Ajahn Mun and the Thai Forest Tradition: History, Dhutanga Practice, Relics, and Amulets

Phra Ajahn Mun Bhuridatto (20 January 1870 – 11 November 1949), known in Thai as Luang Pu Mun, was a Dhammayuttika monk from Ubon Ratchathani Province. He is credited, together with his mentor Ajahn Sao Kantasīlo, with establishing the Thai Forest Tradition, also called the Kammaṭṭhāna tradition, which later spread through Thailand and abroad [2]. His followers honour him as the great teacher of the forest lineage (phra ajahn yai) [1][2]. He wandered through the northeast of Thailand, along the Mekong into Laos, and into Burma, and later spent about twelve years in the forests of the north [1][2].

This article treats Mun as a historical figure first. Thanissaro Bhikkhu summarises his teaching as the view that the Dhamma is found in a well-trained heart and mind rather than in old customs and texts [6]. Medals associated with his students are a later, separate layer of Thai material culture; the final section records what one Thai newspaper survey says about them.

Early Life and Family in Ubon Ratchathani

Mun Kaenkaew was born on Thursday, 20 January 1870 (BE 2413) at Ban Kham Bong, in what was then Khong Chiam District and is now Si Mueang Mai District, Ubon Ratchathani Province [1][2]. Both the Thai and English Wikipedia pages name his parents as Kham Duang Kaenkaew and Jan Kaenkaew [1][2].

At the age of 15 he was ordained as a novice (samanera) at Wat Ban Kham Bong [1][2]. After two years his father asked him to leave the robes and help with work at home. The Thai and English Wikipedia pages say he was drawn back toward monastic life, recalling his grandmother's instruction that he should ordain for her [1][2]. Phra Kru Wiwek Buddhakit (Sao Kantasīlo) later came to the village on a wandering pilgrimage. Mun, still a layman, served him, admired his strict practice, became his follower and travelled with him to the city of Ubon Ratchathani [1][2]. The English page on Ajahn Sao dates this meeting to 1891–1893 [11].

Ordination and Training under Ajahn Sao

At the age of 23 Mun was fully ordained as a monk at Wat Liap in Mueang Ubon Ratchathani on 12 June 1893 (BE 2436), with Phra Ariyakawee (On Dhammarakkhito) as preceptor. He received the Pali name Bhuridatto, glossed as "one who gives wisdom" [1][2]. He later doubted aspects of the ordination and the sanghati robe, and about a year afterwards a second ceremony (dalhīkamma) was held on a raft in the Mun River [1]. The English Wikipedia page describes it as a re-ordination led by Phra Kru Wijitthammaphani (Jan Sirijanto) [2].

Ajahn Sao Kantasīlo was a Dhammayuttika monk who, according to the page on the forest tradition, served as abbot of Wat Liap in the late nineteenth century. That page says he questioned the textual orientation of the Dhammayut movement, said little when teaching, and told students to meditate on the word "Buddho" [3]. The page on Sao adds that he urged his disciples to be diligent, systematic and consistent, taught them to wake at 3 a.m. and practise sitting or walking meditation until 10 p.m., and that Mun was one of his best-known students, the two often travelling together on foot [11]. Sources disagree on Sao's dates: his own English page gives 1859–1942 [11], while the page on the forest tradition gives 1861–1941 [3].

After his ordination Mun went to Wat Liap and began kasina meditation. The same account says he then turned to keeping awareness of the whole body, including walking meditation [3]. From 1893 he studied at Wat Liap and began dhutanga wandering with Sao along the Mekong, on the Thai and Lao sides [1][2].

The Thai Forest Tradition (Kammaṭṭhāna) and Dhutanga Practice

Wikipedia describes the Thai Forest Tradition as a lineage of Theravada monasticism that began around 1900 with Mun. In that account he wanted to practise according to the standards of early Buddhism, which he called "the customs of the noble ones" [3]. Thanissaro Bhikkhu explains that phrase as the practices that had allowed the Buddha and his disciples to reach Awakening [6].

"Dhutanga" means "austere practice" in Pali (tudong in Thai). In the commentaries it refers to thirteen ascetic practices. In Thai usage it came to mean extended wandering in the countryside, during which monks live on what lay people give and sleep wherever they can. Some carry a large umbrella tent with attached mosquito netting, called a crot [3]. Thanissaro lists among the practices Mun kept: living on alms food, wearing robes of discarded rags, dwelling in the forest and eating one meal a day. He adds that Mun avoided the duties of settled monastic life by choosing secluded places in the wild country of Thailand and Laos [6].

