{
 "schema": 1,
 "id": "phra-khrueang",
 "type": "amulet",
 "names": {
  "name": "Phra khrueang",
  "native": "พระเครื่อง",
  "script": "Thai",
  "lang": "th",
  "said": "prá krêuang",
  "aliases": [
   "Thai Buddha amulet",
   "phrakhrueang",
   "votive tablet",
   "Phra Somdej",
   "Benja Phakhi"
  ]
 },
 "etymology": {
  "root": "Thai พระ phra, the honorific for a Buddha image or a monk, + เครื่อง khrueang, a thing worn or carried — the Buddha one wears",
  "note": "The category name in this sense appears in the Rattanakosin period under King Rama IV, and takes in the older votive tablets, which came from India, as part of the class.",
  "tier": "cited",
  "source": "s:wp-thai-buddha-amulet"
 },
 "region": [
  "mainland-sea"
 ],
 "countries": [
  "TH"
 ],
 "facets": {
  "era": "modern",
  "status": "living",
  "portable": "worn",
  "restricted": "open",
  "hemisphere": [
   "N",
   "E"
  ]
 },
 "text": {
  "what": "A small pressed image of the Buddha, a revered monk, a bodhisattva or a deva — a tablet a couple of centimetres across, in plaster, metal, wood or bone, often with ash, a monk's hair or temple relics in the mix. Most are cased in clear plastic or a gold frame and worn on a chain at the neck. The Jatukham Rammathep type is round and about 5 cm across. A collector reads one with a loupe: the clay's texture, the mould's flaws, the temple it was pressed at, the monk who chanted over it.",
  "story": "The line runs from votive tablets, which are older than the idea of an amulet. Buddhism reached what is now Thailand in the Dvaravati period and brought India's votive-tablet practice with it; Dvaravati tablets were made to perpetuate the religion, tied to doctrines like the Five Disappearances. Under Srivijaya and Mahayana influence, tablets were pressed to dedicate merit to the dead and to accumulate it towards becoming a bodhisattva. By the Ayutthaya period they were being made for protection, and warriors carried them into battle in place of the phrajiat, the takrut or a herbal charm. In the early Rattanakosin period the protective amulet took off, the class acquired the name phra khrueang, and temples used them to raise money — a monk would give an amulet as a gift in return for a donation. That transaction is the hinge of everything that follows.\n\nThe famous ones have dates, diggings and names. Phra Somdej Wat Rakhang was made around 1866 to 1871 by Somdej Toh of Wat Rakhang Khositaram, one of Thailand's most respected monks, and is called the king of amulets. Somdej Toh had found Phra Sum Kor amulets at Wat Phraboromthat Nakhonchum in 1849, while visiting relatives in Kamphaeng Phet, along with tablets explaining how they were made, and used those instructions for his own. Phra Rod came out of a partly collapsed stupa at Wat Mahawan in Lamphun in the early reign of King Chulalongkorn. Phra Nang Phaya turned up when workers dug at Wat Nang Phaya in Phitsanulok to prepare a stage for Chulalongkorn's visit. Phra Phong Suphan came out of a formal dig the Suphanburi governor ordered in 1913, after thieves had gone under the temple's great stupa and taken amulets, some of them gold. Those five — Somdej, Rod, Nang Phaya, Phong Suphan, Sum Kor — are the Benja Phakhi, valued at over 10 million baht; the source names no year for that figure, so it is given without one.\n\nThe market can move like a market. In 1987 a policeman, Khun Phantharak Rajjadej, created the Jatukham Rammathep amulet for the establishment of Nakhon Si Thammarat's city pillar; locals hold the two Srivijaya princes it names to be the city's guardians. It caught on in the early 2000s, and hard from his funeral on 5 July 2006 into mid-2007. As many as 150 series were planned for 2007, and the market for that one type reached twenty billion baht that year. In late 2007 the bubble burst, and the amulets were left lying about cheap.\n\nA royal series is the cleanest record of how provenance is priced. King Bhumibol made the Phra Somdet Jitlada himself and awarded them from 1965 to 1970 to selected soldiers, police, officials and citizens: no more than 3,000, each with a certificate carrying the recipient's name, the date and the amulet's number. As of 2013 one was worth at least two million baht. The certificate is the price.",
  "how": "Pressed from a mould: temple dirt, pollen, plaster, crushed flowers, ash, a monk's hair, sometimes a fragment of a revered monk's robe. Monks chant and bless the batch, a process that runs from a week to several years. Amulets are also placed under stupas as they are built, which is why so many come to light when a temple structure collapses. What a piece is worth rests on appearance, scarcity, maker, age and reputed power — and on whether a specialist will certify it, because forgeries are common and buyers pay for an expert eye. There are rules for wearing: above the waist, at the neck or chest, never below; not in a bedroom where sex is expected; a prayer before and after putting one on; taken off to bathe. The takrut, which carries no monk and no Buddha image, is exempt and may go in a trouser pocket.",
  "today": "Traded daily at Tha Phrachan beside Thammasat University in Bangkok and at markets across the country, as of the most recent published accounts this project has read. Whether that trade is devotion or dealing is argued among Thai commentators rather than between Thais and outsiders, and this atlas reports the argument without joining it."
