya (), Phra Pong Suphan () and Phra Sum Kor (), together called Benja Phakhi (). They are valued at over 10 million Baht.
Phra Somdej
Phra Somdej () amulets are "King of amulets" said, also Known as "lucky amulets" is one of the famous amulet. Each amulet collectors must have one and it is the best and foremost choice to the new believer of Thai Amulet. Para Somdej own the most noblest status in Buddhism. The most famous of this kind is the Phra Somdej Wat Rakhang produced in around 2382, by Somdej Toh of Wat Rakhang Khositaram (). He is among the most respected monk in Thailand too.
Phra Somdej Chitralada is the amulets made by King Bhumibol himself and awarded during 1965 till 1970 to selected soldiers, policement, government officers and citizen. Not over 3000 of those are amulets made. Each amulet is accompanied with certificate stating name of recipient, date and amulet number. As of 2013, a Phra Somdej Chitralada worths at least 2 million Baht.
In general, most Phra Somdej amulets do not have eyes, nose and mouth. The Buddha image in Phra Somdej seated on the three-level throne representing heaven, people and earth. However, the Phra Somdej later appeared with five, seven, nine, ten level throne, as well as thirteen, but the concept of the throne is still the same. The meaning of Heaven, people and earth is to remind one must be humble, and everything was planned by the nature and God. Like other Thai Amulet, Phra Somdej is usually made of Temple dirt, pollen, monk's hair and the holy robe wore by the monk, etc.
The main function of Phra Somdej amulets ranges form protection from dangerous to enhance people relationship, from enhancing marriage relationship to enhancing health, from deliver us from demon to block disaster and from strengthen our career to adjusting the human aura field. Most importantly, it can help bring peace to different walks of life.
Phra Rod
Phra Rod refers to amulets discovered in early King Chulalongkorn era inside a partially collapsed stupa in Wat Mahawan () in Lamphun Province. It was named Phra Rod because the Buddha image in the amulet matched the an ancient Buddha image in the temple's Ubosot called Phra Rod Luang (). Legends say that when the template was part of Hariphunchai Kingdom, the amulets were crafted by Rishi to hand out to citizen during wars and the remaining of those were placed inside the temple's stupa. Nakhon Si Thammarat Province people consider Jatukham and Rammthep as guardian angels to the city. The Jatukham Rammathep amulet was first created by the late police Khun Phantharak Rajjadej () in 1987 as part of Nakhon Si Thammarat's Lak Mueang establishment. The amulet is round-shaped, typically with the image of Hindu deities and around 5 cm in diameter. It became popular early 2000s, especially during the time of Khun Phantharak Rajjadej's funeral on 5 July 2006 till mid-2007. The amulet was believed to protect owner from danger and make owner rich. As many as 150 series of Jatukham Rammathep amulet production was planned for the year 2007 and the value of market for the amulet reach 20 billion Baht that year. Late 2007 it appeared that the Jatukham Rammathep amulet bubble had burst, its popularity quickly faded with plenty of amulets left that could be obtained at very low price.
Lord Hanuman
Lord Ganesha

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