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Understanding Thai Buddha Amulets
A Thai Buddha amulet (Thai: พระเครื่à¸à¸‡), often referred to academically as votive tablet, is a kind of Thai Buddhist blessed item. It is used for raising funds in order to help the temple producing the amulets. Worshippers can obtain an 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.[1][2]
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.[3] 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 its appearance, but also on its scarcity, maker (which monk or magician), year of made and the magic classes as well.
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