 },
 "dating": {
  "period": "Rattanakosin to the present",
  "from_year": 1866,
  "to_year": null,
  "living": true,
  "label": "c. 1866 to now, on the earliest dated production; the votive tablets behind it are far older",
  "method": "dated-object",
  "circa": true,
  "tier": "cited",
  "source": "s:wp-thai-buddha-amulet",
  "note": "1866 is the earliest production this project's source dates — the Phra Somdej Wat Rakhang, c. 1866–1871. The Dvaravati, Srivijaya and Ayutthaya tablets the class grows out of are named in the source without years, so no earlier year is asserted here."
 },
 "object": {
  "form": "plaque",
  "materials": [
   "earth",
   "terracotta",
   "copper",
   "wood",
   "bone",
   "hair"
  ],
  "worn": [
   "neck",
   "chest"
  ],
  "made_by": "temples; a named monk's consecration is part of what is being bought, and the best-known series carry the maker's name — Somdej Toh, or King Bhumibol",
  "inscription": "usually none; the image and the mould are the identification",
  "script": "Thai",
  "length_mm": 50,
  "single_use": false,
  "source": "s:wp-thai-buddha-amulet",
  "note": "The one published measurement in this project's source is the Jatukham Rammathep, around 5 cm in diameter. Most types are smaller; no measurement for them was read. Materials include plaster, for which this atlas has no key."
 },
 "against": [
  {
   "harm": "weapons",
   "who": "Ayutthaya-period warriors, who carried tablets into battle in place of the phrajiat, the takrut or herbal charms; invulnerability is named among the amulet's functions",
   "source": "s:wp-thai-buddha-amulet",
   "tier": "cited"
  },
  {
   "harm": "witchcraft",
   "who": "the functions Thai collectors list for the Phra Somdej: protection from black magic and the blocking of disasters",
   "source": "s:wp-thai-buddha-amulet",
   "tier": "cited"
  },
  {
   "harm": "attraction",
   "who": "the Khun Phaen type, whose main function is named as enhancing relationships, marriage and career — after the folklore hero who used a love formula",
   "source": "s:wp-thai-buddha-amulet",
   "tier": "cited"
  },
  {
   "harm": "illness",
   "who": "the Phra Kring, the rattling Medicine Buddha statuette, which Thai accounts describe as sounding the name of Bhaisajyaguru as the wearer walks",
   "source": "s:wp-thai-buddha-amulet",
   "tier": "cited"
  },
  {
   "harm": "bad-luck",
   "who": "the Jatukham Rammathep's buyers in 2006 and 2007, who held that it kept its owner from danger and made its owner rich",
   "source": "s:wp-thai-buddha-amulet",
   "tier": "cited"
  }
 ],
 "kin": [
  {
   "to": "tha-phrachan",
   "as": "the market this object built: trays, glass cases, loupes and certificates, in the lanes beside Thammasat University",
   "rel": "made-at"
  },
  {
   "to": "takrut",
   "as": "the amulet it shares a chain with and is ranked against — no Buddha image on a takrut, so it may go where this may not, including a trouser pocket",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "to": "palad-khik",
   "as": "the other Thai charm on the same tray, and the one that may be carried into a bar or a casino where this may not",
   "rel": "contrast"
  },
  {
   "to": "sak-yant",
   "as": "the same protection cut into skin instead of pressed into clay, by masters rather than moulds",
   "rel": "parallel"
  },
  {
   "to": "thai-wicha",
   "as": "the body of craft and lineage this belongs to, and the reason a monk's name sets a price",
   "rel": "tradition"
  },
  {
   "to": "consecration",
   "as": "what turns a pressed tablet into a phra khrueang — chanting that runs from a week to several years",
   "rel": "practice"
  },
  {
   "to": "buying-in-a-market",
   "as": "the practice in its most monetised form, with a 20-billion-baht year on the record",
   "rel": "practice"
  },
  {
   "to": "the-fake-market",
   "as": "the long read on forgery and appraisal, which starts with this object because the loupes are pointed at it",
   "rel": "story"
  },
  {
   "to": "dating-a-charm",
   "as": "the long read this is a hard case for: temple, mould and monk are the date, and a certificate is the evidence",
