Luang Phor Sothorn: History, Ayutthaya Art, Temple, and Amulets

Luang Phor Sothorn (หลวงพ่อโสธร), formally Phra Buddha Sothorn (พระพุทธโสธร), is the principal Buddha image of Wat Sothon Wararam Worawihan, a royal temple on the bank of the Bang Pakong River in Chachoengsao Province, central Thailand [1]. Thai Wikipedia describes it as a plaster-covered seated Buddha in the meditation posture, and it is regarded as the Buddha image that belongs to the town and province [1]. Three threads make it a good subject for a reference page. The first is a river legend that places the image with two sibling images. The second is the 2022 restoration, during which Fine Arts Department findings, as relayed by the press, described a sandstone core under the plaster. The third is the first-batch medal of BE 2460 (1917), which Thai amulet columns have called the most expensive Buddha coin in the country [2][3].

This page keeps three kinds of statement apart: legend, press reports of official findings, and collectors' valuations. Where sources disagree, the disagreement is stated rather than resolved.

Setting and the image itself

The temple stands on the Bang Pakong River in Tambon Na Mueang, Amphoe Mueang Chachoengsao [1]. It is a royal temple of the third class, of the Worawihan type [1]. Thai Wikipedia says the temple was formerly called Wat Hong, and that it was built in the late Ayutthaya period in the reign of King Narai [1]. That is a general statement without a more precise date, and this page does not give one.

The image is a seated Buddha in the Pang Samadhi (ปางสมาธิ) posture, the right shin over the left and the right hand over the left in the lap [2][3]. Thai Wikipedia gives a lap width of 1.65 metres and a height of 1.98 metres [1]. Komchadluek, a Thai daily with a regular amulet section, gives a height of 6 feet 7 inches and a lap width of 5 feet 6 inches [2], and an earlier Komchadluek column from 2009 gives the lap as about three and a half sok (the traditional forearm length) [5]. Treat all of these as approximate, because the sources measure the plaster surface and do not agree to the centimetre.

The visible surface is not the original sculpture. The 2009 Komchadluek column calls it a plaster-covered image, lacquered and gilded [5]. Thai Wikipedia records, as part of the legend, that the temple's monks covered the original with plaster, fearing that someone would carry it away [1].

The floating-Buddha legend

The origin story is a legend, and the sources tell it in different ways. Komchadluek reports a version about three brothers. Each brother made a Buddha image as an act of homage: the eldest, born on a Wednesday, made an alms-bowl posture; the middle brother, born on a Thursday, made the meditation posture; and the youngest made the Mara-vijaya (subduing Mara) posture [4]. The column names the three images as Luang Phor Wat Ban Laem (Wat Phet Samut Worawihan, Samut Songkhram Province), Luang Phor To of Wat Bang Phli Yai Nai (Samut Prakan Province), and Luang Phor Sothorn [4]. In that telling, the images were hidden in a river to escape the Burmese, or were lost in a boat accident, and later floated away to the places where they are now enshrined [4]. Thai Wikipedia describes Luang Phor To as a Sukhothai-period Mara-vijaya image [14], which fits the youngest-brother posture but does not prove the story.

A second telling links the images to the fall of Ayutthaya in BE 2310 (1767). A column by Rom Bunnag in MGR Online speculates that people tied important Buddha images under rafts and let them float south, away from the enemy [11]. In this account Luang Phor Sothorn drifted into the Bang Pakong River and surfaced in front of what was then Wat Hong. A ritual practitioner set up an offering table and looped a sacred thread (sai sin) around the image's hand to draw it ashore [11]. The same column speculates that two other images travelled with it [11].

Thai Wikipedia's shorter version says that, according to the legend, the image was a cast bronze Buddha that floated in on its own and was then brought up from the water [1]. That bronze detail matters for the next section, because the 2022 findings describe a different material.

What the 2022 restoration reported

The most concrete modern information about the image's interior comes from a restoration that began in 2022. According to Thansettakij, the Prachinburi National Museum and the Fine Arts Office 5 Prachinburi surveyed the image on 14 January BE 2564 (2021) and found cracks that exposed the interior [8]. The cause given was a past coating of acrylic paint that did not bond to the original material, and possibly moisture inside the figure [8]. A district office post quoted by Thansettakij gave the restoration of the main image and twelve accompanying Buddha images as 16 May to 11 November 2022 (180 days), with a budget of 1,300,000 baht, and Thansettakij described it as the first re-gilding since the new ubosot was built in 1988 [8].

