Glossary

The accumulated spiritual perfection of a monk or practitioner, built through lifetimes of discipline, meditation, and merit-making.

The set of five: the canon of five classic amulet types that twentieth-century collectors ratified as the summit of the field.

"Opening the eyes.

Veneration; honoring in the devotional sense.

Sacred scrap metal saved from prior consecrated castings, melted and recast so that new images physically contain the old.

To rent.

Sacred earth or clay used as an amulet material.

"Nine spires.

"Five rows.

An incantation or sacred formula, usually in Pali, recited in consecration, in personal practice, and in the making of sacred materials.

The meditation circle: the group of senior monks who sit in meditation around the objects during a phutthaphisek ceremony, projecting the force of their samadhi into the amulets.

The Khao Or academy (สำนักตักศิลามหาเวทย์เขาอ้อ), the most famous southern Thai esoteric school, based at Wat Khao Or in Khuan Khanun district, Phatthalung province.

Escape from harm.

Invulnerability.

A sealed chamber inside a stupa or temple structure where votive tablets and valuables were enshrined, sometimes for centuries.

A small consecrated ball, typically compounded from sacred materials such as herbs, rice, powder, and mercury, and pressed or rolled into a sphere.

The traditional sak yant needle: a long metal or bamboo rod, sometimes over a meter in length, tipped with one or more points.

Loving-kindness and great popularity.

Sacred headband worn by muay thai fighters during the pre-fight wai khru ram muay ceremony.

The mass of sacred ingredients folded into an amulet's material: flowers from offerings, incense ash, fragments of older amulets, soil from significant sites, herbs gathered under prescribed conditions, a teacher's hair, or powder made by writing and erasing yant thousands of times.

A prescribed alloy of nine metals used in casting sacred objects.

Literally "flesh": the material an amulet is made from, and one of the first things any description states.

"Eight directions.

Protective recitations from the Pali canon, chanted during ceremonies to invoke the Buddha's blessing power.

A consecrated cloth printed or inscribed with sacred diagrams (yant) and incantations (katha).

The mold from which an amulet is pressed, and by extension the design type it produces.

Sacred powder, the classic base material for pressed amulets.

The Thai umbrella term for small sacred objects, most often molded or cast images of the Buddha, revered monks, or sacred designs, consecrated through formal ritual and usually worn on the body.

The closed-eyes Buddha: an amulet depicting a seated figure covering its eyes, and often its other sense openings, with its hands.

The most revered amulet type in Thailand: a rectangular sacred-powder tablet bearing a seated Buddha on a tiered base, created by Somdej Toh of Wat Rakhang Kositaram, Bangkok, in the mid nineteenth century.

A molded sacred image, the deep ancestor of the modern amulet.

The grand consecration ceremony.

Literally "to awaken by incantation": the act of consecrating an object through concentrated recitation and meditation.

The five sacred powders used in the classic Somdej recipe.

Sacred armbands worn by muay thai fighters during bouts.

A coin amulet: a flat metal piece struck or stamped like a medal, usually bearing a monk's portrait on the front and a yant or temple emblem on the back.

Sacred cotton thread used to connect objects, monks, and congregation during ceremonies.

The practice of tattooing yant onto the skin, performed by monks and lay masters using a long steel or bamboo needle.

"Saturday the Fifth.

Boundary stones that define the consecrated ground of an ubosot.

An amulet expert: the professional class of appraisers, dealers, and authenticators whose trained eyes anchor the market.

The highest ecclesiastical rank in the Thai sangha, below only the Supreme Patriarch.

A rolled metal scroll amulet.

The victory candle used in phutthaphisek grand consecration ceremonies.

The ordination hall of a Thai temple, the most ritually bounded space in the monastery.

The annual teacher-honoring ceremony held across Thai traditional arts, from muay thai to sacred tattooing to the esoteric schools that produce amulets.

Sacred herbs compounded into amulet material.

A Thai Buddhist temple and monastery complex: ordination hall, stupa, living quarters, and the community of monks and laypeople around them.

Sacred knowledge or magical arts.

A sacred diagram: geometric figures, script syllables, and numerals arranged in prescribed designs, each carrying a specific protective or auspicious meaning.