   "rel": "story"
  },
  {
   "to": "keris-pusaka",
   "as": "the Indonesian parallel — an object whose worth sits in its maker, its lineage and its age rather than in its material",
   "rel": "parallel"
  },
  {
   "to": "grave-deposit",
   "as": "why so many surface at once: tablets were sealed into stupas at construction and come out when the stupa falls",
   "rel": "practice"
  }
 ],
 "confusable_with": [
  {
   "id": "takrut",
   "tell": "a phra khrueang carries an image pressed in relief; a takrut is a rolled metal or palm-leaf tube with writing inside and nothing to look at"
  }
 ],
 "links": [
  {
   "label": "Thai Buddha amulet — Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_Buddha_amulet"
  }
 ],
 "sources": [
  "s:wp-thai-buddha-amulet",
  "s:wp-takrut",
  "s:wp-palad-khik",
  "s:wp-yantra-tattooing"
 ],
 "provenance": {
  "default": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-thai-buddha-amulet"
  },
  "fields": {
   "text.story": {
    "tier": "cited",
    "source": "s:wp-thai-buddha-amulet",
    "note": "every date, price and figure here is in the source; the 10-million-baht Benja Phakhi valuation carries no year there and is printed without one"
   },
   "text.today": {
    "tier": "inference",
    "note": "current trading is reasoned from published accounts; nobody from this project has stood at the stalls"
   }
  }
 },
 "images": [],
 "x_commons_files": [
  "File:Thai amulet.jpg",
  "File:Phra Somdej.jpg"
 ],
 "confidence": "high",
 "updated": "2026-09-16",
 "blurb": "A small pressed image of the Buddha, a revered monk, a bodhisattva or a deva — a tablet a couple of centimetres across, in plaster, metal, wood or bone, often with ash, a monk's hair or temple relics in the mix.",
 "region_terms": [
  {
   "key": "mainland-sea",
   "name": "Mainland Southeast Asia",
   "hemi": [
    "N",
    "E"
   ]
  }
 ],
 "hemispheres": [
  "E",
  "N"
 ],
 "kin_out": [
  {
   "to": "tha-phrachan",
   "type": "place",
   "name": "Tha Phrachan amulet market",
   "as": "the market this object built: trays, glass cases, loupes and certificates, in the lanes beside Thammasat University",
   "rel": "made-at"
  },
  {
   "to": "takrut",
   "type": "amulet",
   "name": "Takrut",
   "as": "the amulet it shares a chain with and is ranked against — no Buddha image on a takrut, so it may go where this may not, including a trouser pocket",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "to": "palad-khik",
   "type": "amulet",
   "name": "Palad khik",
   "as": "the other Thai charm on the same tray, and the one that may be carried into a bar or a casino where this may not",
   "rel": "contrast"
  },
  {
   "to": "sak-yant",
   "type": "amulet",
   "name": "Sak yant",
   "as": "the same protection cut into skin instead of pressed into clay, by masters rather than moulds",
   "rel": "parallel"
  },
  {
   "to": "thai-wicha",
   "type": "tradition",
   "name": "Thai wicha",
   "as": "the body of craft and lineage this belongs to, and the reason a monk's name sets a price",
   "rel": "tradition"
  },
  {
   "to": "consecration",
   "type": "practice",
   "name": "Consecration",
   "as": "what turns a pressed tablet into a phra khrueang — chanting that runs from a week to several years",
   "rel": "practice"
  },
  {
   "to": "buying-in-a-market",
   "type": "practice",
   "name": "Buying one in a market",
   "as": "the practice in its most monetised form, with a 20-billion-baht year on the record",
   "rel": "practice"
  },
  {
   "to": "the-fake-market",
   "type": "story",
   "name": "The fake market",
   "as": "the long read on forgery and appraisal, which starts with this object because the loupes are pointed at it",
   "rel": "story"
  },
  {
   "to": "dating-a-charm",
   "type": "story",
   "name": "Dating a charm",
   "as": "the long read this is a hard case for: temple, mould and monk are the date, and a certificate is the evidence",
   "rel": "story"
  },
  {
   "to": "keris-pusaka",
   "type": "amulet",
   "name": "Keris pusaka",
