Luang Pho Klan and the lineage of Wat Phra Yat
Phra Khru Wisut Samachan (Klan Dhammachoti), usually called Luang Pho Klan, was an abbot of Wat Phra Yat Karam in Ayutthaya. Collectors often encounter him through the B.E. 2469 hook-back portrait medal and its later place among a celebrated group of five medals. His monastery and disciples remember more than a single issue. A farmer’s son educated in monasteries and trained in martial arts, he entered the monkhood, travelled on retreat and eventually took responsibility for a temple. He is remembered as a meditation teacher who lived simply and extended his generosity to animals.
Birth and family origins
Most sources place his birth around B.E. 2390 (1847). In dynastic terms this falls late in Rama III’s reign, although one cultural report mistakenly says late Rama IV; the year and that statement cannot both be correct. His parents are commonly named In and Chan, and he was the eldest child. Accounts differ between three and four children in the family. Birthplaces include Aranyik, formerly in Nakhon Luang and later Tha Ruea; Tha Luang; and Hantra. A Ministry of Culture study uses Aranyik while recent media uses Tha Luang. Whether these place names refer to a village, an administrative district or homes at different stages of his life remains unclear; early records are still needed to establish his birthplace.
Childhood and martial training
His farming family had limited means. As a boy he learned literacy and craft at Wat Pradu Songtham, commonly under Phra Ajarn Muang. Later biographies depict the young Klan as skilled in Thai boxing, sword and staff work and many old weapons, and even as a khon performer in the role of Hanuman in a troupe associated with Chao Phraya Thewet Wongwiwat. These details show how local memory imagines a courageous, direct and charismatic youth. They belong to the inherited biographical tradition; early school, troupe or teacher records have not yet confirmed each detail.
Ordination and the monastery names
At about twenty-seven, around B.E. 2417, he chose ordination. The cultural study and many dependent accounts give Wat Lokayasutha Sala Pun as the place, Phra Yan Trailok (Saat, later Phra Thammarachanuwat) as preceptor, and Phra Khru Kuson Thammathada of Wat Khun Yuan or Wat Phrom Niwat and Phra Athikan Chuen of Wat Phra Yat as the chanting pair. He received the name Dhammachoti or Dhammachoto, “one bright or prosperous in Dhamma.” Another source line says that he was ordained at Wat Pradu Songtham by Ajarn Muang. The venue and preceptor therefore remain disputed. The combined temple name itself can, however, be identified: the Department of Religious Affairs records Wat Lokayasutha Sala Pun as an earlier name of today's Wat Sala Pun (วัดศาลาปูน) in Ayutthaya.
The department's Royal Monasteries, Volume 1 records the name วัดโลกยสุธามหาวรวิหาร in B.E. 2394, วัดโลกยสุธาศาลาปูน from 2422, and วัดโลกสุธาศาลาปูน in 2453, followed by วัดศาลาปูน. This history identifies the monastery named in the biography, but the 2422 renaming falls after Klan's reported ordination in 2417. The biography may therefore be using a later temple name retrospectively. Identifying that name does not by itself settle whether he was ordained there or confirm the three officiating monks; those questions still require ordination records.
Studies and teachers
After ordination he continued to study discipline, meditation, Khmer script and texts associated with Wat Pradu Songtham, while receiving instruction connected with Athikan Chuen of Wat Phra Yat. Later writing adds Luang Pho Thao Rot and many branches of central ritual knowledge to his teacher list. Wat Pradu Songtham was genuinely an old educational centre with inherited texts, but the presence of a manual at a monastery is not proof of direct instruction from every famous teacher named later. Muang and Chuen are named as teachers in the biographies; Thao Rot and other extended lineages remain retrospective attributions requiring further evidence.
From wandering to the abbacy
Biography says that outside the rains he often went on dhutanga to seek solitude. Reaching Wat Phra Yat one evening, he found a small, quiet, tree-filled monastery suitable for practice and pitched his umbrella there. Residents saw his conduct during the morning round, asked him to remain, and he eventually became abbot. The exact appointment year has not been established, but he led the monastery until his death in B.E. 2477. His close attendant, relative and disciple Luang Pho An succeeded him. Temple affairs, commemorations and some later amulet production continued through An. A different biography connects Klan’s appointment with an instruction from Muang, rather than the residents’ invitation.
The monastery and shadow theatre
The temple also supported nang yai, large shadow-puppet theatre. Cultural research names Klan and An as patrons of Kru Ching Photchani’s troupe. Part of this history comes through Ching’s grandson: family memory, not wholly an eyewitness account of Klan’s lifetime.
Troupe descendant Watchara Photchani told researchers that Ching carved puppets, taught manipulation and narrated. The monastery provided rehearsal and storage space. Daytime puppets were coloured; nighttime ones were black and white, lit by torches or pressure lamps before electricity. Watchara’s own childhood memories of travelling by boat to performances belong to An’s abbacy.
Daily life and kindness to animals
He is remembered as living simply, with only basic bedding and monastic requisites, speaking directly yet receiving residents with kindness. His disciples recalled that he divided food from his alms bowl among crows, dogs, cats and other animals before eating. Large groups of crows followed his boat and gathered at the monastery. Devotees interpreted the animals’ response as an ability to communicate with them. His daily care for animals and the belief that he understood their language became part of the stories his disciples passed down.
