Luang Phor Ngern (Wat Bang Khlan): Life, Monastic Lineage, and Cast Amulets

Luang Phor Ngern Buddhachoti (หลวงพ่อเงิน พุทธโชติ) founded the temple known locally as Wat Bang Khlan, formally Wat Hiranyaram, in Pho Thale District, Phichit Province [1][2]. Thai sources describe him as a vipassana teacher and traditional-medicine practitioner [1] whose pupils included monks later known for their own amulets [6]. His temple is also known for cast brass statuettes and medals made in the early twentieth century [6][9]; a Posttoday amulet columnist calls the statuettes the most expensive mixed-metal cast statuettes in Thai collecting [5].

This article records what the sources state, says where they disagree, and describes the objects by how they were made and how collectors tell the dies apart. The same columns attach reputed protective qualities to these pieces. Those are beliefs reported by the writers; this article neither verifies nor promises them.

Early life and the question of dates

Thai Wikipedia gives his birth as 16 September BE 2351 (1808), in the last years of the reign of King Rama I [1]. His father, called U (อู๋), was a native of Bang Khlan in Pho Thale District, and his mother, Fak (ฟัก), was from Saen Tho in what is now Khanu Woralaksaburi District, Kamphaeng Phet. He was the fourth of six children [1].

Other sources disagree on the year. Khaosod (2024) and Komchadluek (2014, 2023) give his birth as 16 September BE 2353 (1810) [8][6][7]. Death at age 111 fits BE 2351, as in Thai Wikipedia [1]; Khaosod gives age 109, which fits BE 2353 [8]; Komchadluek pairs BE 2353 with age 111, which does not add up [6][7]. This article uses BE 2351 and flags it as contested.

When he was three, an uncle took him to Bangkok to study at Wat Tong Pu, the old name of Wat Chana Songkhram [1]. He became a novice at Wat Chana Songkhram at age 12 [1]. According to Thai Wikipedia he left the novicehood at 20 and returned to Phichit, then was ordained at the same temple at 22, in BE 2373 (1830), receiving the monastic name Buddhachoti [1].

Khaosod's amulet column adds that during his first three rains retreats at Wat Chana Songkhram he became a disciple of Somdej Phra Buddhacharn (Toh) of Wat Rakhang Khositaram, studying occult learning (silpa-vitthayakhom) and vipassana meditation [8]. This is the only source checked for this article that states the link to Somdej Toh; the Thai Wikipedia biography does not mention it [1]. It is best read as a tradition reported by an amulet column.

From Bang Khlan to Wat Wang Tago

After three rains retreats, his elder brother, Khun Phumara, brought him back to Wat Khongkharam (also called Wat Bang Khlan Tai) in Phichit, because their grandfather was ill and needed care. By then he had learned traditional medicine [1]. After one more rains retreat there, he looked for a quiet place for meditation. He chose an abandoned temple site in forest between the Yom River and the Phichit River (the old course of the Nan), and built a new temple about 500 metres further in, named Wat Wang Tago after the village [1].

Thai Wikipedia records a story that he planted a bodhi-tree branch from Wat Khongkharam as a test: if it grew, he would stay. It flourished, and the temple prospered [1]. Khaosod tells the same story with three branches [8]. It is a tradition, not a documented event.

The temple's own names are Wat Hiranyaram, Wat Bang Khlan, Wat Wang Tago and, locally, Wat Luang Phor Ngern Bang Khlan [2]. It is a village temple (wat ratsadon) of the Mahanikai order, on the bank of the old Nan River in Tambon Bang Khlan, Pho Thale District [2]. The Ministry of Culture record gives the address as 71 Moo 5, Ban Wang Tago [3].

Sources differ on when it was founded. The Ministry of Culture record gives about BE 2370 (1827) and the Thai Wikipedia temple entry BE 2370 [3][2]. Komchadluek and Khaosod say about BE 2377 (1834) [4][8]. The Thai Wikipedia biography prints BE 2477, after his death, so it is presumably a misprint for 2377 [1]. Since the biography above puts his ordination in BE 2373, a founding in BE 2370 would come before he was a monk; the later date fits better, but the question is unresolved.

The first buildings were simple. The temple began as a hermitage with one thatched hut in dense forest where wild animals were common [2]. Thai Wikipedia says the huts were later roofed with tile and that a sala and an ordination hall followed [1]. He paid for building work with money raised from making amulets, votive tablets and Buddha images, together with donations, and he also built rest pavilions for travellers [1]. Pavilions still stand between Nong Luang and Nong Khao and at Nong Nae in Tambon Bang Khlan [1]. He served as preceptor (upajjhaya) at the temple [1].