Thai Wikipedia lists seven dhutanga practices that Mun held to until the end of his life [1]; the English page gives the same seven [2]:

• wearing only rag robes (pamsukulikanga);
• going on alms round (pindapatikanga);
• eating from a single bowl (ekapattikanga);
• eating once a day (ekasanikanga);
• accepting no more food once he had begun to eat (khalupacchabhattikanga);
• using only three robes (tecivarikanga);
• not living near villages (aranyikanga) [1][2].

On teaching, the page on the tradition says Mun insisted on scrupulous observance of the Vinaya and taught that virtue is a matter of the mind rather than of ritual. He held that meditative concentration is necessary on the path and that jhana and nibbana remained possible in modern times [3]. Thanissaro adds that Mun was not interested in conforming to the customs of any particular society, and looked instead to what he called the customs of the noble ones [6].

Wandering Years: Caves, Bangkok and the North

Mun's travels are recorded in several places. In 1900 he spent the rains retreat at Wat Phra That Phanom in Nakhon Phanom with Luang Pu No Thitapanyo [1][2]. In 1912 he practised alone in Sarika Cave in Nakhon Nayok Province, suffering abdominal illness [1][2]. According to forest-tradition accounts, he attained the level of a non-returner there after confronting a club-wielding apparition [3]. English Wikipedia also records a different account, from Ajahn Maha Bua, which places his full awakening in the same cave [2].

Wikipedia says he consulted his childhood friend Chao Khun Upali in Bangkok about insight practice, then stayed in caves in Lopburi for an unspecified period before returning to Bangkok to consult Chao Khun Upali again [3]. The Thai page says he stayed at Singto Cave, Khao Phra Ngam, in Lopburi, and that in 1914 Phra Upali Gunupamacariya (Chan Sirichanto) invited him to Bangkok to teach vipassana meditation at Wat Pathum Wanaram [1].

In 1928 he was appointed abbot of Wat Chedi Luang in Chiang Mai. He accepted reluctantly, out of respect for Upali, and was made a phra khru winaithon (Vinaya-holder) and preceptor, but he ordained only one monk. After a single rains retreat he gave up the post and his rank, reasoning that honours and gifts undermine practice [1][2]. He then wandered the forests of Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai provinces for about twelve years [1][2].

The Dhammayuttika Nikaya and Institutional Tension

The Dhammayuttika Nikaya began in 1833 as a reform movement led by Mongkut, a son of King Rama II and later King Rama IV [8]. Thai Wikipedia says Mongkut founded it to revive Buddhism in Siam and to correct monastic practice according to the Dhamma and Vinaya [7]. English Wikipedia adds that Mongkut made the Pali Canon the primary authority, tried to remove non-Buddhist folk-religious and superstitious elements, and expected Dhammayuttika monks to eat only one meal a day, gathered on an alms round [8]. The movement was formally recognised as a separate order by the Sangha Act of 1902, and its monks make up under ten percent of Thai monks [8].

Both Mun and Sao belonged to this order [2][11]. Relations were not simple. Thanissaro notes that in the early twentieth century Mun's Kammaṭṭhāna lineage formed a distinct camp within the order, at odds with the reforms of Prince Vajirañāṇavarorasa [8]. According to the page on the forest tradition, Mun's approach met resistance because he challenged the text-based approach of city monks. The senior cleric Tisso Uan (1867–1956) rejected the authenticity of Mun's reported attainment, while Chao Khun Upali held him in high esteem, which affected the latitude state authorities gave him [3]. By the late 1930s Tisso Uan formally recognised the forest monks as a faction, though after Mun's death he still maintained that Mun had not been qualified to teach because he had not completed the government's Pali studies [3]. Thanissaro writes that in 1928 a Dhammayuttika official in the northeast, unsympathetic to forest monks, ordered Mun's followers to build monasteries, and that Mun then went north [6].

Isan Years and Wat Pa Ban Nong Phue

In 1939 Phra Dhammachedi (Chum Phanthulo) invited Mun to return to Isan to teach [1][2]. He stayed at Wat Pa Salawan in Nakhon Ratchasima, where Ajahn Sing Khantayakamo was abbot, and at Wat Pa Non Niwet in Udon Thani, and then settled in the area of Sakon Nakhon [1]. In his last years he resided at Wat Pa Ban Nong Phue, now Wat Pa Phurithat Thirawat, in Tambon Na Nai, Phanna Nikhom District, Sakon Nakhon, and taught there to the end of his life [1][2]. The cited sources give no residence dates for Nong Phue. Seventeen extracts of his Dhamma talks from 1944–45 were later published in the book A Heart Released [5].

