traditionsThai wichaวิชา

The tablets come first and they are older than the idea of a charm. Buddhism reached what is now Thailand in the Dvaravati period carrying India's votive-tablet practice, and Dvaravati tablets were made to perpetuate the religion. Under Srivijaya and Mahayana influence, tablets were pressed to dedicate merit to the dead and toward becoming a bodhisattva. By Ayutthaya 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 began using them to raise funds — a monk would give one as a gift in return for a donation. The term 'amulet' in this sense first appears under King Rama IV.

Takrut are older than Thai Buddhism in the sources' own account. They are the form the Khun Chang Khun Phaen epic mentions most, and after Buddhism took root monks were making them in 1200–1300 CE. The tattoo comes from the other direction: sak yant originates in the Khmer Empire around the ninth century, built on mainland Southeast Asian animist tattooing that the sources run back as far as 2,500 BCE, with the geometry drawn from Indian yantras. Cambodia writes them in Khmer script, central Thailand in Khom, northern Thailand in Shan, Northern Thai or Tai Lu, Laos in Lao Tham.

The craft states its own rules and they run on the bearer, not the object. A yant confers what it confers only while the person carrying it observes the taboos taken on with it — abstaining from a named food is the example the source gives. Break them and it stops. Three classes of effect are named: one that works on the bearer, making them more eloquent; one that protects, taken by soldiers, police, taxi drivers and people in trades they count as dangerous; one that works on everyone else, invoking fear.

And there is a live economy with dated figures. In 1987 a policeman, Khun Phantharak Rajjadej, created the Jatukham Rammathep amulet for the founding of Nakhon Si Thammarat's city pillar; it names two Srivijaya princes the city holds to be its guardians, is round, and runs about 5 cm across. It caught on in the early 2000s, hard, from the time of its creator's funeral on 5 July 2006 into mid-2007. As many as 150 series were planned for production in 2007, and the market for that one amulet reached twenty billion baht that year. In late 2007 the bubble burst: the popularity faded fast, leaving plenty of stock that could be had at low prices. The source gives no figure for what the collapse cost anybody, so none is given here.

The other prices are collectors' prices and carry what their source carries. The Benja Phakhi — Phra Somdej, Phra Rod, Phra Nang Phaya, Phra Phong Suphan, Phra Sum Kor — are valued at over 10 million baht, with no year attached in the source, so none is printed. A Phra Somdet Jitlada, one of no more than 3,000 made by King Bhumibol and awarded between 1965 and 1970 with a numbered certificate naming its recipient, was worth at least two million baht as of 2013.

Inference — the argument about whether this is devotion or trade is Thai, conducted in Thai, and older than any foreign observer's version of it. The atlas reports both halves: temples have funded themselves this way since the early Rattanakosin period and say so plainly, and a market that can move twenty billion baht in twelve months behaves like a market. Neither half is a debunking of the other.

Amulets are pressed from plaster, metal, wood or bone, often with ash, a monk's hair or temple relics mixed in, then chanted over and blessed in a process that can take from a week to several years, and usually cased before wear. Takrut are inscribed with yant in Khom, Lan Na Tai Tham or another script, rolled into a tube, cased, and tied to the body — at the neck, at chest level, at the waist, or over a body part the wearer wants covered. Value afterwards turns on appearance, scarcity, maker, age and reputation, which is why buyers arrive at a market with a loupe and why specialist authenticators are part of the trade. A sak yant is applied by needle by a monk, a Brahmin priest, a ruesi or a lay wicha practitioner, and the rules travel home with the bearer.

Live and internationally visible, with the frictions that brings. Angelina Jolie was tattooed by Ajahn Noo Ganpai in Old Khmer script and took a Bengal tiger yant in 2004 on acquiring Cambodian citizenship, which the source credits with the practice's popularity among women abroad. In 2011 Thailand's Culture Ministry moved against parlours inking Buddha images on non-Buddhist visitors. Wat Bang Phra in Nakhon Pathom holds its Wai Khru on the grounds once a year in March, when the tattoos of those who come are renewed. In 2021 a Thai project put monk-blessed amulets on a blockchain as NFTs. Tha Phrachan market in Bangkok still trades the tablets, and forgery is common enough that expert authentication is a standing part of the transaction.