One story tells of a monk who put on Klan’s robe while he was away and imitated his return from the boat. The animals that usually gathered for food showed no interest. Devotees believed they recognised Klan’s kindness, not simply the robe he wore.
Extraordinary stories among disciples
Later disciples’ biographies preserve extraordinary stories of crossing the Sittaung River with dry robes, remaining dry while rain followed, stopping pufferfish from biting temple boys, and a gun refusing to fire at his cloth. The river named in these stories is the Sittaung, not the Salween. Devotees also associate him with luk bao or chatri protection. In An’s biography, the teacher appears during meditation to give instruction, although he is said to have been receiving visitors in his dwelling at that time. Believers understood this as a manifestation to guide a disciple. These stories have been passed down among disciples. Protective beliefs do not make testing weapons on a person safe; such tests must not be imitated.
A river-crossing legend describes monks unable to find a ferry across the Sittaung. They followed Klan blindfolded and reached the far bank with dry robes.
The same biography tells of a visitor whose gun fired elsewhere but failed when aimed at Klan’s cloth. The visitor submitted in reverence. The episode became another trial-of-power story passed down with his biography.
Ordination pupils and students
Klan served as a preceptor for local ordinands. Cultural research records An’s ordination at Wat Phra Yat on 26 June B.E. 2456, with Klan as preceptor and Luang Pho Chai of Wat Tong Pu and other monks participating. An was both a pupil and a successor who later oversaw objects commemorating his teacher. Their work was connected, but a later object made by the disciple is not thereby something Klan himself made or consecrated.
An was not his only disciple. A biography of Luang Pu Doo states that Doo learned meditation from Klan, his preceptor, and from his uncle, Luang Pho Phao. It also identifies Phao as an important disciple of Klan.
Chaluai Suthammo’s biography records another ordination link. In B.E. 2469, Klan served as his preceptor at Wat Phra Yat. After leaving monastic life, Chaluai was ordained again in B.E. 2488 at Wat Khok Chang in Uthai, Ayutthaya, this time with An as preceptor. These were separate ceremonies involving two generations of teachers.
Ajarn Heng Phraiwan is also remembered as a student. His biography places his second ordination with Klan at Wat Phra Yat, where he learned the protective tradition called chatri kao he (ชาตรีเก้าเฮ). He also studied old texts at Wat Pradu Songtham. After several rains he disrobed, continuing his practice and teaching as a lay ajarn.
Luang Pu Si Phinthasuwanno of Wat Sakae likewise has a biography naming Klan as his preceptor. It recounts subsequent visits to learn ritual practices and the gift of old khoi-paper folding books containing chants and yantras, reportedly from Wat Pradu Songtham. The account preserves both a teaching relationship and a tradition of manuscripts passing between monasteries.
Restoring the hall and issuing the first medal
Around B.E. 2464–2465 Klan considered the old ordination hall inadequate and had it rebuilt. The foundation method proved unsound, and the new building soon subsided and cracked, requiring further restoration. In B.E. 2469 the monastery raised funds, and An with the committee obtained permission to produce a struck, full-seated portrait medal as a keepsake for donors. Its reverse states, “a remembrance of the restoration of the ordination hall.” The inscription records the medal's connection with the restoration campaign.
“Phim kho bet,” the hook type, was not the temple’s original issue name. Collectors later coined it because the end of a reverse yantra line curves like a fishing hook. Common records give approximately twelve silver medals with gold face, twenty-five with nak face, one hundred in silver, and a combined three thousand copper and gilded-copper pieces. Donation levels varied, with a copper medal associated with one baht. Several collecting accounts give the same figures, but no temple account book or production papers from An have yet confirmed every quantity. These remain approximate figures.
Different dies and later commemorative objects
The die sequence is disputed. Several accounts say that after the original reverse die deteriorated, the committee and An returned to the Hang Tian Seng workshop. The obverse remained usable, while two new reverses were cut, now called sian tong and plain back. One source group insists these pressings occurred during Klan’s life and were consecrated by him; auction descriptions in another group place them after his death. The hook reverse and the two subsequent reverse designs cannot simply be treated as one issue. An order, receipt, die-transfer note or contemporary photograph may help resolve their disputed dates and consecrators. Price cannot be used to infer chronology.
Takrut, yantra cloth, luk om and other objects are also attributed to Klan, but later works create the greatest risk of misattribution. A familiar small, hunched cast portrait is explicitly said in temple-line accounts to have been made and consecrated by An, not by Klan. Wat Phra Yat later issued many retrospective, anniversary and fundraising versions. “Portrait of Klan” identifies the person depicted, not necessarily the maker or consecrator. An’s work and that of later organisers have their own distinct histories.
Death and remembrance
Klan died of old age on 21 July B.E. 2477 (1934). Traditional age is eighty-seven. Rain counts appear as sixty and sixty-two; B.E. 2417 to 2477 suggests about sixty, while sixty-two may reflect another ordination year, counting convention or copying error. The famous story of crows assembling on the day of his death and circling three times after the merit ceremony for his remains is devotional memory deeply linked to his animal-compassion image.
Klan’s legacy brings together monastic education, ordination responsibilities and a temple building campaign with stories of forest travel, martial skill and companionship with animals. The B.E. 2469 medal joins these strands: its inscription records a restoration, while the portrait carries his disciples’ remembrance. Collectors later placed his medal among a celebrated “top five,” sometimes describing it as the “most expensive” or “guaranteed to appreciate.” Such praise does not guarantee the authenticity of an individual medal or its future price.