Next: about 6 Mar 2027
Wai Khru at Wat Bang Phra (Sak Yant festival)
The annual gathering where tattooed devotees renew the protective power of their sacred tattoos and sometimes fall into trance.
About Wai Khru at Wat Bang Phra (Sak Yant festival)
Each year in March, thousands of followers of the monks at Wat Bang Phra in Nakhon Pathom gather to pay respect to their teachers (wai khru), and to renew the power of their sak yant, geometric and script tattoos made with sacred designs and Pali verses. Devotees believe the tattoos give protection, charm or strength, as long as their wearers keep precepts such as not lying and not harming. At the festival a number of people are said to be possessed by the animal or being of their design, and charge toward the shrine in a fit; observers differ on whether this is spirit possession, group suggestion, or a mix. The festival is a living tradition, not a performance, and visitors are asked to dress modestly and not to treat the possessed as spectacle.
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Also part of it, and being written: Wat Bang Phra (The temple and its festival.).
Written by the EveryJaadu desk with AI assistance. Background: "Wat Bang Phra" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family, and are described as belief and practice. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.