A Thai newspaper survey of the forest lineage lists many monks as his students, among them Phra Dhammachedi (Chum), Luang Pu Sing Khantayakamo, Luang Pu Thet Desarangsi, Luang Pu Khao Analayo, Luang Pu Fan Ajaro, Ajahn Lee Dhammadharo, Luang Pu Chah Subhaddo, Luang Pu Dul Atulo, Luang Pu Waen Sujinno and Luang Ta Maha Bua [9]. Individual pages confirm several of these. Maha Bua was a disciple of Mun and was himself regarded as a master of the tradition [12]. Waen (16 February 1887 – 2 July 1985) took Mun as his teacher around 1918 and spent his last decades at Wat Doi Mae Pang [13]. Fan (20 August 1899 – 4 January 1977), later abbot of Wat Pa Udom Somphon in Sakon Nakhon, became Mun's disciple in 1920 [14].

Passing at Wat Pa Sutthawat and the Relics

Mun died on 11 November 1949 (BE 2492), aged 79 with 56 vassa, at Wat Pa Sutthawat in Mueang Sakon Nakhon [1][2][9]. Thai Wikipedia says he had been ill for 11 days at Wat Pa Ban Klang Non Phu before disciples carried him by vehicle to Wat Pa Sutthawat, arriving close to noon [1].

Wat Pa Sutthawat is in Tambon That Choeng Chum, Mueang Sakon Nakhon [4]. Thai Wikipedia says Sao and Mun spent a rains retreat in 1926 at a forest dwelling at Ban Bak, and that Wat Pa Sutthawat was built there afterwards [4]. The temple has a museum dedicated to Ajahn Mun that holds his bone relics (atthi-thatu), a wax figure of him seated in meditation, and his requisites [4]. The ordination hall stands on the site of the hut in which he died and was also where his cremation was held [4].

After his death Mun's remains were said to have changed into relics (phra that), which were distributed to representatives from provinces across Thailand [1][2]. The cited sources do not describe the physical appearance of these relics.

In January 2020 the Thai Minister of Culture said that the ministry had nominated Mun, and that the UNESCO General Conference had resolved on 25 November 2019 to proclaim him a person of world importance in the field of peace and to mark the 150th anniversary of his birth in 2020–2021. Events were planned across Thailand for 20 January 2020 [10].

Literary Legacy and Records

The founders of the tradition did not record their own teachings. Detailed meditation manuals and treatises came from the first generation of their students late in the twentieth century [3]. Access to Insight lists the following works connected with Mun:

• The Ballad of Liberation from the Khandhas, a poem attributed to Mun and translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu, said to have been composed in the 1930s;
• eight short fragments recorded at ceremonies Mun gave in the last two years of his life, originally appended to the book A Heart Released as part of a commemorative volume distributed at his cremation in 1950;
• A Heart Released: The Teachings of Phra Ajaan Mun Bhuridatta Thera, by Phra Ajaan Suwat Suvaco and translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu, with seventeen extracts from talks given in 1944–45;
• Venerable Ācariya Mun Bhuridatta Thera: A Spiritual Biography, written by his student Ācariya Maha Boowa [5].

Ajahn Maha Bua became abbot of Wat Pa Baan Taad in Udon Thani. He wrote a biography of Mun, to spread Mun's methods of practice and record his character for later generations, and a separate work titled Patipada [12]. English Wikipedia also lists a translation titled Patipada – Venerable Ācariya Mun's Path of Practice [2].

Forest Lineage Medals and Amulets: What the Sources Say

A 2012 Thai newspaper feature in Komchadluek reviews a book titled "99 Arahants, Disciples of the Luang Pu Mun Lineage". The book was compiled by a committee of Wat Pa Patheep Punyaram in Sakon Nakhon and collects the biographies, teachings and devotional objects of 99 monks of the lineage [9]. The feature carries the opinion of the host of an amulet television programme, who also runs an amulet website, that forest monks' amulets were mostly copper medals and powder tablets. Medals in precious metals, he said, were offered ("rented", in the Thai trade term) only within the group, and the disciples used the difference to make medals to give away free [9]. These are one person's observations, not documented rules.

The same feature includes photographs of medals with captions. One is captioned as a first-batch medal bearing Luang Pu Mun and Luang Pu Sao, die variant "block yant 8", dated BE 2490 (1947 CE) [9]. That is two years before Mun's death. The cited sources do not say who commissioned the medal or whether Mun took part. Another caption dates a first-batch "Na Wua" (ox-face) medal of Luang Pu Waen Sujinno to BE 2512 [9].

The feature also names a first-batch medal of Luang Pu Fan Ajaro of Wat Pa Udom Somphon, made in BE 2507 (1964), as the most highly valued of the forest-monk medals according to the same commentator [9]. It dates the first-batch copper medal of Luang Pu Dul Atulo of Wat Burapha in Surin to BE 2508, although a caption elsewhere in the same feature says BE 2518 [9].

Key Facts: Phra Ajahn Mun Bhuridatto and the Forest Tradition