   "as": "the Indonesian parallel — an object whose worth sits in its maker, its lineage and its age rather than in its material",
   "rel": "parallel"
  },
  {
   "to": "grave-deposit",
   "type": "practice",
   "name": "Grave deposit",
   "as": "why so many surface at once: tablets were sealed into stupas at construction and come out when the stupa falls",
   "rel": "practice"
  }
 ],
 "source_list": [
  {
   "id": "s:wp-thai-buddha-amulet",
   "kind": "encyclopedia",
   "title": "Thai Buddha amulet",
   "publisher": "Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_Buddha_amulet",
   "accessed": "2026-09-16",
   "license": "CC BY-SA 4.0"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:wp-takrut",
   "kind": "encyclopedia",
   "title": "Takrut",
   "publisher": "Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takrut",
   "accessed": "2026-09-16",
   "license": "CC BY-SA 4.0"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:wp-palad-khik",
   "kind": "encyclopedia",
   "title": "Palad khik",
   "publisher": "Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palad_khik",
   "accessed": "2026-09-16",
   "license": "CC BY-SA 4.0"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:wp-yantra-tattooing",
   "kind": "encyclopedia",
   "title": "Yantra tattooing",
   "publisher": "Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yantra_tattooing",
   "accessed": "2026-09-16",
   "license": "CC BY-SA 4.0"
  }
 ],
 "tiers": {
  "text.what": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-thai-buddha-amulet"
  },
  "text.story": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-thai-buddha-amulet",
   "note": "every date, price and figure here is in the source; the 10-million-baht Benja Phakhi valuation carries no year there and is printed without one"
  },
  "text.how": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-thai-buddha-amulet"
  },
  "text.today": {
   "tier": "inference",
   "note": "current trading is reasoned from published accounts; nobody from this project has stood at the stalls"
  },
  "etymology": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-thai-buddha-amulet"
  },
  "dating": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-thai-buddha-amulet"
  },
  "object": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-thai-buddha-amulet"
  }
 },
 "primary_image": null,
 "tag_facts": [],
 "recognition_facts": [],
 "acclaim": 0,
 "against_facts": [
  {
   "key": "weapons",
   "label": "Blades and bullets",
   "gloss": "invulnerability charms; reported, never recommended",
   "who": "Ayutthaya-period warriors, who carried tablets into battle in place of the phrajiat, the takrut or herbal charms; invulnerability is named among the amulet's functions",
   "quote": "",
   "source": "s:wp-thai-buddha-amulet",
   "tier": "cited",
   "note": ""
  },
  {
   "key": "witchcraft",
   "label": "Another person's sorcery",
   "who": "the functions Thai collectors list for the Phra Somdej: protection from black magic and the blocking of disasters",
   "quote": "",
   "source": "s:wp-thai-buddha-amulet",
   "tier": "cited",
   "note": ""
  },
  {
   "key": "attraction",
   "label": "Attracting custom, luck or love",
   "gloss": "the charm that pulls rather than blocks",
   "who": "the Khun Phaen type, whose main function is named as enhancing relationships, marriage and career — after the folklore hero who used a love formula",
   "quote": "",
   "source": "s:wp-thai-buddha-amulet",
   "tier": "cited",
   "note": ""
  },
  {
   "key": "illness",
   "label": "Illness",
   "gloss": "sickness in general, where no cause is named",
   "who": "the Phra Kring, the rattling Medicine Buddha statuette, which Thai accounts describe as sounding the name of Bhaisajyaguru as the wearer walks",
   "quote": "",
   "source": "s:wp-thai-buddha-amulet",
   "tier": "cited",
   "note": ""
  },
  {
   "key": "bad-luck",
   "label": "Bad luck, unspecified",
   "who": "the Jatukham Rammathep's buyers in 2006 and 2007, who held that it kept its owner from danger and made its owner rich",
   "quote": "",
   "source": "s:wp-thai-buddha-amulet",