On 12 and 13 July 2022 photographs of the uncovered interior circulated online, taken after the outer layer had been removed [8][9]. Matichon reported that the temple had not authorised the photographs and that the Fine Arts Department hung black mesh around the image and posted no-photography signs [9]. Thansettakij, Matichon and MGR Online all relayed the Fine Arts Department's information that the image is assembled from eight pieces of sandstone covered with plaster, and that the material and the Buddhist art style point to the Early Ayutthaya period [8][9][10].

Two cautions apply. First, the original Fine Arts Department document was not available for this check, so the sandstone finding rests on press reports of departmental information. Second, other writing describes the image differently. The 2009 Komchadluek column calls it a Lan Xang-style meditation Buddha [5], and the MGR Online column describes it as a cast bronze image of Lan Na character with Lao-style features [11]. These descriptions do not agree with each other or with the sandstone finding, and a reader should regard the stylistic attribution as discussed rather than settled.

The same MGR column quotes a royal letter from King Chulalongkorn (Rama V), written after he visited Chachoengsao in BE 2451 (1908). In it, as the column quotes him, the king wrote about the image at the centre and remarked on its lap and its slender waist [11].

How the temple got its name

Thai Wikipedia says the temple was originally Wat Hong [1]. The 2009 Komchadluek column adds an account of the later name. In that account the Bang Pakong River eroded the bank and Wat Hong was lost, so the townspeople built a new temple set back from the bank and called it Wat Sao Thong Thon. The reason given is that the existing hong (swan) pole, which served as a flagpole, had broken. Over time the name was altered into Wat Sothon [5]. This is a name legend passed down in popular histories, not a documented etymology, and this page does not claim more for it.

The old ubosot and the new one

Thai Wikipedia records that the image once sat in a small old ubosot with 18 other Buddha images [1]. In BE 2509 (1966) King Bhumibol Adulyadej visited the temple and remarked that the old ubosot was cramped. The abbot of the time, Phra Phrom Khunaporn (Chiam Chirapunyo), then collected donations to buy land for a new one [1]. The king presided at the foundation-stone ceremony for the new ubosot in BE 2531 (1988) and, on 5 September 1996, at the raising of a golden multi-tiered umbrella (chat) finial, which Thai Wikipedia gives as weighing 77 kilograms, above the mondop [1]. Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn was appointed to chair and oversee the construction, and she cut the rattan cord for the boundary-stone ceremony on 30 August 2006 [1].

The new ubosot was built over the old one by modern engineering methods, without moving the main image or the 18 Buddha images [1]. Thai Wikipedia names Prawet Limprangsi as the architect and the office of Arun Chaiseri for structural engineering [1]. The interior murals depict the Sithandon ocean, the four world guardians, the Tavatimsa heaven, the Brahma realm, the stars and the cosmos, and the star positions on the ceiling are set to 5 September 1996, the date of the finial ceremony [1].

The first-batch medal of BE 2460 (1917)

Among Thai collectors the temple is best known for its medals, and Komchadluek says editions run into the thousands [2][4]. The 2009 column estimated the number of pieces struck across all editions in the tens of millions, and noted that only a little over ten editions are popular with collectors [5].

The first edition was made in BE 2460 (1917). Komchadluek states that it was produced in the time of Phra Ajahn Lin, who was acting abbot, and that the deacon (makkhanayok) Khun Siriratphakdi (Leng Santhanakul) ran the production [2][3]. Thai Wikipedia's list of abbots shows Phra Ajahn Lin as abbot from about BE 2458 to 2480, so the title differs between sources [1]. The stated purpose was to repair the chukkachi, the platform on which the image sits, and the medals were given in thanks to donors [2][3][5].

The first batch was struck in the arm (shield) shape with a saw-cut edge (khang lueai), and also in a sema (boundary-marker leaf) shape [5]. It exists in four metals: gold, silver, bronze (samrit) and copper [2][3][5]. The 2009 column explains the edge terms. A saw-edge piece is stamped from a larger sheet and then cut out with a fretsaw, while a cylinder-edge (khang krabok) piece is cut to shape first and then stamped inside a collar, which leaves a smooth side [5]. Komchadluek's collector notes list identification marks on the arm medal: the date BE 2460 beneath the base, a sharp seat, an earlobe split into two points, and an inscription beside the image that spells the name with the letter tho thahan and leaves out a vowel in the province name [3]. The reverse carries a large yantra with crisp lettering [2][3].

