As Phuket, my home, is not very far from this Southern Thai city, a lot of the elder male generation here bought such amulets and many are wearing them. I personally think the Jatukham Amulets with their inscriptions from (Hindu) mythology and oversized format look rather gaudy, and Buddhist magic has little place in my personal understanding of Buddhism -- but who am I to tell the Thai people about Buddhism?
The popularity of the amulets, known as Jatukam Ramathep, goes back about two decades. Depending on who tells the story, they are named after either a 17th-century king or a Hindu god who reputedly defended the Buddhist monastery here from pirate attacks. Phantarak Rajadej, a previous police chief in Nakhon Si Thammarat, began making and selling a limited number of talismans in the 1980s to raise money for a Buddhist shrine. He is widely believed in the town to have mastered the art of black magic to ward off his enemies. After he died in 2006 at the age of 104, production in amulets surged.
Word about the talismans' supernatural powers quickly spread to Bangkok, the capital. Amulet traders say prices ballooned because many Thais were worrying about the impact of a military coup in September 2006. Some wanted to buy spiritual help to see them through the turmoil and maybe make them rich. Models carried names such as "Super Rich to the Heavens" and "Eternally Wealthy" and dealers paid millions of dollars in newspaper and television advertisements to fuel the frenzy. The research department of Thai bank Kasikornbank PCL estimated that the market for Jatukam Ramathep amulets swelled to $1.5 billion last year.
Nakhon Si Thammarat and its Buddhist clergy were among the biggest beneficiaries. Visitors arrived from Bangkok and as far away as Malaysia and Singapore. A room at the swankiest hotel in town, the Twin Lotus, required a reservation three months in advance. Airlines laid on extra flights to town, while prominent businesspeople chartered planes to fly monks and other VIPs to the Buddhist temple where the talismans were blessed, the 13th-century Wat Phra Mahatat. Amulet dealers in Bangkok say the temple has earned over a million dollars, which it is now using to repair walls, crumbling spires and ancient bell towers.
In Nakhon Sri Thammarat a lot of the local people supplemented their small incomes by buying up batches and selling them at a profit. In a pattern now painfully familiar to investors the world over, the boom was so great -- some amulets sold for as much as $75,000 -- that the bust could only be close behind. A glut, combined with growing suspicions that many amulets hadn't been properly blessed by Buddhist monks, has blown the bottom out of the market in the past few weeks. Most of the little clay objects, part of a billion-dollar-plus industry just a few months ago, are now practically worthless.
As a result, thousands of others across the country are now deep in debt. Some of the traders even have filed a suit for damages against their dealer, as well as the abbot of Wat Phra Mahatat for allowing his name to be used on posters advertising the amulets. Elsewhere in this small fishing town, the wife of the police chief is suing a district mayor, claiming he delivered a load of faulty amulets; he claims she's just trying to duck out of a deal since the market's collapse.
The abbot of Wat Phra Mahatat, Phra Thepvinyaporn, is unperturbed. "I'm not surprised that somebody would try to sue me," he says. "Many people are broken-hearted and will do anything to recoup their losses." But he says it is only natural that markets go up and then down. "There is a cycle, just like fireworks," he says, polishing his thick glasses and adjusting his orange robe in the baking heat. "When you light the firework it rushes skywards, then booms and disappears. When it's gone, you wait for another firework to be lit."
Comment from Forest Wisdom:
"Reading the news this week about the demise of the Jatukham Ramathep amulets’ popularity leads to further reflection. For a start, it shows how unwise I was to get so upset by the use of such talisman, for it was always going to be an impermanent craze. All crazes are. Getting caught up in the issue at the time and attaching to an orthodox view of what constitutes Buddhism, I created suffering around them – much to the bemusement of some of my Thai friends and work colleagues! If I had remained alert to the impermanent nature of such crazes, this suffering wouldn’t have arisen."Links of Interest:
- Lucky Charms In Thailand Are Out of Luck by the Wall Street Journal
- Impermanence: Jatukham Ramathep Amulets by Forest Wisdom
- Forest Buddhism & 'Magic' Amulets by Forest Wisdom
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