His medical work is the best documented part of his reputation. Thai Wikipedia calls him a traditional doctor who treated illness with herbal medicine and sometimes with blessed water, adding that the water probably worked through the patient's morale. His manuscript of medical recipes, a folding khoi-paper book, is still kept at the temple [1].

Disciples, the Prince of Chumphon, and death

Komchadluek lists his better-known monk disciples: Luang Phor Pith of Wat Khamang, known for takrut (rolled metal scrolls); Luang Phor Noi of Wat Khongkharam, who made takrut from stingray skin and barking-deer skin; and Luang Phor Hom of Wat Luang, among others [4][6][7]. Thai Wikipedia calls him a close friend and fellow student of Luang Pu Suk of Wat Pak Khlong Makham Thao in Chainat [1].

Thai Wikipedia also says that Luang Pu Suk recommended Krom Luang Chumphon Khet Udomsak to study vipassana with him, and that Somdet Krom Phraya Vajirananavarorasa stayed at Wat Wang Tago for several days to study meditation [1]. Komchadluek calls the Prince of Chumphon a lay disciple, and Khaosod and Komchadluek say he went to entrust himself as a student [6][7][8]. The sources checked give no dates for these visits. Krom Luang Chumphon Khet Udomsak is Admiral Prince Abhakara Kiartivongse (1880–1923), a son of King Rama V and widely called the father of the Thai navy [11].

Khaosod says he was later appointed preceptor and given a rank in the vipassana teachers' section; Komchadluek uses a similar description [8][6]. He died of old age at Wat Wang Tago on 20 September BE 2462 (1919), at about five in the morning [1][6][8]. Thai Wikipedia counts 89 rains retreats and Komchadluek 90 [1][6].

The temple today

A two-storey mandapa-style building, the Nakhon Chai Bowon Museum, stands in the grounds. Its upper floor holds a life-size cast figure of Luang Phor Ngern. The lower floor displays antiques the temple has collected, mostly donated: Buddha images, utensils, ceramics, silverware, brassware, jars and old currency [3][2]. The Ministry record calls it the first museum in Phichit Province [3].

The same record says a secondary school, the museum and a sub-district health station stand on temple land, and that monastic scriptural instruction (pariyatti) began there in BE 2502 (1959) [3]. The temple received its royal grant of the ordination-hall boundary (wisungkhamasima) on 23 June BE 2514 (1971), and the boundary stones were tied (phuk phatthasima) on 17 February BE 2515 (1972) [2][3].

The four dies collectors name

Komchadluek says four dies are the most sought after: the cast statuettes called Pim Niyom and Pim Khee Ta, and the cast medals called Chob Yai and Chob Lek [4][6].

The sources disagree about who cast them and when. Komchadluek, repeating what it calls the texts, says Pim Khee Ta and Chob Lek came first, made by villagers, and that Pim Niyom and Chob Yai followed soon after, cast by professional founders hired from Ban Chang Lor in Thonburi. It adds that they cast at the temple, though some accounts say at Ban Chang Lor [4][6][7]. Posttoday agrees that a Ban Chang Lor founder was hired, naming her as Nang Wan Suthat na Ayutthaya, but says she designed and cast the Pim Niyom and both Chob medals, Chob Lek included, about BE 2451–2459 (1908–1916) [9][10]. On the Chob Lek, then, Komchadluek says villagers [4][6][7] and Posttoday says Nang Wan [9][10]. Komchadluek dates the first batch to about BE 2450 (1907) [6]. These dates are columnists' estimates.

Pim Niyom

Posttoday calls Pim Niyom the most expensive of the cast statuettes, rarer than Pim Khee Ta, with a fuller, plumper form, a prominent forehead and cheekbones, and sharply cut robe folds [9][10]. It was cast in a cluster, with metal fed through the base, and the sprue was cut off under the base, so every piece shows file marks there [9][10]. Fine pores like tiny ants' eyes dot the surface, brown mould residue sits in the crevices, and small black clay grains are embedded in the metal. The aged colour runs from yellowish green to deep gold [9][10].

There are two varieties. Variety A has no hand-rest; in variety B the clasped hands rest on an extra raised line [9][10]. Posttoday lists these checkpoints for variety A:

• a rounded crown and an eyelid that projects like a cap brim;
• a full, raised right chest, and a bump hanging below the right wrist;
• hands whose fingertips do not join, with no index finger propping them;
• a pinched centre on the edge of the outer robe (sangkhati) and concave corners at its tips;
• a left robe end that splits into two separate lines near the left wrist;
• at the back, raised robe lines that are not thick; Posttoday notes that on fakes they tend to be thick [10].