Komchadluek's columns explain that the reverse of the Sothorn medals carries the five-Buddha formula, written in a gourd-shaped yantra as Na Mo Bud Dha Ya [7]. Each syllable is treated as an abbreviation for one of the five Buddhas of the present aeon: Kakusandha, Konagamana, Kassapa, Gotama and Metteyya [7]. This is the explanation given by one amulet columnist, and the page presents it as such.

How many were made, and what they were said to be worth

The number of first-batch medals was not recorded. The 2009 column says no exact count exists and that the gold ones were made in very small numbers, probably fewer than ten [5]. Both the 2009 and the 2013 columns say that only three gold medals had ever been shown in print, in a 1990 book by a Chachoengsao amulet club [4][5].

The valuations are collectors' estimates in Thai baht, printed by one newspaper's amulet column in different years, and they are not auction records. Komchadluek's figures are:

The same newspaper valued the sema-shaped first-batch medals in silver and gold-plated copper at about 1 million baht in 2009 [5]. The gold figures are far apart: the July and August 2011 columns, five weeks apart, give over 30 million and over 10 million baht, which shows how soft such numbers are. Amulets are said to be "rented" (chao) rather than bought, and the quoted figures are the columnist's valuation of a fine, complete piece. None of these figures is a current price.

For context, the 29 August 2011 column named, among the Buddha images most often made into coins, Luang Phor Sothorn first, then Phra Buddha Chinnarat of Phitsanulok, Luang Phor To of Wat Phanan Choeng (a different image from the Samut Prakan one above) and Luang Phor Mongkhon Bophit, the last two in Ayutthaya [6]. It valued the 1917 Phra Buddha Chinnarat medal at 1 to 2 million baht, and the Mongkhon Bophit first batch at roughly 800,000 to 1 million baht [6]. It also called the Sothorn first batch the most expensive Buddha coin in the country [6].

Forgeries

Komchadluek states that every popular Luang Phor Sothorn medal has been copied. The commonest method is to cast a mould from a genuine medal, which reproduces the marks on both faces. The columns say that sharpness of lettering, die cracks, the ear-hole and the side of the coin are the best places to compare, and that the skill of the forgers makes them up to 98 percent close in every metal [4][5].

Later issues

After the first batch, the temple and other bodies issued many further editions [2]. Komchadluek lists the popular silver enamel (long ya) arm medals in order as BE 2498 (1955, in green and red), BE 2500 (1957, a silver enamel brooch only), BE 2504 (1961, five colours: yellow, light blue, blue, green and red), BE 2505 (1962, red only), BE 2507 (1964, five colours) and BE 2508 (1965) [2][4].

A 2013 series called Mongkhon Maha Barami 85 was made to raise funds for a building marking the 100th year of the Supreme Patriarch's life, for education at the Sirindhorn Rajavidyalai Foundation [7]. It included a worship-size Luang Phor Sothorn image, a stamped Phra Kring figure, a sema medal and an arm medal in five metals [4][7]. Komchadluek gives 12 October 2013 as the date of the ceremony that opened the casting and 19 January 2014 as the planned date of the consecration ceremony [4].

Vows, festivals and local practice

Thai Wikipedia says many people come to the temple to make a wish, and that those who feel the wish has been granted often return to fulfil their vow with boiled eggs or a performance of lakhon ram. Eggs are so popular that carrying a basket of boiled eggs in the temple is ordinary [1]. A 2009 column adds that vow-fulfilment with a lakhon chatri troupe is also common [5]. Komchadluek reports a local belief that a difficult or sickly child can be "given" to the image as its child, and that this is said to make the child easier to raise [4]. The same column says Chinese-Thai worshippers are especially devoted and used to fire firecrackers at the riverside pavilion [4]. These are beliefs and customs reported by journalists, and this page does not make any claim about their effect.

The 2009 column says the temple has two annual celebrations: one in the middle of the fifth lunar month, marking the day the image was brought up from the river to the ubosot (three days and nights), and one at Chinese New Year (five days and nights) [5]. More recent reports describe a fair in the middle of the twelfth lunar month. Bangkok Biznews reported a provincial fair running from 31 October to 9 November 2025, with a water procession on the Bang Pakong River held on the fifteenth day of the waxing moon of the twelfth month, and a land procession using the replica image [12]. Matichon reported the 2023 fair from 24 November to 5 December, and said that a replica image, not the original, was carried on the boats [13]. The schedule changes each year, and visitors should check the current dates with the province or the temple.

Key facts