   "tier": "cited",
   "note": ""
  }
 ],
 "material_facts": [
  {
   "key": "earth",
   "label": "Earth and ash",
   "kind": "mineral",
   "note": "grave earth, temple ash, volcanic sand"
  },
  {
   "key": "terracotta",
   "label": "Fired clay",
   "kind": "fired"
  },
  {
   "key": "copper",
   "label": "Copper and bronze",
   "kind": "metal"
  },
  {
   "key": "wood",
   "label": "Wood",
   "kind": "plant"
  },
  {
   "key": "bone",
   "label": "Bone and ivory",
   "kind": "organic"
  },
  {
   "key": "hair",
   "label": "Hair",
   "kind": "organic"
  }
 ],
 "worn_facts": [
  {
   "key": "neck",
   "label": "At the neck",
   "group": "body",
   "note": "the world's default position"
  },
  {
   "key": "chest",
   "label": "On the chest, under the shirt",
   "group": "body"
  }
 ],
 "form_fact": {
  "key": "plaque",
  "label": "Plaque or tablet"
 },
 "holding_facts": [],
 "span": "1866 CE to now",
 "country_names": [
  {
   "iso": "TH",
   "name": "Thailand"
  }
 ],
 "kin_in": [
  {
   "from": "keris-pusaka",
   "type": "amulet",
   "name": "Keris pusaka",
   "as": "the Thai parallel in how worth is set: maker, lineage and age decide the price, not the metal",
   "rel": "parallel"
  },
  {
   "from": "palad-khik",
   "type": "amulet",
   "name": "Palad khik",
   "as": "the amulet it is the complement of: a Buddha tablet cannot be taken into a bar or a casino, and this can",
   "rel": "contrast"
  },
  {
   "from": "sak-yant",
   "type": "amulet",
   "name": "Sak yant",
   "as": "the pressed Buddha tablet that does the same work and can be taken off; this one cannot",
   "rel": "contrast"
  },
  {
   "from": "takrut",
   "type": "amulet",
   "name": "Takrut",
   "as": "the pressed tablet it hangs beside, and the rule that separates them: no Buddha image here, so this one may go in a pocket",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "from": "thai-wicha",
   "type": "tradition",
   "name": "Thai wicha",
   "as": "the tradition's central object, and the one whose price is a monk's name and a temple's date",
   "rel": "carries"
  },
  {
   "from": "footprint",
   "type": "motif",
   "name": "The footprint",
   "as": "the small Thai tablet the footprint's country presses by the million; the same tradition, at hand size",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "from": "bone-ivory",
   "type": "material",
   "name": "Bone and ivory",
   "as": "pressed with bone, ash, hair and relics worked into the body of the tablet",
   "rel": "carried-by"
  },
  {
   "from": "terracotta",
   "type": "material",
   "name": "Fired clay",
   "as": "the Thai clay votive tablet, pressed in its thousands and sold to fund the temple that pressed it",
   "rel": "carried-by"
  },
  {
   "from": "buying-in-a-market",
   "type": "practice",
   "name": "Buying one in a market",
   "as": "the object with the largest figure attached to this practice anywhere in the atlas: twenty billion baht in a single year",
   "rel": "carried-by"
  },
  {
   "from": "consecration",
   "type": "practice",
   "name": "Consecration",
   "as": "the object this step is priced by — which temple pressed it and which monk chanted over it is most of its value",
   "rel": "practice"
  },
  {
   "from": "tha-phrachan",
   "type": "place",
   "name": "Tha Phrachan amulet market",
   "as": "the object this whole market exists to trade, authenticate and argue about",
   "rel": "carries"
  },
  {
   "from": "amulet-or-talisman",
   "type": "story",
   "name": "Amulet or talisman?",
   "as": "the object that passes one test, fails the next and is argued over inside its own tradition — the case against ruling",
   "rel": "contrast"
  },
  {
   "from": "the-charm-goes-digital",
   "type": "story",
   "name": "The charm goes digital",
   "as": "the Thai tablet that Crypto Amulets tokenised, and whose price has always been its history",
   "rel": "carries"
  },
  {
   "from": "the-fake-market",
   "type": "story",
   "name": "The fake market",
   "as": "the tablet whose worth is its history, which is why the certificate exists at all",
   "rel": "carries"
  }
 ]
}