How the statuettes were cast

Posttoday quotes a funeral memorial book for a descendant of the founder it names, which describes the method [9][10]:

1. A wax figure was sculpted, corrected, and a mould taken in hard lead.
2. Copies were made in that mould in a wax-and-resin mix, and each was retouched by hand, which is why pieces differ.
3. A round wax rod on each base served as a runner, and the figures were attached to a thick central runner.
4. The wax was coated several times with cow-dung slurry, then clay mixed with coarse sand, bound with wire to stop cracking, covered with more clay, and dried.
5. The wax was melted out by heat, completely, because leftover wax would leave rough patches in the cavity.
6. Brass-based metal was poured through the runner; after cooling, the clay was broken away, the sprue stubs cut off and the base filed.

The memorial-book account describes this for the Pim Niyom, and the columns say brass was the usual metal, with a number cast in silver [9][10]. This is the lost-wax method. The sources do not say the same process was used for Pim Khee Ta, which was poured in two-part moulds.

Pim Khee Ta

The name means "eye-crust" and comes from a small bead of excess metal at the lower edge of one eye. Komchadluek, in both its 2014 and 2015 pieces, places it under the figure's right eye beside the nose bridge [4][6], yet the same 2014 piece puts the bead of the 3-Chai on the lower rim of the left eye [6]. Posttoday explains the name by a bead on the lower rim of the left eye [5]. The sources therefore disagree about the side, and it may differ between dies.

Posttoday says villagers cast Pim Khee Ta one at a time in two-part moulds, pouring the metal in through the base with the figure upside down [5]. Two consequences are visible. The side seam runs clearly from top to bottom, and there is no sprue mark under the base. The base is rough and differs from piece to piece; some are filed, some bases are thick and some thin [5].

Posttoday describes the surface of genuine old pieces as pitted where grains of mould clay have fallen out, with black grains still embedded. The metal should look yellowish green and dry-old rather than dull. The colour is uneven, because the metal met the mould clay at different temperatures; touched areas shine, crevices show brown-black rust rather than matte black, and reddish-brown brass oxide may spot the surface [5].

Posttoday separates four Pim Khee Ta dies by counting robe folds on the figure's right side: 3-Chai, 4-Chai (in two blocks, a short-robe and a long-robe), and 5-Chai [5]. For the 3-Chai it lists these features:

• it is smaller than the other Khee Ta dies, with a triangular-looking nose;
• three robe folds, the lowest thick and ending at the arm, and an inverted fold on the left arm;
• a slanting line at the inner corner of the right eye;
• a tiny bead in the right neck crease, with the neck crease deep on the right and shallow on the left [5].

Komchadluek adds that the 3-Chai has a curved, raised sangkhati edge rather than a flat one [6].

Rian Chob medals

Chob Yai and Chob Lek are cast medals (rian lor) [4]. Komchadluek divides the Chob Lek into four varieties: Khaeng Trong (straight shin), Khaeng Tit (joined shin), Thao Kradok (raised foot) and Ta Khit (scratched eye) [4]. The Khaeng Trong name also appears in a Daily News listing of a Chob Lek in 2024 [12]. Komchadluek prints the first two names with a different Thai spelling for "shin", which appears to be a typo.

No verifiable die descriptions of the medals were found, so none are given here.

The 1972 Pi 15 commemorative

Komchadluek describes a later issue that it calls very famous, "Luang Phor Ngern Wat Bang Khlan Pi 15", made in BE 2515 (1972). It was made as a thank-you for donors to a new ordination hall and as a souvenir of the boundary-stone ceremony, when Phra Khru Phibun Dhammaved (Luang Phor Prueang) was abbot [6].

Reported market values

Values in the sources are columnists' statements, not sale records. All are in Thai baht (THB), taken from the pages as published and checked on 24 October 2026. They are not part of this site's price index.

Open questions

The sources differ on the birth year (BE 2351 [1] or 2353 [6][7][8]), the temple's founding date (BE 2370 [2][3] or 2377 [4][8]), who cast the Chob Lek (villagers [4][6][7] or Nang Wan [9][10]), and which eye carries the Khee Ta bead (right [4][6] or left [5][6]). Treat each as an attributed statement, not a settled fact.

Key facts